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

‘5. The governor-general has reason to believe that an impression exists in Rohilcund that the Mohammedan population, as such, is to be proscribed and crushed. It is likely that the rumour has been raised and fostered by the rebel leaders to excite apprehension and mistrust of the government. His lordship desires that every appropriate occasion may be taken to disabuse the people of this gross error. Such suspected rebels as may be brought to trial will be tried each by his own acts. Each will stand or fall by the line of conduct which he shall be proved to have followed. The government will maintain, as it has always maintained, a strict impartiality in its administration. Equal justice will be shared by all its subjects, whether Hindoos or Mohammedans. You will make public these views, and instruct the chief district officers to make them widely known, in such manner as may appear to be most effectual.

‘6. It will be your care, in accordance with the injunctions of his lordship’s orders, embodied in the circular order dated the 19th February, to bring forward, for early notice by the governor-general, the several examples of conspicuously faithful conduct exhibited by many of the inhabitants of Rohilcund, under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. – I have, &c.,

‘W. Muir,

‘Sec. to Govt. NW. P.’

G

We now transfer attention to four of the documents written in London. The first was nominally from the ‘Secret Committee,’ really from the Earl of Ellenborough, and was suggested by the state of affairs in India during the second half of the month of February:

‘The Secret Committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to the Governor-general of India in Council, March 24, 1858

‘The telegram from Calcutta, dated the 22d ult., which arrived this morning, conveys intelligence of the concentration of the force under the commander-in-chief, and of that under Jung Bahadoor, upon Lucknow; and we trust we may indulge the expectation that, ere this, that city has been evacuated by the rebels, and that no considerable corps remains united against us in the field.

‘2. If this happy result should have been attained, it will be very satisfactory to us to learn that you have deemed yourselves sufficiently strong to be enabled to act towards the people with the generosity, as well as the justice, which are congenial to the British character.

‘3. Crimes have been committed against us which it would be a crime to forgive; and some large exceptions there must be, of the persons guilty of such crimes, from any act of amnesty which could be granted; but it must be as impossible, as it would be abhorrent from our feelings, to inflict the extreme penalty which the law might strictly award upon all who have swerved from their allegiance.

‘4. To us it appears that, whenever open resistance shall have ceased, it would be prudent, in awarding punishment, rather to follow the practice which prevails after the conquest of a country which has defended itself to the last by desperate war, than that which may perhaps be lawfully adopted after the suppression of mutiny and rebellion, such acts always being excepted from forgiveness or mitigation of punishment as have exceeded the licence of legitimate hostilities.

‘5. While we may be unable to forget the insanity which, during the last ten months, has pervaded the army and a large portion of the people, we should at the same time remember the previous fidelity of a hundred years, and so conduct ourselves towards those who have erred as to remove their delusions and their fears, and re-establish, if we can, that confidence which was so long the foundation of our power.

‘6. It would be desirable that, in every case, the disarming of a district, either by the seizure of arms or by their surrender, should precede the application to it of any amnesty; but there may be circumstances which would render expedient a different course of proceeding. Upon these exceptional cases, you and the officers acting under your orders must decide.

‘7. The disarming of a district having been effected, with exceptions, under your licence, in favour of native gentlemen, whose feelings of honour would be affected by being deprived of the privilege of wearing arms, and of any other persons in whom you may confide, we think the possession of arms should be punished in every case by a severe penalty; but unless the possession of arms should be combined with other acts, leading to the conclusion that they were retained for the perpetration of crimes, that penalty should not be death. Of course the possession of arms by Englishmen must always remain lawful.

‘8. Death has of late been but too common a punishment. It loses whatever terror it might otherwise have when so indiscriminately applied; but, in fact, in India there is not commonly a fear of death, although there ever must be a fear of pain.

‘9. In every amnestied district, the ordinary administration of the law should as soon as possible be restored.

‘10. In carrying these views into execution, you may meet with obstruction from those who, maddened by the scenes they have witnessed, may desire to substitute their own policy for that of the government; but persevere firmly in doing what you may think right; make those who would counteract you feel that you are resolved to rule, and that you will be served by none who will not obey.

‘11. Acting in this spirit, you may rely upon our unqualified support.’

H

Three or four weeks afterwards, was written the ‘secret dispatch’ which gave rise to so vehement a debate in parliament:

‘April 19, 1858.

‘Our letter of the 24th of March 1858 will have put you in possession of our general views with respect to the treatment of the people in the event of the evacuation of Lucknow by the enemy.

‘2. On the 12th inst., we received from you a copy of the letter, dated the 3d of March, addressed by your secretary to the secretary to the chief-commissioner in Oude, which letter enclosed a copy of the proclamation to be issued by the chief-commissioner as soon as the British troops should have command of the city of Lucknow, and conveyed instructions as to the manner in which he was to act with respect to different classes of persons, in execution of the views of the governor-general.

‘3. The people of Oude will see only the proclamation.

‘4. That authoritative expression of the will of the government informs the people that six persons, who are named as having been steadfast in their allegiance, are henceforward the sole hereditary proprietors of the lands they held when Oude came under British rule, subject only to such moderate assessment as may be imposed upon them; that others in whose favour like claims may be established will have conferred upon them a proportionate measure of reward and honour; and that, with these exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of the province is confiscated to the British government.

‘5. We cannot but express to you our apprehension that this decree, pronouncing the disinherison of a people, will throw difficulties almost insurmountable in the way of the re-establishment of peace.

‘6. We are under the impression that the war in Oude has derived much of its popular character from the rigorous manner in which, without regard to what the chief landholders had become accustomed to consider as their rights, the summary settlement had, in a large portion of the province, been carried out by your officers.

‘7. The landholders of India are as much attached to the soil occupied by their ancestors, and are as sensitive with respect to the rights in the soil they deem themselves to possess, as the occupiers of land in any country of which we have a knowledge.

‘8. Whatever may be your ultimate and undisclosed intentions, your proclamation will appear to deprive the great body of the people of all hope upon the subject most dear to them as individuals, while the substitution of our rule for that of their native sovereign has naturally excited against us whatever they may have of national feeling.

‘9. We cannot but in justice consider that those who resist our authority in Oude are under very different circumstances from those who have acted against us in provinces which have been long under our government.

‘10. We dethroned the King of Oude, and took possession of his kingdom, by virtue of a treaty which had been subsequently modified by another treaty, under which, had it been held to be in force, the course we adopted could not have been lawfully pursued; but we held that it was not in force, although the fact of its not having been ratified in England, as regarded the provision on which we rely for our justification, had not been previously made known to the King of Oude.

‘11. That sovereign and his ancestors had been uniformly faithful to their treaty engagements with us, however ill they may have governed their subjects.

‘12. They had more than once assisted us in our difficulties, and not a suspicion had ever been entertained of any hostile disposition on their part towards our government.

‘13. Suddenly the people saw their king taken from amongst them, and our administration substituted for his, which, however bad, was at least native; and this sudden change of government was immediately followed by a summary settlement of the revenue, which, in a very considerable portion of the province, deprived the most influential landholders of what they deemed to be their property – of what certainly had long given wealth, and distinction, and power to their families.

‘14. We must admit that, under these circumstances, the hostilities which have been carried on in Oude have rather the character of legitimate war than that of rebellion, and that the people of Oude should rather be regarded with indulgent consideration, than made the objects of a penalty exceeding in extent and in severity almost any which has been recorded in history as inflicted upon a subdued nation.

‘15. Other conquerors, when they have succeeded in overcoming resistance, have excepted a few persons as still deserving of punishment, but have, with a generous policy, extended their clemency to the great body of the people.

‘16. You have acted upon a different principle. You have reserved a few as deserving of special favour, and you have struck with what they will feel as the severest of punishment the mass of the inhabitants of the country.

‘17. We cannot but think that the precedents from whom you have departed will appear to have been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to that which appears in the precedent you have made.

‘18. We desire that you will mitigate in practice the stringent severity of the decree of confiscation you have issued against the landholders of Oude.

‘19. We desire to see British authority in India rest upon the willing obedience of a contented people; there cannot be contentment where there is general confiscation.

‘20. Government cannot long be maintained by any force in a country where the whole people is rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and if it were possible so to maintain it, it would not be a consummation to be desired.’

I

The Court of Directors, before the secret dispatch became known to them, adopted courteous language in the following letter of instructions sent to Viscount Canning, referring to an earlier communication:

‘May 5, 1858.

‘1. You will have received, by the mail of the 25th of March, a letter from the secret committee, which has since been laid before us, respecting the policy which it becomes you to pursue towards those natives of India who have recently been in arms against the authority of the British government.

‘2. That letter emphatically confirms the principles which you have already adopted, as set forth in your circular of the 31st of July 1857, by impressing upon you the propriety of pursuing, after the conquest of the revolted provinces, a course of policy distinguished by a wise and discriminating generosity. You are exhorted to temper justice with mercy, and, except in cases of extreme criminality, to grant an amnesty to the vanquished. In the sentiments expressed by the secret committee we entirely concur. While there are some crimes which humanity calls upon you to punish with the utmost severity, there are others of a less aggravated character, which it would be equally unjust and impolitic not to pardon and to forget.

‘3. The offences with which you will be called upon to deal are of three different kinds. Firstly, high crimes, instigated by malice prepense, and aggravated by treachery and cruelty. Secondly, offences the results rather of weakness than of malice, into which it is believed that many have been drawn by the contamination of example, by the fear of opposing themselves to their more powerful countrymen, or by the belief that they have been compromised by the acts of their associates, rather than by any active desire to embarrass the existing government. And, thirdly, offences of a less positive character, amounting to little more than passive connivance at evil, or at most to the act of giving such assistance to the rebels as, if not given, would have been forcibly extorted, and which in many cases it would have been death to refuse to bodies of licentious and exasperated mutineers.

‘4. It is the first only of these offences, the perpetrators of which, and their accomplices, it will be your duty to visit with the severest penalty which you can inflict; and it is, happily, in such cases of exceptional atrocity, that you will have the least difficulty in proving both the commission of the offence and the identity of the offender. In the other cases you might often be left in doubt, not only of the extent of the offence committed, but of its actual commission by the accused persons; and although we are aware that the retribution which might be righteously inflicted upon the guilty may be in some measure restricted by too much nicety of specification, and that, in dealing with so large a mass of crime, it is difficult to avoid the commission of some acts of individual injustice, we may still express our desire that the utmost exertion may be made to confine, within the smallest possible compass, these cases of uncertain proof and dubious identity, even though your retributary measures should thus fall short of what in strict justice might be inflicted.

‘5. As soon as you have suppressed the active hostility of the enemy, your first care will be the restoration of public confidence. It will be your privilege when the disorganised provinces shall no longer be convulsed by intestine disorder, to set an example of toleration and forbearance towards the subject people, and to endeavour by every means consistent with the security of the British empire in the east, to allay the irritation and suspicion, which, if suffered to retain possession of the minds of the native and European inhabitants of the country, will eventually lead to nothing less calamitous than a war of races.

‘6. In dealing with the people of Oude, you will doubtless be moved by special considerations of justice and of policy. Throughout the recent contest, we have ever regarded such of the inhabitants of that country as – not being sepoys or pensioners of our own army – have been in arms against us as an exceptional class. They cannot be considered as traitors or even rebels, for they had not pledged their fidelity to us, and they had scarcely become our subjects. Many, by the introduction of a new system of government, had necessarily been deprived of the maintenance they had latterly enjoyed; and others feared that the speedy loss of their means of subsistence must follow from the same course. It was natural that such persons should avail themselves of the opportunity presented by the distracted state of the country, to strike a blow for the restoration of the native rule, under which the permitted disorganisation of the country had so long been to them a source of unlawful profit. Neither the disbanded soldiers of the late native government, nor the great thalookdars and their retainers, were under any obligation of fidelity to our government for benefits conferred upon them. You would be justified, therefore, in dealing with them as you would with a foreign enemy, and in ceasing to consider them objects of punishment after they have once laid down their arms.