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

So alien are such restrictions to the genius of the English people, that nothing but dire necessity could have driven the Calcutta government to make them. They must be judged by an Indian, not an English standard. It is well to remark, however, as shewing the connection of events, that this statute was one cause of the violent attacks made against Lord Canning in London; the freedom, checked in India, appeared in stronger form than ever when several of the writers came over to England, or sent for printing in England books or pamphlets written in India. When one of these editors arrived in London, he brought with him a petition or memorial, signed by some of the Europeans at Calcutta not connected with the government, praying for the removal of Viscount Canning from the office held by him.

Having thus passed in review three courses of proceeding adopted by the Indian government consequent on the outbreak – in reference to military operations, to judicial punishments, and to public opinion – we will now notice in a similarly rapid way the line of policy adopted by the home government to stem the mutiny, and by the British nation to succour those who had suffered or were suffering by it.

It was on the 27th of June that the government, the parliament, and the people of England were startled with the news that five or six native regiments had revolted at Meerut and Delhi, and that the ancient seat of the Mogul Empire was in the hands of mutineers and rebels. During some weeks previously, observations had occasionally been made in parliament, relating to the cartridge troubles at Barrackpore and Berhampore; but the ministers always averred that those troubles were slight in character. The Earl of Ellenborough, who had been governor-general from 1842 to 1844, and who possessed extensive knowledge of Indian affairs generally, had also drawn attention occasionally to the state of the Indian armies. While India was in commotion, but six or seven weeks before England was aware of that fact, the earl asked the ministers (on May 19th) what arrangements had been made for reinforcing the British army in India. Lord Panmure, as war-minister, replied that certain regiments intended for India had been diverted from that service and sent to China; but that four other regiments would be ready to depart from England about the middle of June, to relieve regiments long stationed in the East Indies; irrespective of four thousand recruits for the Company’s service. On the 9th of June Lord Ellenborough expressed suspicions that a mutinous feeling was being engendered among the sepoys, by a fear on their part that their religion was about to be tampered with; this expression of opinion led to various counter-views in both Houses of parliament.

Two or three paragraphs may here be usefully given, to shew to how great an extent the number and distribution of European troops in India had been a subject of consideration among the governing authorities, both at Calcutta and in London. Towards the close of 1848 the Marquis of Dalhousie drew attention to the propriety, or even necessity, of increasing the European element in the Indian armies; and, to this end, he suggested that an application should be made to the crown for three additional regiments of the royal army. This was attended to; three regiments being promptly sent. In March 1849, consequent on the operations in the Punjaub, application was made for two more Queen’s regiments; which was in like manner quickly responded to. All these additions, be it observed, were to be fully paid for by the Company. These five regiments, despatched during the early months of 1849, comprised 220 commissioned officers, and 5335 non-commissioned, rank and file. In 1853, after the annexation of Pegu, the marquis wrote home to announce that that newly-acquired province could not be securely held with a less force than three European regiments, eight native regiments, and a proportionate park of artillery; and he asked: ‘Whence is this force to be derived?’ The British empire in India was growing; the European military element, he urged, must grow with it; and he demanded three new regiments from England to occupy Pegu, seeing that those already in India were required in the older provinces and presidencies. There were at that time five regiments of European cavalry in India, all belonging to the Queen’s army; and thirty regiments of European infantry, of which twenty-four were Queen’s, and the remaining six belonging to the Company. As the crown retained the power of drawing away the royal regiments from India at any time of emergency, the marquis deemed it prudent that the three additional regiments required should belong to the Company, one to each presidential army, and not to the royal forces. The Company, by virtue of the act passed that year (1853), obtained permission to increase the number of European troops belonging absolutely to it in India; and, that permission being obtained, three additional regiments were planned in the year, to comprise about 2760 officers and men. Only two out of the three, however, were really organised. When the war with Russia broke out in 1854, a sudden demand was made for the services of several of the Queen’s regiments in India – namely, the 22d, 25th, 96th, and 98th foot, and the 10th Hussars; at the same time, as only the 27th and 35th foot were ordered out to India, the royal troops at the disposal of the governor-general were lessened by three regiments. This step the Marquis of Dalhousie, and his colleagues at Calcutta, most earnestly deprecated. A promise was made that two more regiments, the 82d and 90th foot, should be sent out early in 1855; but the marquis objected to the weakening of the Indian army even by a single English soldier. In a long dispatch, he dwelt upon the insufficiency of this army for the constantly increasing area of the British army in India. The European army in India, the Queen’s and the Company’s together, was in effect only two battalions stronger in September 1854 than it had been in January 1847; although in that interval of nearly eight years the Punjaub, Pegu, and Nagpoor, had been added to British India. The army was so scattered over this immense area, that there was only one European battalion between Calcutta and Agra, a distance of nearly eight hundred miles. The marquis earnestly entreated the imperial government not to lessen his number, already too small, of European troops – not only because the area to be defended had greatly increased; but because many of the princes of India were at that time looking with a strange interest at the war with Russia, as if ready to side with the stronger power, whichever that might be. There were symptoms of this kind in Pegu, in Nepaul, and elsewhere, which he thought ought not to be disregarded. No document penned by the marquis throughout his eight years’ career in India was more energetic, distinct, or positive than this; he protested respectfully but earnestly against any further weakening of the European element in his forces. The home government, however, had engaged in a war with a great power which needed all its resources; the withdrawal of the regiments was insisted on; and the governor-general was forced to yield.

The year 1855 presented nothing worthy of comment in relation to the Indian armies; but in February 1856, just on surrendering the reins of government to Viscount Canning, the Marquis of Dalhousie drew up a minute bearing on this subject. At that time, fifteen months before the commencement of the mutiny at Meerut, there were thirty-three regiments of European infantry in India.[33 -

] The marquis sketched a plan for so redistributing the forces as to provide for the principal stations during peace, and also for a field-army in case of outbreak in Cabool, Cashmere, Nepaul, Ava, or other adjacent states; he required two additional regiments to effect this, and shewed how the whole thirty-five might most usefully be apportioned between the three presidencies.[34 -

] He suggested that this number of 24 Queen’s regiments of foot should be a minimum, not at any time reducible by the imperial government without consent of the Indian authorities; he remembered the Crimean war, and dreaded the consequence of any possible future war in depriving India of royal troops. These were suggestions, made by the Marquis of Dalhousie when about to leave India; they possessed no other authority than as suggestions, and do not appear to have been taken officially into consideration until the mutiny threw everything into confusion. During the later months of 1856, Viscount Canning, the new governor-general, drew the attention of the Court of Directors to the fact that the English officers in the native regiments had become far too few in number; some were appointed to irregular corps, others to civil duties, until at length the regiments were left very much under-officered. As a means of partially meeting this want, the directors authorised in September that every regular native infantry or cavalry regiment should have two additional officers, one captain and one lieutenant; and that each European regiment in the Company’s service should have double this amount of addition. In the same month it was announced by the military authorities in London that the two royal regiments, 25th and 89th, borrowed from India for the Russian war in 1854, should be replaced by two others early in 1857; and that at the same time two additional regiments of Queen’s foot should be sent out, to relieve the 10th and 29th, which had been in India ever since 1842.

The year of the mutiny, 1857, witnessed the completion of the military arrangement planned in 1856, and the organisation of others arising out of the complicated state of affairs in Persia, China, and India. About the middle of February, the second division of the army intended for the Persian expedition left Bombay, making, with the first division, a force of about 12,000 men under the command of Sir James Outram. About 4000 of that number were European troops.[35 -

] Viscount Canning, speculating on the probability that a third division would be needed, pointed out that India could not possibly supply it; and that it would be necessary that the home government should send out, not only the four regiments already agreed on, but three others in addition, and that the 10th and 29th regiments should not return to Europe so early as had been planned. There was another complication, arising out of the Chinese war; the 82d and 90th foot, intended to replace the two regiments withdrawn from India during the Crimean war, were now despatched to the Chinese seas instead of to India; and the directors had to make application for two others. Early in May, before any troubles in India were known to the authorities in London, it was arranged that the plan of 1856 should be renewed – two Queen’s regiments to be sent out to replace those withdrawn for the Crimean war; and two others to relieve the 10th and 29th – bringing the royal infantry in India to the usual number of twenty-four regiments. Of these four regiments, two were to proceed to Calcutta, one to Madras, and one to Kurachee. They were to consist of the 7th Fusiliers, the 88th and 90th foot, and the 3d battalion of the Rifle Brigade. It was also planned that the 2d and 3d Dragoons should go out to India to relieve the 9th Lancers and 14th Dragoons. Furthermore, it was arranged that these six regiments should take their departure from England in June and July, so as to arrive in India at a favourable season of the year; and that with them should go out drafts from Chatham, in number sufficient to complete the regiments already in India up to their regular established strength. So far as concerned Persia, the proposed third division was not necessary; the Shah assented to terms which – fortunately for British India – not only rendered this increased force unnecessary, but set free the two divisions already sent.

Such was the state of the European element in the Indian army at, and some time before, the commencement of the mutiny. It was on the 27th of June, we have said, that the bad news from Meerut reached London. Two days afterwards, the Court of Directors ordered officers at home on furlough or sick-leave to return to their regiments forthwith, so far as health would permit. They also made a requisition to the government for four full regiments of infantry, in addition to those already decided on; to be returned, or replaced by other four, when the mutiny should be ended. On the 1st of July – shewing thereby the importance attached to the subject – the government announced, not only its acquiescence in the demand, but the numbers or designations of the regiments marked out – namely, the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot. It was also agreed to that the four regiments intended to have been relieved – namely, the 10th and 29th foot, and the 9th and 14th Dragoons – should not be relieved at present, but that, on the contrary, drafts should go out to reinforce them. Another mail arrived, making known further disasters; whereupon the directors on the 14th of July made another application to government for six more regiments of infantry, and eight companies of royal artillery – the artillerymen to be sent out from England, the horses from the Cape of Good Hope, and the guns and ammunition to be provided in India itself. Two days afterwards – so urgent did the necessity appear – the government named the six regiments which should be sent out in compliance with this requisition – namely, the 20th, 34th, 42d, 54th, and 97th foot, and the 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade; together with two troops of horse-artillery, and six companies of royal (foot) artillery.

Summing up all these arrangements, therefore, we find the following result: Two regiments of royal infantry – 7th Fusiliers and 88th foot – were to go to India, to replace two borrowed or withdrawn from the Company in 1854; two others – the 90th foot and the 3d battalion of the Rifle Brigade – to relieve the 10th and 29th foot, and two regiments of cavalry – the 2d and 3d Dragoons – to relieve the 9th Lancers and 14th Dragoons, but the four relieved regiments not to return till the mutiny should be quelled; four regiments of infantry – the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot – to go out in consequence of the bad news received from India at the end of June; six regiments of infantry – the 20th, 34th, 42d, 54th, 97th, and 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade – together with several troops and companies of artillery, were to go out in consequence of the still more disastrous news received in the middle of July; drafts were to go out to bring up to the full strength the whole of the Queen’s regiments in India; and, lastly, recruits were to go out, to bring up to the full complement the whole of the European regiments belonging to the Company. These various augmentations to the strength of armed Europeans in India amounted to little less than twenty-four thousand men, all placed under orders by the middle of July.

Various discussions bearing on the military arrangements for India, took place in the two houses of parliament. Lord Ellenborough frequently recommended the embodiment of the militia and the calling out of the yeomanry, in order that England might not be left defenceless by sending a very strong royal army to India. The Earl of Hardwicke suggested that all the troops at Aldershott camp, about sixteen thousand in number, should at once be sent off to India. These, and other members of both Houses, insisted on the perilous position of India; whereas the ministers, in their speeches if not in their proceedings, treated the mutiny as of no very serious importance. Differences of opinion existed to a most remarkable extent; but the president of the Board of Control, Mr Vernon Smith, subjected himself at a later period to very severe criticism, on account of the boldness of the assertions made, or the extent of the ignorance displayed, in the earlier stages of the mutiny. When the news from Meerut and Delhi arrived, he said in the House of Commons: ‘I hope that the House will not be carried away by any notion that we exaggerate the danger because we have determined upon sending out these troops. It is a measure of security alone with respect to the danger to be apprehended. I cannot agree with the right honourable gentleman (Mr Disraeli) that our Indian empire is imperiled by the present disaster. I say that our Indian empire is not imperiled; and I hope that in a short time the disaster, dismal as it is, will be effectually suppressed by the force already in that country… Luckily the outrage has taken place at Delhi; because it is notorious that that place may be easily surrounded; so that if we could not reduce it by force, we could by famine… Unfortunately, the mail left on the 28th of May; and I cannot, therefore, apprise the House that the fort of Delhi has been razed to the ground; but I hope that ample retribution has by this time been inflicted on the mutineers.’ That other persons, military as well as civil, felt the mutiny to be a wholly unexpected phenomenon, is true; but this minister obviously erred by his positive assertions; his idea of ‘easily surrounding’ a walled city seven miles in circuit was preposterous; and there was displayed an unpardonable ignorance of the state of the armies in that country in the further assertion that ‘there are troops in India equal to any emergency.’

A question of singular interest and of great importance arose – how should the reinforcements of troops be sent to India? But before entering on this, it will be well to notice the arrangements made for providing a commander for them when they should reach their destination. As soon as it was known in London, early in July, that General Anson was dead, the government appointed Sir Colin Campbell as his successor. The provisional appointment of Sir Patrick Grant as commander of the forces in India was approved as a judicious step on the part of the Calcutta government; but, rightly or wrongly, the permanent appointment to that high office had come to be considered a ministerial privilege in London; and thus Sir Colin was sent out to supersede Sir Patrick. Fortunately, the general selected carried with him the trust and admiration of all parties. For a time, it is true, there was a disposition to foster a Campbell party and a Grant party among newspaper writers. One would contend that Sir Colin, though a brave and good soldier, and without a superior in command of a brigade, had nevertheless been without opportunity of shewing those powers of combination necessary for the suppression of a wide-spread mutiny, perhaps the reconquest of an immense empire; whereas Sir Patrick was just the man for the occasion, possessing the very experience, temper, and other qualities for dealing with the native soldiers. On the other hand, it was contended that Campbell was something more than a mere general of brigade, having successfully commanded masses of troops equal in extent to armies during the Punjaub war; whereas Grant, being by professional education and military sympathies a Bengal officer – although afterwards commander at Madras – had imbibed that general leaning towards the sepoys which rendered such officers unfit to deal sternly with them in time of disaffection. Happily, this controversy soon came to an end; Sir Colin was pronounced by the public verdict to be the right man, without any disparagement to Sir Patrick; and it was judiciously suggested by the Earl of Ellenborough that the last-named general might, with great advantage to the state, be made a military member of the supreme council at Calcutta, to advise the governor-general on army and military subjects. The nation recognised in Sir Colin the soldierly promptness which had distinguished Wellington and Napier, and which he illustrated in the following way: On the morning of Saturday the 11th of July, the news of General Anson’s death reached London; at two o’clock on the same day a cabinet council was held; immediately after the council an interview took place between the minister of war and the commander of the forces; consequent on this interview, Sir Colin Campbell was offered the post of commander-in-chief in India; he accepted it; he was asked how soon he could take his departure; his reply was ‘To-morrow;’ and, true to his word, he left England on the Sunday evening – taking very little with him but the clothes on his back. Men felt that there would be no unnecessary amount of ‘circumlocution’ in the proceedings of such a general – a veteran who had been an officer in the army forty-nine years; and who, during that long period, had served in the Walcheren expedition; then in the Peninsular battles and sieges of Vimieira, Corunna, Barossa, Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bidassoa; then in North America; then in the West Indies; then in the first Chinese war; then in the second Sikh war; and lastly in the Crimea.

Sir Colin Campbell, as a passenger remarkably free from luggage and baggage of every kind, was able to take advantage of the quickest route to India – by rail to Folkestone, steam to Boulogne, rail to Marseille, steam to Alexandria, rail and other means to Suez, and thence steam to Calcutta. Whether the troops could take advantage of this or any other kind of swift conveyance, was a question whereon public authorities and public advisers soon found themselves at variance. There were four projects – to proceed through France to Alexandria and Suez; to reach Alexandria by sea from Southampton; to steam from England to Calcutta round the Cape of Good Hope; and to take this last-named route by sailing-ships instead of steamers. A few words may usefully be said on each of these four plans.

As the overland route through France is the quickest, some advisers urged that it would therefore be the best; but this was by no means a necessary inference. It would require an immense amount of changing and shifting. Thrice would the men of the various regiments have to enter railway-trains – at London or some other English station, at Boulogne, and at Alexandria – perhaps also a fourth time at Paris; thrice would they have to leave railway-trains – at Folkestone, at Marseille, and at Cairo or some other place in Egypt; thrice would they have to embark in steamers – at Folkestone, at Marseille, and at Suez; and thrice would they have to disembark – at Boulogne, at Alexandria, and at Calcutta. The difficulties incidental to these many changes would be very great, although of course not insuperable. There would, in addition, be involved a delicate international question touching the passage of large bodies of troops through the territories of another sovereign. The Emperor of France, at a time of friendly alliance, would possibly have given the requisite permission; but other considerations would also have weight; and it is, on the whole, not surprising that the route through France was left unattempted.

It does not follow, however, from difficulties in the French route, that the sea-route to Alexandria would be unavailable; on the contrary, that mode of transit found many advocates. The distance from Southampton to Alexandria is about three thousand miles; and this distance could obviously be traversed, in a number of days easy of estimate, by a steamer requiring no transhipment of cargo. Another steamer would make the voyage from Suez to Calcutta; and an overland passage through Egypt would complete the route. This is a much shorter route to Calcutta than that viâ the Cape of Good Hope, in the ratio of about eight thousand miles to twelve thousand; it is adopted for the heavy portion of the India mail; and many persons thought it might well be adopted also for the transmission of troops. The ministers in parliament, however, explained their reasons for objecting to this route. These objections referred principally to steamers and coal, of which there were no more in the Indian seas than were necessary for the mail service. The matter was argued thus: The first mail from England, after the news of the mutiny, left on the 10th of July; it would reach Bombay about the 10th of August; a return mail would start from Bombay on the 16th of August, describing the arrangements made for receiving at Suez any troops sent by the Egyptian route; that letter would reach London about the 16th of September; and if troops were sent off immediately, with everything prepared, they could not have reached India till towards the end of October – four months after the receipt of the first disastrous news from Meerut. A vessel by the Cape route, if sent off at once, would reach as soon. This argument depended wholly on the assumption that it would be necessary to spend three months in sending and receiving messages, before the troops could safely be started off from Southampton to Alexandria. Some of those who differed from the government on this point admitted that only a small number of troops could be conveyed by this route, owing to the unfinished state of the land-conveyance from Alexandria to Suez.[36 - In August 1857, of the whole railway distance marked out from Alexandria through Cairo to Suez, 205 miles in length, about 175 miles were finished – namely, from Alexandria to the crossing of the Nile, 65 miles; from the crossing of the Nile to Cairo, 65 miles; from Cairo towards Suez, 45 miles. The remainder of the journey consisted of 30 miles of sandy desert, not at that time provided with a railway, but traversed by omnibuses or vans.] The thirty miles of sandy desert to be traversed, either by marching or in vehicles, would necessarily entail much difficulty and confusion if the number of troops were large, especially as neither the isthmus nor its railway belonged to England. Then, again, there are questions concerning calms, storms, monsoons, trade-winds, shoals, and coral reefs, which were warmly discussed by the advocates of different systems; some of whom contended that the Red Sea cannot safely be depended on by ship-loads of troops during the second half of the year; while others argued that the dangers of the route are very slight. On the one side, it was represented that, by adopting the Suez route, there would be many changes in the modes of travel, many sources of confusion wherever those changes were made, many uncertainties whether there would be steamers ready at Suez, many doubts about the supply of coal at Aden and elsewhere, many perils of wreck in and near the Red Sea, much deterioration of health to the troops during the hot weather in that region, and much embarrassment felt by Viscount Canning if the troops came to him faster than he could transfer them up the country. Certain of these government doubts were afterwards admitted to be well founded; others were shewn to be erroneous; and though a few regiments were sent by the Suez route later in the year, it became pretty generally admitted, that if only one or two regiments had taken that route early in July, the benefit to India would have been very great, and the difficulties not more than might have been easily conquered.

Next for consideration was the Cape route. Those who admitted that the overland journey was suited only for a small body of troops, and not for an army of thirty thousand men, had yet to settle whether sailing-ships or steamers were best fitted for this service. In some quarters it was urged: ‘Employ our screw war-steamers; we are at peace in Europe, and can send our soldiers quickly by this means to India, without the expense of chartering steamers belonging to companies or private persons. If sufficient bounties are offered, in one week we could obtain seamen enough to man twenty war-steamers. Take the main and lower-deck guns out of the ships; place fifteen hundred troops in each of the large screw line-of-battle ships; and man each ship with half the war complement, the soldiers themselves serving as marines.’ To this it was replied that line-of-battle ships would be dearer rather than cheaper than chartered vessels, because they could not lessen the charge by back-cargoes. Sir Charles Napier contended, moreover, that screw war-steamers could not be fitted out as troop-ships in less than three months after the order was given; and that great difficulty would be found in raising men for them. The government was influenced by these or similar considerations; for no troops were sent out in war-vessels – possibly owing to a prudential wish to keep all war-ships ready for warlike exigencies.

There remained, lastly, the question whether, the Cape route being adopted, it would be better to hire steam-ships or sailing-ships for conveying troops to India. Eager inquiries on this question were made in parliament soon after the news of the outbreak arrived. The ministers, in reference to the superiority of steamers over sailing-ships, stated that, from the difficulty in procuring steamers of the requisite kind, and the delay caused by the number of intermediate points at which they would have to touch for coal, steamers would probably not reach the Indian ports more quickly than sailing-ships. Lord Ellenborough admitted that, when he was in India, sailing-vessels were found better than steamers for India voyages in the autumnal half of the year; but this left untouched the important improvements effected in steam-navigation during the intervening period of fourteen years. The battle was much contested. Sir Charles Wood, First Lord of the Admiralty, pointed out that fast sailing-ships often went from England to Calcutta in 90 to 100 days; that auxiliary screws had been known to take from 90 to 120 days; and therefore that we were not certain of quicker voyages by steam than by sail, even (which was doubtful) if coal enough were procurable at the Cape. This roused the advocates of steaming, who complained that the minister had compared quick sailing-ships with slow steamers. Mr Lindsey asserted that the average duration of twenty-two sail-voyages was 132 days; and that the steam-average would not exceed 94 days. Another authority averred that the average of ninety-eight sail-voyages was 130 days; and that of seven screw-steam voyages, 93 days.

Such were a few of the points brought under consideration, in connection with the schemes for sending troops to India. We mention them here, because they bore intimately on the mutiny and its history. A compromise between the various schemes was effected by the government, in this way: – The ten thousand troops intended to be sent out, as reinforcements, reliefs, and recruits, before the news of the disasters reached England, were despatched as originally intended, in ordinary sailing-vessels; the four thousand additional troops, immediately applied for by the Company, were despatched, half in screw-steamers, and half in fast-sailing clippers; while the six thousand supplied on a still later requisition were sent almost wholly in steamers. It was not until late in the year, when the slowness of most of the voyages had been made manifest, that the superiority of steaming became unquestionable – provided the various coal-depôts could be kept well supplied. Setting aside all further controversy as to the best mode of transit, the activity of the movements was unquestionable. In May and June few of the regiments and ships were ready, and therefore few only were despatched; but after that the rapidity was something remarkable. In July more than thirty troop-laden ships departed from our shores, carrying numbers varying from 131 to 438 soldiers each. August was a still more busy month, in relation both to the number of ships and the average freight of each; there being forty troop-laden ships, carrying from 208 to 1057 soldiers each. In July not a single steam-ship was included in the number; but in August nearly half were steamers. The most remarkable shipments were those in the James Baines clipper sailing-ship (1037 men of the 42d and 92d foot), the Champion of the Seas clipper (1032 men of the 42d and 20th foot) and the Great Britain screw-steamer (1057 men of the 8th Hussars and 17th Lancers). In these three splendid ships the troops were conveyed with a degree of comfort rarely if ever before attained in such service. While the necessary arrangements were in progress for shipping off the twenty-four thousand men chosen by the middle of July, other plans were being organised for despatching further regiments; insomuch that, by the end of the year, very nearly forty thousand men had been sent off to the scene of mutiny. In what order and at what times these troops reached their destination, may usefully be noted in a later page. Towards the close of the year the Suez route was adopted for a few regiments; and the rapidity of passage was such as to lead to much expression of regret that that route had not been adopted earlier – although an opinion continued to prevail on the part of the government and the Company that it would not have been practicable to send the bulk of the army by that means.

Another important question arose during the year, how these troops ought to be clothed, and their health secured. English soldiers complain of their tightly buttoned and buckled garments in hot weather, even in an English climate; but in an Indian summer the oppression of such clothing is very grievous; and much anxiety was manifested, when it became known that thirty or forty thousand troops were to set out for the East, as to the dress to be adopted. The War-office issued a memorandum on the subject, chiefly with the view of allaying public anxiety;[37 - ‘According to existing regulations of some years’ standing, every soldier on his arrival in India is provided with the following articles of clothing, in addition to those which compose his kit in this country:‘Mounted Men. – 4 white jackets, 6 pair of white overalls, 2 pair of Settringee overalls, 6 shirts, 4 pair of cotton socks, 1 pair of white braces.‘Foot-soldiers. – 4 white jackets, 1 pair of English summer trousers, 5 pair of white trousers, 5 white shirts, 2 check shirts, 1 pair of white braces.‘These articles are not supplied in this country, but form a part of the soldier’s necessaries on his arrival in India, and are composed of materials made on the spot, and best suited to the climate.‘During his stay in India, China, Ceylon, and at other hot stations, he is provided with a tunic and shell-jacket in alternate years; and in the year in which the tunic is not issued, the difference in the value of the two articles is paid to the soldier, to be expended (by the officer commanding) for his benefit in any articles suited to the climate of the station.‘The force recently sent out to China and India has been provided with white cotton helmet and forage-cap covers.‘Any quantity of light clothing for troops can be procured on the spot in India at the shortest notice.’] but it became afterwards known that, owing to blunders and accidents similar to those which so disastrously affected the Crimean army, the light clothing, even if sufficient in quantity, was not in the right place at the right time; and our gallant men were only kept from complaining by their excitement at the work to be done. It must at the same time be admitted that, owing to the slowness of the voyages, the majority of the reinforcements did not land in India till the intense heat of summer had passed. In reference to the important question of the health of the troops, Dr James Harrison, of the Company’s service, drew up a series of rules or suggestions, for the use of officers in the management of their troops. These rules, which received the approval of Sir Colin Campbell, bore relation to the hours of marching; the length of each march; the kind of beverage best for the soldier before starting; the marching-dress in hot weather; the precautions against sitting or lying in wet clothes; the necessity for bathing; the best choice of food and the best mode of cooking; the stimulants and beverages, &c.

It would be difficult to enumerate all the modes in which the government, the legislature, and the press, sought to meet the difficulties and remedy the evils arising out of the Indian mutiny; nor would such an enumeration be necessary, further than concerned the really practicable and adopted measures. At a time when each mail from India increased the sum-total of disastrous news, each grievance found its own peculiar expositor, who insisted that that particular grievance had been the main cause of the mutiny, and that a remedy must be found in that particular direction. Nevertheless, in a series of short paragraphs to close the present chapter, it may be possible to sketch the general character of the plans and thoughts that occupied the public mind.

Railways were not forgotten. It was strongly urged that if Indian railways had been begun earlier, and carried to a further stage towards completion, the mutiny either could not have happened at all, or might have been crushed easily by a small force having great powers of locomotion. The disorders in India did not prevent the forwarding of schemes for new lines of railway – such as the Sinde Railway, from Kurachee to Hydrabad, there to be connected with steamers up the Indus to Moultan; the Punjaub Railway, from Moultan to Lahore, there to join the grand trunk railway; the Oude Railway, to supply Lucknow with a series of lines radiating in various directions; and the East Bengal Railway, to accommodate the region eastward of Calcutta. But besides these, the mutiny gave a new impetus to schemes for carrying railways across Western Asia towards India; either from Scutari (opposite Constantinople) to Bagdad, or from Antioch to the Euphrates, with a railway or a steam-route thence through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. Some parts of these schemes were very wild; the projectors, in every case, required guaranteed interest from government, on the ground that the particular railway advocated would form a new and quick route from England to India available for government purposes; but as no guarantee was forthcoming, the schemes remained in abeyance.

Electric telegraphs did not fail to occupy a portion of public favour; and there is no question that their benefit was immense. Every lessening of the time for transmitting a message from India to London, or vice versâ, was so much gained to those responsible for quelling the mutiny. In the middle of 1857, small portions of submarine cable were immersed in the Mediterranean; but by the end of the year the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and Corfu were all connected, greatly shortening the time for transmitting a telegram from Alexandria to Marseille. Superadded to this, the usefulness of the telegraph encouraged the projectors of new lines – from Corfu to Alexandria; from Antioch to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf; from Suez down the Red Sea to Aden and Kurachee. Rival companies occupied much of the public attention; and, had the British government been favourably disposed towards a guarantee or subsidy, engineers were not wanting who would have undertaken to connect London with Calcutta by an unbroken wire.

River-steaming was advocated as one of the great things needed for India. One scheme was for an Indus flotilla. Supposing a hundred miles of railway to be constructed from Kurachee to Hydrabad, then the Indus would be reached at a point whence it is navigable to Moultan for five hundred and seventy miles; and it was proposed for this service to establish a flotilla of fifteen steamers, fitted up for passengers and a little cargo, and each towing two flat-bottom barges for the conveyance of troops and heavy cargo. Irrespective of the success or failure of any particular project, the establishment of steamers on the Indus was unquestionably a practical good to which India had a right to look forward; for, as a glance at a map will shew, the Indus instead of the Ganges seems the natural route of communication from Europe to the upper provinces of India. The Ganges provinces also would undergo an immense development of resources by the increase of steam-navigation on that noble river.

Gun-boats for India did not fail to find advocates. It was deemed almost a certainty that if light-draught vessels of this description had been on two or three of the Indian rivers, especially the Ganges and the Jumna, the mutineers would have met with formidable opponents; and even if the mutiny were quelled, a few gun-boats might act as a cheap substitute for a certain number of troops, in protecting places near the banks of the great rivers. Impressed with this conviction, the East India Company commissioned Messrs Rennie to build a small fleet of high-pressure iron gun-boats; each to have one boiler, two engines, two screw-propellers, and to carry a twelve-pounder gun amidships. The boats were seventy-five feet long by twelve wide, and were so constructed as to be stowed away in the hold of a ship for conveyance from England to India.

The means of locomotion or communication – railways, electric telegraphs, river-steamers, river gun-boats – formed only one portion of the schemes which occupied public thought during the first six months of the mutiny. Still more attention was paid to men – men for fighting in India and for defending our home-coasts. Shortly before the bad news began to arrive from India, a council order announced that the militia would not be called out in 1857; two months afterwards, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, Viscount Palmerston would not admit that circumstances were so serious as to necessitate a change in this arrangement; he thought that recruiting would be cheaper than the militia, as a means of keeping up the strength of the army. In August, however, the ministers obtained an act of parliament empowering them to embody some of the militia during the recess, if the state of public affairs should render such a step necessary. A system of active recruiting commenced, and was continued steadily during several months. These recruits were intended, not to increase the number of regiments, but to add a second battalion to many regiments, and to increase the number of men in each battalion; some of the regiments were, by this twofold process, raised from 800 or 1000 to 2000 or 2400 men each. Volunteers, also, came forward from France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and other foreign countries; but these were mostly adventurers who sought officers’ commissions in India, and their services were not needed. The government made an attempt to encourage enlisting by offering commissions in the army to any private gentlemen who could bring forward a certain number of men each – a project not attended with much success. At certain crises, when the news from India was more than usually disastrous, appeals to patriotism shewed themselves in the newspapers – ‘A Young Englishman;’ ‘Another Young Englishman;’ ‘A True Briton;’ ‘One of the Middle Class;’ or ‘A Young Scotsman’ – would write to the journals, pour out his patriotism or his indignation, and shew what he would do if he only had the power. One proposed that clerks and shopmen out of situations should be embodied into a distinct volunteer corps; another said that, as he was a gentleman, and wished to avenge the foul murder of innocent women and children, he thought that he and such as he ought to be encouraged by commissions in the Indian army; another suggested that, if government would use them well, many young men would volunteer to serve in India, to return to their former mode of life when the mutiny was over. Some, rather in sarcasm than in earnest, suggested that drapers’ shopmen should drop the yard-measure, and go to India to fight; leaving to women the duty of serving muslins, and laces, and tapes. There was a certain meaning in all the suggestions, as expressive of honest indignation at the atrocities in India, especially those at Cawnpore; but, in its practical result, volunteering fell to the ground; and even the militia was not much appealed to. Various improvements were made in the condition of the common soldier; and recruits for the regular army came forward with much readiness.

We must now mention those who offered their monetary instead of their personal services in alleviation of the difficulties experienced in our Indian empire. Long before the mutinies in India had arrived at their greatest height, the question was anxiously debated both in that country and in England, what would be the worldly condition of the numerous families driven from their homes and robbed of all they possessed by the sepoys and marauders at the various stations? Every mail brought home fresh confirmation of the fact that the number of families thus impoverished was rapidly increasing; while on the other hand it was known that the East India Company could not reimburse the sufferers without much previous consideration. For, in the first place, it would have to be considered whether any distinction ought to be made between the two classes of Europeans in India – the civil and military servants of the Company, and those who, independent of the Company, had embarked capital in enterprises connected with indigo factories, opium farms, banks, printing-presses, &c.; and then would come a second inquiry whether the personal property only, or the commercial stock in trade also, should be considered as under the protection of the government. It was felt that immediate suffering ought not to wait for the solution of these questions; that when families had been burnt out or driven out of their homes, penniless and almost unclothed, immediate aid was needed from some quarter or other. This was admitted in the Punjaub, where Sir John Lawrence organised a fund for the relief of the necessitous; and it was admitted at Calcutta, where Lord and Lady Canning headed a subscription for providing shelter, raiment, and food to the hundreds of terrified fugitives who were constantly flocking to that capital. By the time the principal revolts of June were known in England, the last week of August had arrived; and then commenced one of those wonderful efforts in which London takes the lead of all the world – the collection of a large sum of money in a short time to ameliorate the sufferings arising out of some great calamity.

It was on the 25th of August that the lord-mayor presided at a meeting at the Mansion House to establish a fund for the relief of the sufferers by the Indian mutiny. The sum subscribed at the meeting did not much exceed a thousand pounds; but the whole merits of the case being set forth in newspapers, contributions poured in from all quarters, in the same noble spirit as had been manifested during the Crimean disasters. The high-born and the wealthy contributed large sums; the middle classes rendered their aid; country committees and town committees organised local subscriptions; large sums, made up of many small elements, were raised as collections after sermons in the churches and chapels; and when the Queen’s subjects in foreign and colonial regions heard of this movement, they sought to shew that they too shared in the common English feeling. Thousands swelled to tens of thousands, these to a hundred thousand, until in the course of a few months the fund rose to three or four hundred thousand pounds. In order to give system to the operations, thirty-five thousand circulars were issued, by the central committee in London, to all the authorities in church and state, to the ambassadors and ministers at foreign courts, to the governors of British colonies, and to the consuls at foreign ports.

This Mutiny Relief Fund was administered by four committees – General, Financial, Relief, and Ladies’ Committees. The General Committee settled the principles on which the fund was to be administered, determined the amount and destinations of the remittances to India, and controlled the proceedings of the subordinate committees. The Financial Committee supervised the accounts, the investments of the money, and the arrangement of remittances. The Relief Committee decided on applications for relief, on the administration of relief by donation or by loan, and on the application of means for the maintenance and education of children. The Ladies’ Committee took charge of such details as pertained more particularly to their own sex. Each of these committees met once a week. The first remittance was a sum of £2000 to Calcutta, to relieve some of the families who had been driven by the mutineers to seek shelter in that city. This was followed by frequent large remittances to the same place, and to Agra, Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay, and Lahore. Committees, formed in Calcutta and Bombay, corresponded with the head committee in London, and joined in carrying out plans for the expenditure of the fund. The donations and loans to persons who had arrived in England were small in amount; most of the aid being afforded to those who had not been able to leave India. The money was put out at interest as fast as the amount in hand exceeded the immediate requirements. At one time the government made an offer to appoint a royal commission for the administration of the fund; but this was declined; and there has been no reason for thinking that the transference of authority would have been beneficial. It was soon found that there were five classes of sufferers who would greatly need assistance from this fund – families of civil and military officers whose bungalows and furniture had been destroyed at the stations; the families of assistants, clerks, and other subordinate employés at the stations; European private traders and settlers, many of whom had been utterly impoverished; many missionary families and educational establishments; and the families of a large number of pensioners, overseers, artificers, indigo-workers, schoolmasters, shopkeepers, hotel-keepers, newspaper printers, &c. To apportion the amount of misery among these five classes would be impossible; but the past chapters of this work have afforded examples, sufficiently sad and numerous, of the mode in which all ranks of Europeans in India were suddenly plunged into want and desolation. At Agra, when the fort had been relieved from a long investment or siege by the rebels, almost the entire Christian population was not only houseless, but the majority were without the most essential articles of furniture or clothing; nearly all were living in cellars and vaults. At many other stations it was nearly as bad; at Lucknow it was still worse.

India speedily raised thirty thousand pounds on its own account, irrespective of aid from England; and most of this was expended at Calcutta in providing as follows: Board and lodging on arrival at Calcutta for refugees without homes or friends to receive them; clothing for refugees; monthly allowances for the support of families who were not boarded and lodged out of the fund; loans for purchasing furniture, clothing, &c.; free grants for similar purposes; passage and diet money on board Ganges steamers; loans to officers and others to pay for the passage of their families to England; free passage to England for the widows and families of officers; and education of the children of sufferers. These were nearly the same purposes as those to which the larger English fund was applied. The East India Company adopted a wholly distinct system in recognising the just claims of the officers more immediately in its service, and of the widows and children of those who fell during the mutiny – a system based on the established emoluments and pensions of all in the Company’s service.

It will thus be seen that the news of the Indian Revolt, when it reached London by successive mails, led to a remarkable and important series of suggestions and plans – intended either to strengthen the hands of the executive in dealing with the mutineers, or to succour those who had been plunged into want by the crimes of which those mutineers were the chief perpetrators.

Note

At the end of the last chapter a table was given of the number of troops, European and native, in all the military divisions of India, on the day when the mutiny commenced at Meerut. It will be convenient to present here a second tabulation on a wholly different basis – giving the designations of the regiments instead of the numbers of men, and naming the stations instead of the divisions in which they were cantoned or barracked. This will be useful for purposes of reference, in relation to the gradual annihilation of the Bengal Hindustani army. The former table applied to the 10th of May 1857; the present will apply to a date as near this as the East India Register will permit – namely, the 6th of May; while the royal troops in India will be named according to the Army List for the 1st of May – a sufficiently near approximation for the present purpose. A few possible sources of error may usefully be pointed out. 1. Some or other of the India regiments were at all times moving from station to station; and these movements may in a few cases render it doubtful whether a particular corps had or had not left a particular station on the day named. 2. The station named is that of the head-quarters and the bulk of the regiment: detachments may have been at other places. 3. The Persian and Chinese wars disturbed the distribution of troops belonging to the respective presidencies. 4. The disarming and disbanding at Barrackpore and Berhampore are not taken into account; for they were not known in London at the time of compiling the official list. 5. The Army List, giving an enumeration of royal regiments in India, did not always note correctly the actual stations at a particular time. These sources of error, however, will not be considerable in amount.

Grenadiers.

Volunteers.

Volunteers.

Goorkhas.

Removed to Calcutta.

Rifles.

Grenadiers.

Grenadiers.

Rifles.

The first troop of horse-artillery was called Leslie’s Troop.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SIEGE OF DELHI: JUNE AND JULY

While these varied scenes were being presented; while sepoy regiments were revolting throughout the whole breadth of Northern India, and a handful of British troops was painfully toiling to control them; while Henry Lawrence was struggling, and struggling even to death, to maintain his position in Oude; while John Lawrence was sagaciously managing the half-wild Punjaub at a troublous time; while Wheeler at Cawnpore, and Colvin at Agra, were beset in the very thick of the mutineers; while Neill and Havelock were advancing up the Jumna; while Canning was doing his best at Calcutta, Harris and Elphinstone at Madras and Bombay, and the imperial government at home, to meet the trying difficulties with a determined front – while all this was doing, Delhi was the scene of a continuous series of operations. Every eye was turned towards that place. The British felt that there was no security for their power in India till Delhi was retaken; the insurgents knew that they had a rallying-point for all their disaffected countrymen, so long as the Mogul city was theirs; and hence bands of armed men were attracted thither by antagonistic motives. Although the real siege did not commence till many weary weeks had passed, the plan and preparations for it must be dated from the very day when the startling news spread over India that Delhi had been seized by rebellious sepoys, under the auspices of the decrepit, dethroned, debauched representative of the Moguls.

It was, as we have already seen (p. 70 (#x_16_i3)), on the morning of Monday the 11th of May, that the 11th and 20th regiments Bengal native infantry, and the 3d Bengal cavalry, arrived at Delhi after a night-march from Meerut, where they had mutinied on the preceding evening. At Delhi, we have also seen, those mutineers were joined by the 38th, 54th, and 74th native infantry. It was on that same 11th of May that evening saw the six mutinous regiments masters of the imperial city; and the English officers and residents, their wives and children, wanderers through jungles and over streams and rivers. What occurred within Delhi on the subsequent days is imperfectly known; the few Europeans who could not or did not escape were in hiding; and scanty notices only have ever come to light from those or other sources. A Lahore newspaper, three or four months afterwards, gave a narrative prepared by a native, who was within Delhi from the 21st of May to the 23d of June. Arriving ten days after the mutiny, he found the six regiments occupying the Selimgurh and Mohtabagh, but free to roam over the city; where the sepoys and sowars, aided by the rabble of the place, plundered the better houses and shops, stole horses from those who possessed them, ‘looted’ the passengers who crossed the Jumna by the bridge of boats, and fought with each other for the property which the fleeing British families had left behind them. After a few days, something like order was restored, by leaders who assumed command in the name of the King of Delhi. This was all the more necessary when new arrivals of insurgent troops took place, from Allygurh, Minpooree, Agra, Muttra, Hansi, Hissar, Umballa, Jullundur, Nuseerabad, and other places. The mutineers did not, at any time, afford proof that they were really well commanded; but still there was command, and the defence of the city was arranged on a definite plan. As at Sebastopol, so at Delhi; the longer the besiegers delayed their operations, the greater became the number of defenders within the place, and the stronger the defence-works.

It must be remembered, in tracing the history of the siege of Delhi, that every soldier necessary for forming the siege-army had to be brought from distant spots. The cantonment outside the city was wholly in the hands of the rebels; and not a British soldier remained in arms in or near the place. Mr Colvin at Agra speedily heard the news, but he had no troops to send for the recapture. General Hewett had a British force at Meerut – unskilfully handled, as many persons thought and still think; and it remained to be seen what arrangements the commander-in-chief could make to render this and other forces available for the reconquest of the important city.

Major-general Sir Henry Barnard was the medium of communication on this occasion. Being stationed at Umballa, in command of the Sirhind military division, he received telegraphic messages on the 11th of May from Meerut and Delhi, announcing the disasters at those places. He immediately despatched his aid-de-camp to Simla, to point out the urgent need for General Anson’s presence on the plains instead of among the hills. Anson, hearing this news on the 12th, first thought about his troops, and then about his own movements. Knowing well the extreme paucity of European regiments in the Delhi and Agra districts, and in all the region thence eastward to Calcutta, he saw that any available force to recover possession of Delhi must come chiefly from Sirhind and the Punjaub. Many regiments were at the time at the hill-stations of Simla, Dugshai, Kussowlie, Deyrah Dhoon, Subathoo, &c., where they were posted during a time of peace in a healthy temperate region; but now they had to descend from their sanitaria to take part in stern operations in the plains. The commander-in-chief sent instant orders to transfer the Queen’s 75th foot from Kussowlie to Umballa, the 1st and 2d Bengal Europeans from Dugshai to Umballa, the Sirmoor battalion from Deyrah Dhoon to Meerut, two companies of the Queen’s 8th foot from Jullundur to Phillour, and two companies of the Queen’s 81st foot, together with one company of European artillery, from Lahore to Umritsir. These orders given, General Anson himself left Simla on the evening of the 14th, and arrived at Umballa early on the 15th. Before he started, he issued the proclamation already adverted to, announcing to the troops of the native army generally that no cartridges would be brought into use against the conscientious wishes of the soldiery; and after he arrived at Umballa, fearing that his proclamation had not been strong enough, he issued another, to the effect that no new cartridges whatever should be served out – thereby, as he hoped, putting an end to all fear concerning objectionable lubricating substances being used; for he was not aware how largely hypocrisy was mixed up with sincerity in the native scruples on this point.

Anson and Barnard, when together at Umballa, had to measure well the forces available to them. The Umballa magazines were nearly empty of stores and ammunition; the artillery wagons were in the depôt at Phillour; the medical officers dreaded the heat for troops to move in such a season; and the commissariat was ill supplied with vehicles and beasts of burden and draught. The only effectual course was found to be, that of bringing small detachments from many different stations; and this system was in active progress during the week following Anson’s arrival at Umballa. On the 16th, troops came into that place from Phillour and Subathoo. On the 17th arrived three European regiments from the Hills,[38 - The troops at Umballa on the 17th comprised:] which were shortly to be strengthened by artillery from Phillour. The prospect was not altogether a cheering one, for two of the regiments at the station were Bengal native troops (the 5th and 60th), on whose fidelity only slight reliance could be placed at such a critical period. In order that no time might he lost in forming the nucleus of a force for Delhi, some of the troops were despatched that same night; comprising one wing of a European regiment, a few horse, and two guns. On successive days, other troops took their departure as rapidly as the necessary arrangements could be made; but Anson was greatly embarrassed by the distance between Umballa and the station where the siege-guns were parked; he knew that a besieging army would be of no use without those essential adjuncts; and it was on that account that he was unable to respond to Viscount Canning’s urgent request that he would push on rapidly towards Delhi.