The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8

There were no wanderings over burning roads and through thick jungles to record in this case; but a few isolated adventures may be briefly noticed. Two or three roads from the lines and bungalows to the fort became speedily marked by fleeing Europeans – officers, ladies, and children – in vehicles, on horseback, and on foot – all trying to reach the fort, and all attacked or pursued by the treacherous villains. Dr Graham, the superintending surgeon, on the alarm being raised, drove quickly with his daughter towards the fort; a trooper rode up and shot him dead; his bereaved daughter seized the reins, and, with the corpse of her parent on her lap, drove into the nearest compound, screaming for help. A young lieutenant of the 9th cavalry, when it came to his turn to flee, had to dash past several troopers, who fired many shots, one only of which hit him. He galloped thirty miles to Wuzeerabad, wounded as he was; and, all his property being left behind him only to be ruthlessly destroyed, he had, to use his own words, to look forward to begin the world again, ‘with a sword, and a jacket cut up the back.’ Three officers galloped forty miles to Gujeranwalla, swimming or wading the rivers that crossed their path. One of the captains of the 46th, who was personally much liked by the sepoys of his own company, was startled by receiving from them an offer of a thousand rupees per month if he would become a rebel like them, and still remain their captain! What answer he gave to this strange offer may easily be conceived; but his company remained kind to him, for they saw him safely escorted to the fort. In one of the bungalows fourteen persons, of whom only three were men, sought refuge from the murderous sepoys and troopers. The women and children all congregated in a small lumber-room; the three gentlemen remained in the drawing-room, pistols in hand. Then ensued a brisk scene of firing and counter-firing; during which, however, only one life appears to have been lost: the love of plunder in this case overpowered the love of murder; for the insurgents, compelling the gentlemen to retreat to their poor companions in the lumber-room, and there besieging them for a time, turned their attention to loot or plunder. After ten hours sojourn of fourteen persons in a small room in a sultry July day, the Europeans, finding that the mutineers were wandering in other directions, contrived to make a safe and hasty run to the fort, a distance of upwards of a mile. Some of the Europeans at the station, as we have said, were killed; some escaped by a brisk gallop; while the rest were shut up for a fortnight in the fort, in great discomfort, until the mutineers went away. There being no European soldiers at Sealkote, the sepoys and sowars acted as they pleased; they pillaged the bungalows, exploded the magazine, let loose the prisoners in the jail, and then started off, like other mutineers, in the direction of Delhi.

One of the most touching incidents at Sealkote bore relation to a nunnery, a convent of nuns belonging to the order of Jesus Marie of Lyon, a Roman Catholic establishment analogous to that at Sirdhana near Meerut, already brought under notice (p. 57 (#x_12_i31)). The superior at Lyon, many weeks afterwards, received a letter from one of the sisters,[31 - ‘Very Dear and Good Mother – On the 8th of the present month the native soldiers heard they were to be disarmed the following day. They became furious, and secretly planned a revolt. They carried their plans into execution at an early hour on the following morning. We were immediately apprised of it, and I hastened to awake our poor children, and all of us, half-clad, prayed for shelter at a Hindoo habitation. Some vehicles had been prepared for us to escape, when the servants desired us to conceal ourselves, as the sepoys were coming into the garden. We returned to our hiding-place; the soldiers arrived; they took away our carriages, and a shot was fired into the house where we were concealed. The ball passed close to where our chaplain was sitting, and slightly wounded a child in the leg. At the same moment three soldiers, well armed, presented themselves at the door. The good father, holding the holy sacrament, which he never quitted, advanced to meet them. Several of us accompanied him. “We have orders to kill you,” said the sepoys; “but we will spare you if you give us money. Go out, all, that we may see there are no men concealed here.” Having searched and found nothing, one of the soldiers raised his sabre over the chaplain, and cried out: “You shall die.” “Mercy, in the name of God!” exclaimed I. “I will open every press to shew you that there is no money concealed here.” He followed me, and having satisfied himself that there was no money, the soldiers went away. We then broke a hole in the wall of our garden, and fled into the jungle. We had scarcely escaped when thirty more sepoys entered the house; but the Almighty preserved us from this danger. We were crossing the country, when a faithful servant brought us to a house where several Europeans had taken refuge. We breathed freely there for a moment, but the government treasure was deposited there, and the house was soon attacked by the mutinous sepoys. We believed that our last hour was at hand; but the savages were too much occupied with pillage to notice us, and the Europeans escaped. At this moment a Catholic soldier offered to guide us to the fort, where we arrived at twelve o’clock. We do not know how long we shall remain in the fort. The English officers have treated us with the greatest kindness and attention, and have supplied us with provisions both for ourselves and our pupils. We trust we shall one day make our way to Bombay; but that will depend on the orders we receive from the government.’] giving an affecting account of the way in which the quiet religieuses were hunted about by the mutineers.

When the Sealkote mutineers had taken their departure towards Delhi, a force was organised at Jelum as quickly as possible to pursue them. This force, under Colonel Brown, comprised three companies of H.M. 24th foot, two hundred Sikhs, a hundred irregular horse, and three horse-artillery guns. The energetic Brigadier Nicholson, in command of a flying column destined for Delhi, comprising the 52d light infantry, the 6th Punjaub cavalry, and other troops, made arrangements at the same time for intercepting the mutineers. It thus happened that on the 12th of July, the insurgent 46th and 9th regiments when they reached the Ravee from Sealkote, found themselves hemmed in; and after an exciting contest on an island in the river, they were almost entirely cut up.

About the close of July, the disarmed 26th native infantry mutinied at Lahore, killed Major Spencer and two native officers, and fled up the left bank of the Ravee; but the police, the new levies, and the villagers pursued them so closely and harassed them so continuously, that hardly a man remained alive. In August, something of the same kind occurred at other places in the Punjaub; native Bengal regiments still were there, disarmed but not disbanded; and it could not be otherwise than that the men felt chafed and discontented with such a state of things. If faithful, they felt the degradation of being disarmed; if hollow in their professed fidelity, they felt the irksomeness of being closely watched in cantonment. At Ferozpore, on the 19th of August, a portion of the 10th native cavalry, that had before been disarmed, mutinied, and endeavoured to capture the guns of Captain Woodcock’s battery; they rushed at the guns while the artillerymen were at dinner, and killed the veterinary surgeon and one or two other persons; but a corps of Bombay Fusiliers, in the station at that time, repulsed and dispersed them. At Peshawur, where it was found frequently necessary to search the huts and tents of the disarmed sepoys, for concealed weapons, the 51st native infantry resisted this search on the 28th of the month; they beat their officers with cudgels, and endeavoured to seize the arms of a Sikh corps while those men were at dinner. They were foiled, and fled towards the hills; but a disastrous flight was it for them; more than a hundred were shot before they could get out of the lines, a hundred and fifty more were cut down during an immediate pursuit, nearly four hundred were brought in prisoners, to be quickly tried and shot, and some of the rest were made slaves by the mountaineers of the Khyber Pass, who would by no means ‘fraternise’ with them. Thus the regiment was in effect annihilated. There were then three disarmed native regiments left in Peshawur, which were kept so encamped that loaded guns in trusty hands might always point towards them.

The course of events in the Punjaub need not be traced further in any connected form. From first to last the plan adopted was pretty uniform in character. When the troubles began, there were about twenty regiments of the Bengal native army in the Punjaub; and these regiments were at once and everywhere distrusted by Sir John Lawrence and his chief officers. If hope and confidence were felt, it was rather by the regimental officers, to whom disloyalty in their respective corps was naturally mortifying and humiliating. All the sepoys were disarmed and the sowars dismounted, as soon as suspicious symptoms appeared; some regiments remained at the stations, disarmed, throughout the whole of the summer and autumn; some mutinied, before or after disarming; but very few indeed lived to reach the scene of rebel supremacy at Delhi; for they were cut up by the Europeans, Sikhs, Punjaubees, or hill-men which the Punjaub afforded. Gladly as every one, whether civilian or military, acknowledged the eminent services of Sir John Lawrence; there were, it must be admitted, certain advantages available to him which were utterly denied to Mr Colvin, the responsible chief of the Northwest Provinces, in which the mutiny raged more fiercely than anywhere else. When the troubles began, the Punjaub was better furnished with regiments of the Queen’s army than any other part of India; while the native Sikhs, Punjaubee Mohammedans, and hill-men, were either indifferent or hostile to the sepoys of Hindostan proper. The consequences of this state of things were two: the native troops were more easily disarmed; and those who mutinied were more in danger of annihilation before they could get east of the Sutlej. In the Northwest Provinces the circumstances were far more disastrous; the British troops were relatively fewer; and the people were more nearly in accord with the sepoys, in so far as concerned national and religious sympathies. In the Meerut military division, when the mutiny had fairly commenced, besides those at Meerut station, there was only one European regiment (at Agra), against ten native regiments, irrespective of those which mutinied at Meerut and Delhi. In the Cawnpore military division, comprising the great stations of Lucknow, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and the whole of Oude, there was scarcely more than one complete European regiment, against thirty native Bengal and Oude regiments, regular and irregular. In the Dinapoor military division, comprising Benares, Patna, Ghazeepore, and other large cities, together with much government wealth in the form of treasure and opium, there was in like manner only one British regiment, against sixteen native corps. There was at the same time this additional difficulty; that no such materials were at hand as in the Punjaub, for raising regiments of horse and foot among tribes who would sympathise but little with the mutineers.

Sir John Lawrence was at first in some doubt what course to follow in relation to the liberty of the press. The Calcutta authorities, as we shall see in the next chapter, thought it proper to curtail that liberty in Bengal and the Northwest Provinces. Sir John, unwilling on the one hand to place the Europeans in the Punjaub in the tormenting condition of seclusion from all sources of news, and unwilling on the other to leave the news-readers at the mercy of inaccurate or unscrupulous news-writers at such a critical time, adopted a medium course. He caused the Lahore Chronicle to be made the medium of conveying official news of all that was occurring in India, so far as rapid outlines were concerned. The government secretary at that place sent every day to the editor of the newspaper an epitome of the most important public news. This epitome was printed on small quarter-sheets of paper, and despatched by each day’s post to all the stations in the Punjaub. The effect was – that false rumours and sinister reports were much less prevalent in the Punjaub than in Bengal; men were not thrown into mystery by a suppression of journalism; but were candidly told how events proceeded, so far as information had reached that remote part of India. The high character of the chief-commissioner was universally held as a guarantee that the news given in the epitome, whether little or much in quantity, would be honestly rendered; the scheme would have been a failure under a chief who did not command respect and win confidence. As the summer advanced, and dâks and wires were interrupted, the news obtainable became very scanty. The English in the Punjaub were placed in a most tantalising position. Aware that matters were going wrong at Delhi and Agra, at Lucknow and Cawnpore, they did not know how wrong; for communication was well-nigh cut off. As the cities just named lie between the Punjaub and Calcutta, all direct communication with the seat of government was still more completely cut off. The results of this were singularly trying. ‘Gradually,’ says an officer writing from the Punjaub, ‘papers and letters reached us from Calcutta viâ Bombay. It is not the least striking illustration of the complete revolution that has occurred in India, that the news from the Gangetic valley – say from Allahabad and Cawnpore – was known in London sooner than at Lahore. We had been accustomed to receive our daily letters and newspapers from every part of the empire with the same unfailing regularity as in England. Suddenly we found ourselves separated from Calcutta for two months of time. Painfully must a letter travel from the eastern capital to the western port – from Calcutta to Bombay; painfully must it toil up the unsettled provinces of the western coast; slowly must it jog along on mule-back across the sands of Sinde; many queer twists and unwonted turns must that letter take, many enemies must it baffle and elude, before, much bestamped, much stained with travel – for Indian letter-bags are not water-proof – it is delivered to its owner at Lahore… Slowly, very slowly, the real truth dragged its way up the country. It is only this very 29th of September that this writer in the Punjaub has read anything like a connected account of the fearful tragedy at Cawnpore, which, once read or heard, no Englishman can ever forget.’

Attention must now for a brief space be directed to the country of Sinde or Scinde; not so much for the purpose of narrating the progress of mutiny there, as to shew how it happened that there were few materials out of which mutiny could arise.

Sinde is the region which bounds the lower course of the river Indus, also called Sinde. The name is supposed to have had the same origin as Sindhi or Hindi, connected with the great Hindoo race. When the Indus has passed out of the Punjaub at its lower apex, it enters Sinde, through which it flows to the ocean, which bounds Sinde on the south; east is Rajpootana, and west Beloochistan. The area of Sinde is about equal to that of England without Wales. The coast is washed by the Indian Ocean for a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles; being, with very few exceptions, little other than a series of mud-banks deposited by the Indus, or low sand-hills blown in from the sea-beach. So low is most of the shore, that a wide expanse of country is overflowed at each high tide; it is a dreary swamp, scarcely observable from shipboard three or four miles out at sea. The mouths of the Indus are numerous, but so shallow that only one of them admits ships of any considerable burden; and even that one is subject to so many fluctuations in depth and in weather, that sea-going vessels scarcely enter it at all. Kurachee, the only port in Sinde, is a considerable distance west of all these mouths; and the mercantile world looks forward with much solicitude to the time when a railway will be formed from this port to Hydrabad, a city placed at the head of the delta of the Indus. This delta, in natural features, resembles that of the Nile rather than that of the Ganges, being nearly destitute of timber. On each side of the Indus, for a breadth varying from two to twelve miles, is a flat alluvial tract, in most places extremely fertile. Many parts of Sinde are little better than desert; such as the Pât, between Shikarpore and the Bolan Pass, and the Thur, nearer to the river. In general, it may be said that no part of Sinde is fertile except where the Indus irrigates it; for there is little either of rain or dew, and the climate is intensely hot. Camels are largely reared in Sinde; and the Sindians have abundant reason to value this animal. It is to him a beast of burden; its milk is a favourite article of diet; its hair is woven into coarse cloth; and it renders him service in many other ways.

The Sindians are an interesting race, both in themselves and in their political relations. They are a mixture of Jâts and Beloochees, among whom the distinction between Hindoo and Mussulman has a good deal broken down. The Beloochees are daring, warlike Mohammedans; the Jâts are Hindoos less rigorous in matters of faith and caste than those of Hindostan; while the Jâts who have become Mohammedans are a peaceful agricultural race, somewhat despised by both the others. The Sindians collectively are a dark, handsome, well-limbed race; and it was a favourite opinion of Sir William Jones, that they were the original of the gipsies. The languages spoken are a mixture of Hindi, Beloochee, and Persian.

The chain of events which brought Sinde under British rule may be traced in a few sentences. About thirteen centuries ago the country was invaded by the Persians, who ravaged it without making a permanent settlement. The califs at a later date conquered Sinde; from them it was taken by the Afghans of Ghiznee; and in the time of Baber it fell into the hands of the chief of Candahar. It was then, for a century and a half, a dependency of the Mogul Empire. For a few years Nadir Shah held it; next the Moguls retook it; and in 1756 Sinde fell under the rule of the Cabool khans, which was maintained nearly to the time when the British seized the sovereign power. Although subject to Cabool, Sinde was really governed by eight or ten native princes, called Ameers, who had among them three distinct territories marked by the cities of Hydrabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpoor. Under these ameers the government was a sort of military despotism, each ameer having a power of life and death; but in warlike affairs they were dependent on feudal chieftains, each of whom held an estate on condition of supplying a certain number of soldiers. The British had various trading treaties with the ameers; one of which, in 1832, opened the roads and rivers of Sinde to the commerce of the Company. When, in 1838, the eyes of the governor-general were directed anxiously towards Afghanistan, Sinde became involved in diplomatic conferences, in which the British, the Afghans, the Sindians, and Runjeet Singh were all concerned. These conferences led to quarrels, to treaties, to accusations of breach of faith, which we need not trace: suffice it to say that Sir Charles James Napier, with powers of the pen and of the sword intrusted to him, settled the Sinde difficulty once for all, in 1848, by fighting battles which led to the annexation of that country to the Company’s dominions. The former government was entirely put an end to; and the ameers were pensioned off with sums amounting in the aggregate to about fifty thousand pounds per annum. Some of these Ameers, like other princes of India, afterwards came to England in the hope of obtaining better terms from Queen Victoria than had been obtainable from the Company Bahadoor.

When Sinde became a British province, it was separated into three collectorates or districts – Shikarpore, Hydrabad, and Kurachee; a new system of revenue administration was introduced; annual fairs were established at Kurachee and Sukur; and peaceful commerce was everywhere so successfully established, that the country improved rapidly, greatly to the content of the mass of the people, who had formerly been ground down by the ameers’ government. For military purposes, Sinde was made a division, under the Bombay presidency.

Sinde, at the commencement of the mutiny, contained about seven thousand troops of all arms, native and European. The military arrangements had brought much distinction to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-general) John Jacob, whose ‘Sinde Irregular Horse’ formed a corps much talked of in India. It consisted of about sixteen hundred men, in two regiments of eight hundred each, carefully drilled, and armed and equipped in the European manner, yet having only five European officers; the squadron and troop commanders were native officers. The brigadier uniformly contended that it was the best cavalry corps in India; and that the efficiency of such a regiment did not depend so much on the number of European officers, as on the manner in which they fulfilled their duties, and the kind of discipline which they maintained among the men. On these points he was frequently at issue with the Bengal officers; for he never failed to point out the superiority of the system in the Bombay army, where men were enlisted irrespective of caste, and where there were better means of rewarding individual merit.[32 - The brigadier’s confidence in his men was conditional on their implicit obedience; and he was wont to affirm that his ‘Irregulars’ were as ‘regular’ in conduct and discipline as the Queen’s Life-guards themselves. He would allow no religious scruples to interfere with their military efficiency. On one occasion, during the Mohurram or Mohammedan religious festival in 1854, there was great uproar and noise among ten thousand Mussulmans assembled in and near his camp of Jacobabad to celebrate their religious festival. He issued a general order: ‘The commanding officer has nothing to do with religious ceremonies. All men may worship God as they please, and may act and believe as they choose, in matters of religion; but no men have a right to annoy their neighbours, or to neglect their duty, on pretence of serving God. The officers and men of the Sinde Horse have the name of, and are supposed to be, excellent soldiers, and not mad fakeers… He therefore now informs the Sinde Irregular Horse, that in future no noisy processions, nor any disorderly display whatever, under pretence of religion or anything else, shall ever be allowed in, or in neighbourhood of, any camp of the Sinde Irregular Horse.’] Nationally speaking, they were not Sindians at all; being drawn from other parts of India, in the ratio of three-fourths Mohammedans to one-fourth Hindoos.

When the mutiny began in the regions further east, ten or twelve permanent outposts on the Sinde frontier were held by detachments of the Sinde Irregular Horse, of forty to a hundred and twenty men each, wholly commanded by native officers. These men, and the head-quarters at Jacobabad (a camp named after the gallant brigadier), remained faithful, though sometimes tempted by sepoys and troopers of the Bengal army. A curious correspondence took place later in the year, through the medium of the newspapers, between Brigadier Jacob and Major Pelly on the one side, and Colonel Sykes on the other. The colonel had heard that Jacob ridiculed the greased cartridge affair, as a matter that would never be allowed to trouble his corps; and he sought to shew that it was no subject for laughter: ‘Brigadier John Jacob knows full well that if he were to order his Mohammedan soldiers (though they may venerate him) to bite a cartridge greased with pigs’ fat, or his high-caste troopers to bite a cartridge greased with cows’ fat, both the one and the other would promptly refuse obedience, and in case he endeavoured to enforce it, they would shoot him down.’ Jacob and Pelly at once disputed this; they both asserted that the Mohammedans and Hindoos in the Sinde Horse would never be mutinous on such a point, unless other sources of dissatisfaction existed, and unless they believed it was purposely done to insult their faith. ‘If it were really necessary,’ said the brigadier, ‘in the performance of our ordinary military duty, to use swine’s fat or cows’ fat, or anything else whatever, not a word or a thought would pass about the matter among any members of the Horse, and the nature of the substances made use of would not be thought of or discussed at all, except with reference to the fitness for the purpose to which they were to be applied.’ The controversialists did not succeed in convincing each other; they continued to hold diametrically opposite opinions on a question intimately connected with the early stages of the mutiny – thereby adding to the perplexities of those wishing to solve the important problem: ‘What was the cause of the mutiny?’

Owing partly to the great distance from the disturbed provinces of Hindostan, partly to the vicinity of the well-disposed Bombay army, and partly to the activity and good organisation of Jacob’s Irregular Horse, Sinde was affected with few insurgent proceedings during the year. At one time a body of fanatical Mohammedans would unfurl the green flag, and call upon each other to fight for the Prophet. At another time, gangs of robbers and hill-men, of which India has in all ages had an abundant supply, would take advantage of the troubled state of public feeling to rush forth on marauding expeditions, caring much for plunder and little for faith of any kind. At another, alarms would be given which induced European ladies and families to take refuge in the forts or other defensive positions at Kurachee, Hydrabad, Shikarpore, Jacobabad, &c., where English officers were stationed. At another, regiments of the Bengal army would try to tamper with the fidelity of other troops in Sinde. But of these varied incidents, few were so serious in results as to need record here. One, interesting in many particulars, arose out of the following circumstance: When some of the Sinde forces were sent to Persia, the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry arrived to supply their place. These troopers, when the mutiny was at least four months old, endeavoured to form a plan with some Beloochee Mohammedans for the murder of the British officers at the camp of Jacobabad. A particular hour on the 21st of August was named for this outrage, in which various bands of Beloochees were invited to assist. The plot was revealed to Captain Merewether, who immediately confided in the two senior native officers of the Sinde Irregular Horse. Orders were issued that the day’s proceedings should be as usual, but that the men should hold themselves in readiness. Many of the border chiefs afterwards sent notice to Merewether of what had been planned, announcing their own disapproval of the conspiracy. At a given hour, the leading conspirator was seized, and correspondence found upon him tending to shew that the Bengal regiment having failed in other attempts to seduce the Sinde troops from their allegiance, had determined to murder the European officers as the chief obstacles to their scheme. The authorities at Jacobabad wished Sir John Lawrence to take this Bengal regiment off their hands; but the experienced chief in the Punjaub would not have the dangerous present; he thought it less likely to mutiny where it was than in a region nearer to Delhi.

The troops in the province of Sinde about the middle of August were nearly as follows: At Kurachee – the 14th and 21st Bombay native infantry; the 2d European infantry; the depôt of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers; and the 3d troop of horse artillery. At Hydrabad – the 13th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. At Jacobabad – the 2d Sinde irregular horse; and the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry. At Shikarpore and Sukur, the 16th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. The whole comprised about five thousand native troops, and twelve hundred Europeans.

At a later period, when thanks were awarded by parliament to those who had rendered good service in India, the name of Mr Frere, commissioner for Sinde, was mentioned, as one who ‘has reconciled the people of that province to British rule, and by his prudence and wisdom confirmed the conquest which had been achieved by the gallant Napier. He was thereby enabled to furnish aid wherever it was needed, at the same time constantly maintaining the peace and order of the province.’

Notes

This will be a suitable place in which to introduce two tabular statements concerning the military condition of India at the commencement of the mutiny. All the occurrences narrated hitherto are those in which the authorities at Calcutta were compelled to encounter difficulties without any reinforcements from England, the time elapsed having been too short for the arrival of such reinforcements.

Military Divisions of India.– At the period of the outbreak, and for some time afterwards, India was marked out for military purposes into divisions, each under the command of a general, brigadier, or other officer, responsible for all the troops, European and native, within his division. The names and localities of these divisions are here given; on the authority of a military map of India, engraved at the Topographical Depôt under the direction of Captain Elphinstone of the Royal Engineers, and published by the War Department. Each division was regarded as belonging to, or under the control of, one of the three presidencies. We shall therefore group them under the names of the three presidential cities, and shall append a few words to denote locality:

It may be useful to remark that these military divisions are not necessarily identical in area or boundaries with the political provinces or collectorates, the two kinds of territorial limits being based on different considerations.

Armies of India, at the Commencement of the Mutiny.– During the progress of the military operations, it was frequently wished in England that materials were afforded for shewing the exact number of troops in India when the troubles began. The Company, to respond to this wish, caused an elaborate return to be prepared, from which a few entries are here selected. The names and limits of the military divisions correspond nearly, but not exactly, to those in the above list.

The Europeans in this list include all grades of officers as well as rank and file; and among the officers are included those connected with the native regiments. The natives, in like manner, include all grades, from subadars down to sepoys and sowars. The Punjaub, it will be seen, alone contained 40,000 troops. The troops were stationed at 160 cantonments, garrisons, or other places. As shewing gradations of rank, the Europeans comprised 2271 commissioned officers, 1602 non-commissioned officers, and 18,815 rank and file; the natives comprised 2325 commissioned officers, 5821 non-commissioned officers, and 110,517 rank and file. The stations which contained the largest numbers were the following:

These 20 principal stations thus averaged 3800 troops each, or nearly 80,000 altogether.

This list was more fully made out than that for the Bengal army; since it gave the numbers separately of the dragoons, light cavalry, horse-artillery, foot-artillery, sappers and miners, European infantry, native infantry, and veterans. The ratio of Europeans to native troops was rather higher in the Madras army (about 20 per cent.) than in that of Bengal (19 per cent.) More fully made out in some particulars, it was less instructive in others; the Madras list pointed out the location of all the detachments of each regiment, whereas the Bengal list gave the actual numbers at each station, without mentioning the particular regiments of which they were composed. Hence the materials for comparison are not such as they might have been had the lists been prepared on one uniform plan. There were about 36 stations for these troops, but the places which they occupied in small detachments raised the total to a much higher number. Although Pegu is considered to belong to the Bengal presidency, it was mostly served by Madras troops. Besides the forces above enumerated, there were nearly 2000 Madras troops out of India altogether, on service in Persia and China.

The Bombay army was so dislocated at that period, by the departure of nearly 14,000 troops to Persia and Aden, that the value of this table for purposes of comparison becomes much lessened. Nevertheless, it affords means of knowing how many troops were actually in India at the time when their services were most needed. On the other hand, about 5000 of the troops in the Bombay presidency belonged to the Bengal and Madras armies. The different kinds of troops were classified as in the Madras army. The regular military stations where troops took up their head-quarters, were about 20 in number; but the small stations where mere detachments were placed nearly trebled this number. The Europeans were to the native troops only as 16 to 100.

As a summary, then, we find that India contained, on the day when the mutinies began, troops to the number of 238,002 in the service of the Company, of whom 38,001 were Europeans, and 200,001 natives – 19 Europeans to 100 natives. An opportunity will occur in a future page for enumerating the regiments of which these three armies were composed.

CHAPTER XIII.

PREPARATIONS: CALCUTTA AND LONDON

Before entering on a narrative of the great military operations connected with the siege of Delhi, and with Havelock’s brilliant advance from Allahabad to Cawnpore and Lucknow, it will be necessary to glance rapidly at the means adopted by the authorities to meet the difficulties arising out of the mutiny – by the Indian government at Calcutta, and by the imperial government in London. For, it must be remembered that – however meritorious and indispensable may have been the services of those who arrived in later months – the crisis had passed before a single additional regiment from England reached the scene of action. There was, as we have seen in the note appended to the preceding chapter, a certain definite amount of European military force in India when the mutiny began; there were also certain regiments of the Queen’s army known to be at different spots in the region lying between the Cape of Good Hope on the west and Singapore on the east; and it depended on the mode of managing those materials whether India should or should not be lost to the English. There will therefore be an advantage in tracing the manner in which the Calcutta government brought into use the resources immediately or proximately available; and the plans adopted by the home government to increase those resources.

It is not intended in this place to discuss the numerous questions which have arisen in connection with the moral and political condition of the natives of India, or the relative fitness of different forms of government for the development of their welfare. Certain matters only will be treated, which immediately affected the proceedings of those intrusted with this grave responsibility at so perilous a time. Three such at once present themselves for notice, in relation to the Calcutta government – namely, the military measures taken to confront the mutineers; the judicial treatment meted out to them when conquered or captured; and the precautions taken in reference to freedom of public discussion on subjects likely to foster discontent.

First, in relation to military matters. England, by a singular coincidence, was engaged in two Asiatic wars at the time when the Meerut outbreak marked the commencement of a formidable mutiny. Or, more strictly, one army was returning after the close of a war with Persia; while another was going out to begin a war with China. It will ever remain a problem of deep significance what would have become of our Indian empire had not those warlike armaments, small as they were, been on the Indian seas at the time. The responsible servants of the Company in India did not fail to recognise the importance of this problem – as will be seen from a brief notice of the plans laid during the earlier weeks of the mutiny.

On the 13th of May, three days after the troubles began at Meerut, Mr Colvin, lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, telegraphed to Calcutta, suggesting that the returning force from Persia should be ordered round to Calcutta, in order to be sent inland to strengthen the few English regiments by which alone the Revolt could be put down. On the next day, Viscount Canning, knowing that the Queen’s 43d foot and the 1st Madras Fusiliers were at Madras, telegraphed orders for those two regiments to be forwarded to Calcutta – seeing that the Bengal presidency was more likely than that of Madras to be troubled by mutinous sepoys. On the same day orders were sent to Pegu to bring the depôt of the Queen’s 84th foot to Calcutta, the bulk of the regiment being already in or near that city. On the 16th, a message was sent to Lord Elphinstone at Bombay, requesting him to send round to Calcutta two of the English regiments about to return from Persia; another message was sent to Pegu, summoning every available soldier of the Queen’s 35th foot from Rangoon and Moulmein; and orders were issued that all government river-steamers and flats in India should be held ready for army use. On the 17th, Lord Harris at Madras telegraphed to Canning, recommending him to stop the army going to China under Lord Elgin and General Ashburnham, and to render it immediately available for Indian wants. It was on this day, too, that Sir John Lawrence announced his intention of disarming the Bengal sepoys in the Punjaub, and of raising new Punjaub regiments in their stead; and that Mr Frere, commissioner of Sinde, was ordered by Lord Elphinstone to send the 1st Bombay Europeans from Kurachee up the Indus to Moultan, and thence to Ferozpore. On the 18th, Canning telegraphed to Elphinstone, naming the two regiments – the Queen’s 78th foot and the 2d Europeans – which were to be sent round to Calcutta, together with artillery; on the same day Elphinstone telegraphed to Canning that he would be able to send the Queen’s 64th as well as 78th foot; and on the same day the authorities at Sinde arranged for sending a Beloochee regiment up from Hydrabad to Ferozpore. On the 19th, the Madras Fusiliers started for Calcutta; and on the same day Sir Henry Lawrence, to strengthen his military command in Oude, was raised from the rank of colonel to that of brigadier-general. Without dwelling, day by day, on the proceedings adopted, it will suffice to say that, during the remaining period of May, the Madras Fusiliers, which were destined to render such good service under the gallant Neill, arrived at Calcutta; that the Queen’s 64th and 78th made their voyage from Bombay to Calcutta; and that steamers were sent to Ceylon to bring as many royal troops as could be spared from that island.

When June arrived, the same earnest endeavours were made to bring troops to bear upon the plague-spots of mutiny. Orders were sent to transfer a wing of the Queen’s 29th foot from Pegu, the 12th Lancers from Bombay, and cavalry horses from Bushire and elsewhere, to Calcutta. Later in the month, messages were transmitted to Madras, commanding the sending to Calcutta of everything that had been prepared there for the service of the expedition to China; such as tents, clothing, harness, and necessaries; but it was at the same time known that the regiments on that service available for India could be very few for a considerable time to come – the only certain news being of the 5th Fusiliers, which left Mauritius on the 23d of May, and the 90th foot, which left England on the 18th of April. Towards the close of the month, an arrangement was made for accepting the aid of an army of Nepaulese from Jung Bahadoor, to advance from Khatmandoo through Goruckpore towards Oude – a matter on which Lord Canning was much criticised, by those who thought the arrangement ought to have been made earlier. As soon as news reached Calcutta of the death of General Anson, Sir Patrick Grant, commander-in-chief of the Madras army, was summoned from Madras to hold the office of commander-in-chief of the army of Bengal, subject to sanction from the home authorities. When he had accepted this provisional appointment, and had arrived at Calcutta, Sir Patrick wrote a ‘memorandum,’ expressing his views of his own position towards the supreme government. It was to the effect that – seeing that there was in fact no native army to rely upon; that the European army was very small; and that this army had to operate on many different points, in portions each under its own commandant – it would be better for the commander-in-chief to remain for a while at Calcutta, than to move about from station to station. If near the seat of government, he would be in daily personal communication with the members of the supreme council; he would learn their views in relation to the innumerable questions likely to arise; and he would be in early receipt of the mass of intelligence forwarded every day to Calcutta from all parts of India. On these grounds, Sir Patrick proposed to make Calcutta his head-quarters. All the members of the council – Canning, Dorin, Low, J. P. Grant, and Peacock – assented at once to these views; the governor-general added: ‘I am of opinion, however, that as soon as the course of events shall tend to allay the general disquiet, and to shew to what points our force should be mainly directed, with the view of crushing the heart of the rebellion, it will be proper that his excellency should consider anew the question of his movements.’

As it was difficult in those days of interrupted dâks and severed wires to communicate intelligence between Calcutta and Lahore, the general officers in the Punjaub and Sirhind made the best readjustment of offices they could on hearing of Anson’s death; but when orders could be given from Calcutta, Sir Henry Barnard, of the Sirhind division, was made commander of the force against Delhi; General Penny, from Simla, replaced General Hewett at Meerut; General Reid, of the Peshawur division, became temporary commander in the west until other arrangements could be made; and Brigadier Cotton was appointed to the command at Peshawur, with Colonel Edwardes as commissioner. Later in the month, when Henry Lawrence was hemmed in at Lucknow, Wheeler beleaguered at Cawnpore, and Lloyd absorbed with the affairs of Dinapoor brigade, commands were given to Neill and Havelock, the one from Madras and the other from the Persian expedition; while Outram, who had been commander of that expedition, also returned to assume an important post in India. Several colonels of individual regiments received the appointment of brigadier-general, in command of corps of two or more regiments; and in that capacity became better known to the public than as simple commandants of regiments.

When the month of July arrived, the British troops in India, though lamentably few for the stern work to be done, were nevertheless increasing in number; but it is doubtful whether, at the end of the month, the number was as large as at the beginning; for many desperate conflicts had taken place, which terribly thinned the European ranks. The actual reinforcements which arrived at Calcutta during eight months, irrespective of any plans laid in England arising out of news of the mutiny, consisted of about twenty regiments, besides artillery. Some of these had been on the way from England before the mutiny began; the 84th foot arrived in March from Rangoon; none arrived in April; in May arrived the 1st Madras Fusiliers; in June, the 35th, 37th, 64th, and 78th Queen’s regiments, together with artillery belonging to all the three presidential armies; in July, the 5th Fusiliers, the 90th foot, and a wing of the 29th; in August, the 59th foot, a military train, a naval brigade from Hong Kong, and royal marines from the same place; in September, the 23d Welsh Fusiliers, 93d Highlanders, four regiments of Madras native infantry (5th, 17th, 27th, and 36th), and detachments of artillery and engineers; in October, the 82d foot, the 48th Madras native infantry, and recruits for the East India Company’s service – all these, be it again remarked, were troops which reached Calcutta without any reference to the plans laid by the home government to quell the mutiny; those which came from England started before the news was known; the rest came from Rangoon, Moulmein, Madras, Bombay, Ceylon, Mauritius, Hong Kong, Cape of Good Hope, &c. A few observations may be made in connection with the above list – that some of these regiments were native Madras troops, on whom reliance was placed to fight manfully against the Bengal sepoys; that some of the Madras companies advanced inland to Bengal, without taking the sea-voyage to Calcutta; that no cavalry whatever were included in the list; and that the list does not include the regiments which advanced from Bombay or Kurachee towards the disturbed districts.

Cavalry, just adverted to, was the arm of the service in which the Indian government was throughout the year most deficient. During a long period of peace the stud-establishments had been somewhat neglected; and as a consequence, there were more soldiers able and willing to ride, than horses ready to receive them. In the artillery and baggage departments, also, the supply of horses was very deficient. When news of this fact reached Australia, the colonists bestirred themselves to ascertain how far they could assist in remedying the deficiency. The whole of New South Wales was divided into eight districts, and committees voluntarily undertook the duty of ascertaining how many available horses fit for cavalry were obtainable in each district. Colonel Robbins was sent from Calcutta to make purchases; and he was enabled to obtain several hundred good strong horses at prices satisfactory both to the stock-farmers and to the government. The good effected by the committees consisted in bringing together the possible sellers and the willing buyer.

By what means the troops, as they arrived at Calcutta from various quarters, were despatched to the scene of action in the upper provinces, and by what difficulties of every kind this duty was hampered – need not be treated here; sufficient has been said on this subject in former pages.

We pass to the second of the three subjects marked out, in reference to the proceedings at Calcutta for notice – the arrangements for preventing the mutiny of native troops, or for punishing those who had already mutinied: a very important and anxious part of the governor-general’s duty.

Unfortunately for all classes in India, there was a hostile feeling towards the governor-general, entertained by many of the European inhabitants unconnected with the Company; they accused him of favouring the natives at the expense of the English. There was also a sentiment of deep hatred excited against the natives, owing to the barbarous atrocities perpetrated by the mutinous sepoys and the rabble budmashes on the unfortunate persons at the various military and civil stations of the Company during the course of the Revolt. There was at the same time a certain jealousy existing between the military and civil officers in India. These various feelings conspired to render the supreme government at Calcutta, and especially Viscount Canning as its head, the butt for incessant ridicule and the object of incessant vituperation. When the mutiny was many months old, the Calcutta government gave a full reply to insinuations which it would have been undignified to rebut at the time when made, and which, indeed, would have fallen with little force on the public mind while convulsed with passion at the unparalleled news from India.

It was repeatedly urged upon the governor-general to proclaim martial law wherever the Europeans found or fancied themselves in peril; to encounter the natives with muskets and cannon instead of courts of justice; and to adopt these summary proceedings all over India. In reply, Viscount Canning states that this was actually done wherever it was necessary, and as soon as it could answer any good purpose. Martial law was proclaimed in the Delhi province in May; in the Meerut province about the same time; in Rohilcund on the 28th of the same month; in the Agra province in May and the early part of June; in the Ajmeer district on the 12th of June; in Allahabad and Benares about the same date; in Neemuch also at the same time; in the Patna district on the 30th of June; and afterwards in Nagpoor. In the Punjaub and Oude, governed by special regulations, it was not necessary that martial law should be proclaimed, but the two Lawrences acted as if it was. Martial law, where adopted, was made even more stringent than in European countries; for there only military men take part in courts-martial; whereas in India, the military officers at the disposal of the government being too few for the performance of such duties at such a time, an act of the Calcutta legislature was passed directly after the news from Meerut arrived, authorising military officers to establish courts-martial for the trial of mutineers and others, and empowering them to obtain the aid at such courts, not only of the Company’s civil servants, but of indigo-planters and other Europeans of intelligence and of independent position. On the 30th of May, to meet the case of a rebellious populace as well as a mutinous soldiery, another act was passed authorising all the local executive governments to issue special commissions for the summary trial of delinquents, with power of life and death in addition to that of forfeiture of property – without any tedious reference to the ordinary procedures of the law-courts. On the 6th of June a third act was passed, intended to reach those who, without actually mutinying or rebelling, should attempt to excite disaffection in the native army, or should harbour persons guilty of that offence; general officers were empowered to appoint courts-martial, and executive bodies to appoint special commissions, to try all such offenders at once and on the spot, and to inflict varying degrees of punishment according to the offence. Some time afterwards a fourth act gave an extended application of these stringent measures to India generally. In all these instances Europeans were specially exempted from the operation of the statutes. The enormous powers thus given were largely executed; and they were rendered still more formidable by another statute, enabling police-officers to arrest without warrant persons suspected of being mutineers or deserters, and rendering zemindars punishable if they failed to give early information of the presence of suspicious persons on their respective estates. ‘Not only therefore,’ says the governor-general in council, ‘is it not the case that martial law was not proclaimed in districts in which there was a necessity for it; but the measures taken for the arrest, summary trial, and punishment of heinous offenders of every class, civil as well as military, were far more widely spread and certainly not less stringent than any that could have resulted from martial law.’

The outcry against Viscount Canning became so excessively violent in connection with two subjects, that the Court of Directors sought for explanations from him thereon, superadded to the dispatches forwarded in the regular course. The one referred to the state of Calcutta; the other to the proceedings of special commissioners in the Allahabad district. A petition was presented from about two hundred and fifty inhabitants of Calcutta, praying that martial law should at once be proclaimed throughout the whole of the Bengal presidency; on the ground that the whole native population was in a disaffected state, that the native police were as untrustworthy as the native soldiery, and that the Company’s civil authorities were wholly unable to cope with an evil of so great magnitude. The governor-general in council declined to accede to this request. He urged in reply – that there was no evidence of the native population of Bengal being in so disaffected a state as to render martial law necessary; that such law had already been enforced in the northwest provinces, where the mutineers were chiefly congregated; that in Bengal the native police, aided by the European civilians, would probably be strong enough to quell ordinary disturbances; that, as all his European troops were wanted to confront the mutinous sepoys, he had none to spare for ordinary police duties; and that in Calcutta especially, where a zealous volunteer guard had been organised, the peace might easily be preserved by ordinary watchfulness on the part of the European inhabitants. This reply was in many quarters interpreted into a declaration that the natives would be petted and favoured more than the Europeans.

The second charge, as stated above, related to the proceedings in the Allahabad district. When the power of appointing special commissions for trying the natives was given, the civilians in that region entered on the duty in a more stern manner than anywhere else. In about forty days a hundred and seventy natives were tried, of whom a hundred were put to death. When a detailed report of the proceedings reached Calcutta, grave doubts were entertained whether the offences generally were proportionate to the punishment. Many persons had been put to death for having plundered property in their possession, without being accused of having actually been engaged in mutiny; some were put to death for obtaining by threats salary that was not due to them from the revenue establishments; several others for ‘robbing their masters,’ and some for ‘plundering salt;’ six were condemned to death in one day for having in their possession more rupees than they could or would account for. The question forced itself on Lord Canning’s attention, whether such offences and such punishments as these were intended to be met by the extraordinary tribunals established in time of danger. The culprits might have been and probably were rogues; but it did not follow that they deserved death at the hands of civilians, irrespective of military proceedings. The Calcutta authorities considered, from all the information that reached them, that these large powers ‘had been in some cases unjustly and recklessly used; that the indiscriminate hanging, not only of persons of all shades of guilt, but of those whose guilt was at the least very doubtful, and the general burning and plunder of villages, whereby the innocent as well as the guilty, without regard to age or sex, were indiscriminately punished, and in some instances sacrificed,’ were unjustifiable. It further became manifest that ‘the proceedings of the officers of government had given colour to the rumour, which was industriously spread and credulously received in all parts of the country, that the government meditated a general bloody prosecution of Mohammedans and Hindoos in revenge for the crimes of the sepoys, and only awaited the arrival of European troops to put this design into execution.’ This led the governor-general to issue a resolution on the 31st of July, containing detailed instructions for the guidance of civil officers in the apprehension, trial, and punishment of natives charged with or suspected of offences. This resolution was interpreted by the opponents of Viscount Canning as a check upon all the heroes who were fighting the battles of the British against the mutinous natives; but it was afterwards clearly shewn that the resolution applied, and was intended to apply, only to the civil servants, among whom such vast powers were novel and often susceptible of abuse; it did not cramp the energies of generals or military commanders who might feel that martial law was necessary to the successful performance of their duties. So obstructive, however, was the bitter hostility felt in many quarters against the supreme government at Calcutta, that it led to a ready belief in charges which were afterwards shewn to be wholly untrue. When the Northwest Provinces had fallen into such utter anarchy by the mutiny, that the rule of the lieutenant-governor was little better than a name, a new government was formed called the Central Provinces, comprising the regions of Goruckpore, Benares, Allahabad, the Lower Doab, Bundelcund, and Saugor, and placed under the lieutenant-governorship of Mr Grant, who had until that time been one of the members of the supreme council. A rumour reached London, and was there credited three months before Viscount Canning knew aught concerning it, that ‘Mr Grant had liberated a hundred and fifty mutineers or rebels placed in confinement by Brigadier-general Neill.’ As a consequence of this rumour, it was often asserted in London that Mr Grant was more friendly to the native mutineers than to the British soldiery. Knowing the gross improbability of such a story, Viscount Canning at once appealed to the best authority on the subject – Mr Grant himself. It then appeared that the lieutenant-governor had never pardoned or released a single person seized by Neill or any other military authority; that he had never commuted or altered a single sentence passed by such authorities; that he had never written to or even seen Neill; that he had neither found fault with, nor commented upon, any of that general’s proceedings – in short, the charge was an unmitigated, unrelieved falsehood from beginning to end. As a mere canard, the governor-general would not have noticed it; but the calumny assumed historical importance when it affected public opinion in England during a period of several months.

We now arrive at the third subject marked out – the attitude of the Indian government towards the European population. It has been shewn in former chapters that, when the mutinies began, addresses were presented from various classes of persons at Calcutta, some expressing alarm, but all declaratory of loyalty. Similar declarations were made at Madras and Bombay – two cities of which we have said little, because they were happily exempt from insurgent difficulties. A few lines will suffice to shew the relation between these two cities and Calcutta, as seats of presidential government. Madras is situated on the east coast, far down towards Ceylon – perhaps the worst port in the world for the arrival and departure of shipping, on account of the peculiar surf that rages near the shore. Fort St George, the original settlement, is the nucleus around which have collected the houses and buildings which now constitute Madras. As Calcutta is called ‘Fort William’ in official documents, so is Madras designated ‘Fort St George.’ The principal streets out of the fort constitute ‘Black Town.’ Bombay, on the opposite coast, boasts of a splendid harbour that often excites the envy of the Madras inhabitants. The city is built on two or three islands, which are so connected by causeways and other constructions as to enclose a magnificent harbour. Nevertheless Madras has the larger population, the numbers being seven hundred and twenty thousand against five hundred and sixty thousand. So far as this Chronicle is concerned, both cities may pass without further description. Each was a metropolis, in all that concerned military, judicial, and civil proceedings; and each remained in peace during the mutiny, chiefly owing to the native armies of Madras and Bombay being formed of more manageable materials than that of Bengal. Lord Harris at the one city, and Lord Elphinstone at the other, received numerous declarations of loyalty from the natives; and were enabled to render military service to the governor-general, rather than seek aid from him.

In Calcutta, there was more difficulty than in Madras and Bombay. The government had to defend itself against Europeans as well as natives. It has already been stated that great hostility was shewn towards this government by resident Europeans not belonging to the Company’s service. On the one side, the Company was accused of regarding India as a golden egg belonging to its own servants; on the other, the Company sometimes complained that missionaries and newspapers encouraged disaffection among the natives. This had been a standing quarrel long before the mutiny broke out. As ministers of religion, missionaries of various Christian denominations were allowed to pursue their labours, but without direct encouragement. They naturally sympathised with the natives; but, however pure may have been their motive, it must be admitted that the missionaries often employed language that tended to place the Company and the natives in the antagonistic position of the injurers and the injured. In September 1856 certain missionaries in the Bengal presidency presented a memorial, setting forth in strong terms the deplorable social condition of the natives – enumerating a series of abuses and defects in the Indian government; and recommending the appointment of a commission of inquiry, to comprise men of independent minds, unbiassed by official or local prejudices. The alleged abuses bore relation to the police and judicial systems, gang-robberies, disputes about unsettled boundaries, the use of torture to extort confession, the zemindary system, and many others. The memorialists asserted that if remedies were not speedily applied to those abuses, the result would be disastrous, as ‘the discontent of the rural population is daily increasing, and a bitter feeling of hatred towards their rulers is being engendered in their minds.’ Mr Halliday, lieutenant-governor of Bengal, in reply to the memorial, pointed out the singular omission of the missionaries to make any even the most brief mention of the numerous measures undertaken by the government to remove the very evils complained of; thereby exhibiting a one-sided tendency inimical to the ends of justice. He declined to accede to the appointment of a commission on these grounds: That without denying the existence of great social evils, ‘the government is in possession of full information regarding them; that measures are under consideration, or in actual progress, for applying remedies to such of them as are remediable by the direct executive or legislative action of the government; while the cure of others must of necessity be left to the more tardy progress of national advancement in the scale of civilisation and social improvement.’ He expressed his ‘absolute dissent from the statement made, doubtless in perfect good faith, that the people exhibit a spirit of sullen discontent, on account of the miseries ascribed to them; and that there exists amongst them that bitter hatred to the government which has filled the memorialists, as they declare, with alarm as well as sorrow.’ The British Indian Association, consisting of planters, landed proprietors, and others, supported the petition for the appointment of a commission, evidently with the view of fighting the missionaries with their own weapons, by shewing that the missionaries were exciting the natives to disaffection. Mr Halliday declined to rouse up these elements of discord; Viscount Canning and the supreme council supported him; and the Court of Directors approved of the course pursued.

In the earlier weeks of the mutiny, or rather before the mutiny had actually begun, the colonel of a regiment at Barrackpore, as has already been shewn, brought censure upon himself by taking the duties of a missionary or Christian religious teacher among his own troops. Whatever judgment may be passed on this officer, or on those who condemned him, it is at least important to bear in mind that, throughout the whole duration of the mutiny and the battles consequent on it, one class of theorists persisted in asserting that the well-meant exertions of pious Christians had alarmed the prejudices of the native soldiers, and had led to the Revolt. Right or wrong, this theory, and the line of conduct that had led to it, greatly increased the embarrassments of the governor-general, and rendered it impossible for him to pursue a line of conduct that would please all parties.

Much more hostile, however, was the feeling raised against him in relation to an important measure concerning newspapers – turning against him the bitter pens of ready writers who resented any check placed upon their licence of expression. On the 13th of June, the legislative council of Calcutta, on the motion of the governor-general, passed an act whereby the liberty of the press in India was restricted for one year. The effect of this law was to replace the Indian press, for a time, very much in the position it occupied before Sir Charles Metcalfe’s government gave it liberty in 1835. Sir Thomas Munro and other experienced persons had, long before this last-named date, protested against any analogy between England and India, in reference to the freedom of the press. Sir Thomas was connected with the Madras government; but his observations were intended to apply to the whole of British India. In 1822 he said: ‘I cannot view the question of a free press in this country without feeling that the tenure by which we hold our power never has been and never can be the liberties of the people. Were the people all our own countrymen, I would prefer the utmost freedom of the press; but as they are, nothing could be more dangerous than such freedom. In place of spreading useful knowledge among the people and tending to their better government, it would generate insubordination, insurrection, and anarchy… A free press and the dominion of strangers are things which are incompatible, and which cannot long exist together. For what is the first duty of a free press? It is to deliver the country from a foreign yoke, and to sacrifice to this one great object every meaner consideration; and if we make the press really free to the natives as well as to Europeans, it must inevitably lead to this result.’ Munro boldly, whether wisely or not, adopted the theory of India being a conquered country, and of the natives being more likely to write against than for their English rulers, if allowed unfettered freedom of the press. He pointed out that the restrictions on this freedom were really very few; extending only to attacks on the character of government and its officers, and on the religion of the natives. In reply to a suggestion that the native press might be placed under restriction, without affecting the Indo-British newspapers read by Europeans, he said: ‘We cannot have a monopoly of the freedom of the press; we cannot confine it to Europeans only. There is no device or contrivance by which this can be done.’ In fine, he declared his opinion that if the native press were made free, ‘it must in time produce nearly the same consequences here which it does everywhere else; it must spread among the people the principles of liberty, and stimulate them to expel the strangers who rule over them, and to establish a national government.’ When the liberty of the press was made free and full in 1835, the Court of Directors severely censured Sir Charles Metcalfe’s government for having taken that step without permission from London, and directed that the subject should be reconsidered; but Lord Auckland, who succeeded Sir Charles as governor-general, pointed out what appeared to him the difficulty of rescinding the liberty when once granted; and the directors yielded, though very unwillingly. The minute, in which the alteration of the law was made in 1835, was from the pen of Mr (afterwards Lord) Macaulay; but this eminent person at the same time admitted that the governor-general had, and ought to have, a power suddenly to check this liberty of the press in perilous times. The members of the supreme council at Calcutta, in their minutes on this subject, asserted the power and right of the government to use the check in periods of exigency.

Viscount Canning, conceiving that all his predecessors had recognised the possible necessity of curbing the liberty of the press, considered whether the exigency for so doing had arrived. He found that it would be of little use to control the native press unless that of the English were controlled also; because he wished to avoid invidious distinctions; and because some of the newspapers, though printed in the English language, were written, owned, and published by natives, almost exclusively for circulation among native readers. The natives, it was found, were in the habit of procuring English newspapers, not only those published in India, but others published in England, and of causing the political news relating to their own country to be translated and read to them. This might not be amiss if the government were made responsible for such articles only as emanated from it; but the natives were often greatly alarmed at articles and speeches directed against them, or against their usages and religion, in the Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay newspapers – not by the government, but by individual writers. The newspaper press in India, whether English or native, has generally been distinguished by great violence in the mode of opposing the government; this violence, in times of peace, was disregarded by those against whom it was directed; but at a time when a hundred thousand native troops were more or less in mutiny, and when Mohammedan leaders were endeavouring to enlarge this military revolt into a national rebellion, Viscount Canning and his colleagues deemed it right to place a restriction on the liberty of the press, during the disturbed state of India.

Very little has hitherto been known in England concerning the native newspapers of India; for few except the Company’s servants have come in contact with them. Their number is considerable, but the copies printed of each are exceedingly limited. In the Agra government alone, a few years ago, there were thirty-four native papers, of which the aggregate circulation did not reach two thousand, or less than sixty each on an average. Some appeared weekly, some twice a week. Some were printed in Persian, others in Oordoo, others in Hindee. About twenty more were published in various towns in the northwest regions of India. A few were sensible, many more trivial, but nearly all abusive of the government. As estimated by an English standard, the extremely small circulation would have rendered them wholly innocuous; but such was not the case in the actual state of affairs. The miserably written and badly lithographed little sheets of news had, each, its group of men seated round a fluent reader, and listening to the contents; one single copy sufficed for a whole regiment of sepoys; and it was observed, during a year or two before the Revolt, that the sepoys listened with unwonted eagerness to the reading of articles grossly vituperative of the government. The postal reform, effected by the Marquis of Dalhousie, exceeding in liberality even that of England itself, is believed to have led to an unexpected evil connected with the dissemination of seditious intelligence in India. To save expense, he placed natives instead of Europeans in most of the offices connected with this service; and it appears probable, from facts elicited during the mutiny, that Hindoo and Mohammedan postmasters were far too well acquainted with the substance of many of the letters which passed through their hands.

It may be well here to state that Lord Harris, governor of the presidency of Madras, dwelt on the unfair tone of the British press in India, before the actual commencement of the mutiny at Meerut. On the 2d of May he made a minute commencing thus: ‘I have now been three years in India, and during that period have made a point of keeping myself acquainted with the tenor of the larger portion of the British press, throughout the country; and I have no hesitation in asserting my impression to be that it is, more particularly in this presidency, disloyal in tone, un-English in spirit, and wanting in principle – seeking every opportunity, whether rightly or wrongly, of holding up the government to opprobrium.’ He denied that any analogy could be furnished from the harmlessness of such attacks in the home country; because, in England, ‘every man is certain of having an opportunity of bringing his case before the public, either by means of rival newspapers or in parliament.’ This facility is not afforded in India; and thus the newspaper articles are left to work their effects uncompensated. ‘I do not see how it is possible for the natives, in the towns more especially, with the accusations, misrepresentations, and calumnies which are constantly brought before them, to come to any other conclusion than that the government of their country is carried on by imbecile and dishonest men.’

The legislative statute of the 13th of June may be described in a few words. All printing-presses, types, and printing-machinery throughout British India were, by virtue of this act, to be registered, and not used without licence from the government. Magistrates were empowered to order a search of suspected buildings, and a seizure of all unregistered printing-apparatus and printed paper found therein. All applications for a printing-licence were to be made on oath of the proprietor, with full particulars on certain specified matters. The licence might be refused or granted; and, if granted, might be at any time revoked. A copy of every paper, sheet, or book was required to be sent to the authorities, immediately on being printed. The government, by notice in the government gazette, might prohibit the publication of the whole or any part of any book or paper, either in the whole or any part of India; and this was equally applicable whether the book or paper were printed in India or any other country. The penalty – for using unlicensed printing-machinery, or for publishing in defiance of a gazette order – was a fine of 5000 rupees (£500), or two years’ imprisonment, or both. This punishment was so rigorous, that the instances were very few in which the press disobeyed the new law; it produced great exasperation in some quarters; but the proprietors of newspapers generally placed such a check upon editors and writers as to prevent the insertion of such articles as would induce the government to withdraw the printing-licence.