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

The Doab had undergone a wonderful improvement during the winter months. District after district was gradually falling out of the enemy’s hands, and into the power of the British. Nevertheless, there was much need for caution. The insurgents were cunning, and often appeared where little expected. The commander-in-chief’s operations, in February as in December, were influenced by the necessity of providing for the safety of non-combatants escaping from the scenes of strife. In the earlier month, as we have already seen, Sir Colin could not chastise the Gwalior mutineers until he had sent off the women, children, sick, and wounded from Lucknow to Cawnpore, Futtehpoor, and Allahabad; and now, in February, he had to secure the passage of a convoy from Agra, comprising a large number of ladies and 140 children. Protected by the 3d Bengal Europeans, some irregular horse, and two guns, these helpless persons left Agra on the 11th of February, and proceeded by way of Ferozabad and Minpooree to Cawnpore – thence to be forwarded to Allahabad. On the way, the convoy watched narrowly for any indications of the presence of Nena Sahib, who was reported to be in movement somewhere in that quarter.

Of Delhi, the chief matter here to be noticed, is the trial of the old imprisoned king, for complicity in the mutiny and its atrocities. Without formally limiting the account to the month of February, the general course of the investigation may briefly be traced.

The trial commenced on the 27th of January, in the celebrated imperial chamber of the Dewani Khas, the ‘Elysium’ where in former days Mogul power had been displayed in all its gorgeousness. The tribunal was a court-martial, all the members being military officers. The president was Colonel Dawes (in lieu of Brigadier Showers, who, though first appointed, had been obliged to leave for service elsewhere). The other members were Major Palmer, Major Redmond, Major Sawyers, and Captain Rothney. Major Harriott, deputy-judge-advocate-general, officiated as government prosecutor. The charges against the king were set forth under four headings.127 It may be doubted whether the wearisome legal phraseology (’to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war’ – ‘treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with,’ &c.) was well fitted for the purpose; but this may depend on the mode in which the English was translated into Hindustani.

It was impossible for the spectators to regard without emotion the appearance of the aged monarch, the last representative of a long line of Indian potentates, thus brought as a culprit before a tribunal of English officers. Even those who considered him simply as a hoary-headed villain were interested by the proceedings. After being in attendance some time, sitting in a palanquin outside the court, under a guard of Rifles, he was summoned within at about noon. He appeared very infirm, and tottered into court supported on one side by his favourite son, Jumma Bukht, and on the other by a confidential servant. He sat coiled up on a cushion at the left of the president; and ‘presented such a picture of helpless imbecility as, under other circumstances, must have awakened pity.’ His son stood a few yards to the left, and the guard of Rifles beyond all.

After the members of the court, the prosecutor, and the interpreter, had taken the usual oaths, the prosecutor proceeded to read the charges against the prisoner. He next addressed the court in a concise and explanatory manner; and announced that, though the king would be tried to ascertain whether he were guilty or not guilty, no capital sentence could be passed upon him, in consequence of his life having been guaranteed to him by Sir Archdale Wilson, through Captain Hodson. When the king was asked, through the interpreter, whether he was guilty or innocent, he professed to be ignorant of the nature of the charges against him. This, however, was affected ignorance, for the charges had long before been presented to him, translated into his own language. After considerable delay, he pleaded ‘not guilty.’

During several sittings of the court, occupying many weeks, numerous witnesses were examined. Among them were Jutmull, Mukkhun Lall, Captain Forrest, Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, Hussun Uskeree, Bukhtawar, Kishen, Chunee, Golam, Essamoola Khan, and other persons, European, Eurasian or half-caste, and native. The evidence brought against the king was of very varied character, tending to shew that he both aided in inciting the mutiny, and in encouraging the atrocities of the mutineers. Some of the evidence proved that, so long ago as the summer of 1856, the King of Delhi had been in correspondence with the Shah of Persia, touching an overturning of the English ‘raj’ in India: in a manner and at a time corresponding with the advance of the Persians towards Herat. Other portions confirmed the fact that many of the massacres at Delhi, at the beginning of the Revolt, were sanctioned by the palace profligates, and even committed immediately under the king’s own apartments. Sir T. Metcalfe, in his evidence, stated it as his opinion, derived from an intimate acquaintance with Delhi and its inhabitants, that the Revolt was the legitimate fruit of a Mussulman conspiracy; that the courts of Delhi and Lucknow were concerned in this conspiracy; that the war with Persia helped to strengthen it; that the Hindoos were used as tools in the matter by the Mohammedans; and that the affair of the greased cartridges was regarded as a lucky opportunity for enlisting Hindoo prejudices.

During the trial the king displayed a mingled silliness and cunning that revealed much of his character. Sometimes, while the evidence was being taken, he would coil himself up on his cushion, and appear lost in the land of dreams. Except when anything particular struck him, he paid, or appeared to pay, no attention whatever to the proceedings. On one of the days he was aroused from sleep, to reply to a question put by the court. Sometimes he would rouse up, as if by some sudden impulse, and make an exclamation in denial of a witness’s statement. Once, when the intrigues of Persia were under notice, he asked whether the Persians and the Russians were the same people. On the twelfth day of the trial, the king was more animated than usual; he several times declared his innocence of everything; and amused himself by twisting and untwisting a scarf round his head.

Without tracing the incidents of the trial day by day, or quoting the evidence, it may suffice to say that the guilt of the aged sinner was sufficiently proved, on some if not all of the charges. The safety of his life being guaranteed, imprisonment became the only probable punishment. He was sentenced for the rest of his days to transportation – either to one of the Andaman Islands (a group in the eastern portion of the Bay of Bengal), or to some other place that might be selected. It may not be inappropriate to mention that some of the witnesses proved that Mr Colvin at Agra, and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe at Delhi, were told of a forthcoming Mohammedan conspiracy many weeks before the Meerut outbreak; so utterly, however, did these authorities disregard the rumour, that they did not even report it to the Calcutta government. There were only a few men in India, in the spring of 1857, who believed that the British ‘raj’ was ‘on the edge of a volcano.’

In connection with the fate of the old king, much attention was necessarily bestowed on the past conduct of his favourite young wife, the intriguing Sultana Zeenat Mahal, the ‘dark, fat, shrewd, but sensual-looking woman,’ whom Mrs Hodson visited in the prison,128 in relation to the Revolt. Ever since the year 1853, a feud had existed in the royal family, arising out of the polygamic troubles so frequent in oriental countries. The king, instigated by Zeenat Mahal, wished to name the child of his old age, Mirza Jumma Bukht, heir to the throne of Akbar; but the British government insisted on recognising the superior claims of an elder son, Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen. Strife and contest immediately commenced, and never ceased until one obstacle was removed from the path. Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen died in 1856, as alleged, of cholera, but not without suspicion of foul play. From that time till the beginning of the mutiny in the following year, the imperial palace was a focus of intriguing. The sultana bent her whole energies towards obtaining the heirship to the throne of the Moguls for her own son. She was known to have declared that this object would be persistently and steadily pursued, and to have opened many communications thereon with the authorities at Calcutta. When, however, it was announced that a grandson of the king should, after him, possess all that remained of imperial power, her plans were at once dashed. It thenceforward became a question with her whether, by an overturn of the English ‘raj,’ she could obtain that which was denied to her by the government; and when other sources of revolt and rebellion appeared, there was an intelligible reason why she should encourage the insurgents. Nothing came out at the trial so clear as to fix guilt unquestionably upon her; but there remained on men’s minds a suspicion to which collateral circumstances afforded much probability.

Transferring attention from Delhi to Rohilcund and the Hills, it may at once be explained that little occurred during the month of February requiring detailed notice. The time had not yet arrived when Sir Colin Campbell could send strong columns to sweep away the rebels in that quarter. Bareilly was still the head-quarters of a rebel force, which ruled almost the whole of Rohilcund. Khan Bahadoor Khan, the self-appointed chief, had still around him a large body of revolted sepoys and insurgent retainers; and in the whole region between Oude on the one side, and Delhi and Meerut on the other, very little was under British control. The time, however, for making a demonstration in this quarter was approaching. Among other military arrangements planned about the middle of February, was the formation of a movable column at Meerut, to be held in readiness to march anywhere at a short notice. It was to consist of a squadron of Carabiniers, a wing of the 60th Rifles, a wing of the Belooch battalion, the 1st Punjaub infantry, the Moultanee horse, a field-battery, two 18-pounders, and one 8-inch howitzer. There was at the same time at Looksar, near Roorkee, a small force under Captain Brind, consisting of a squadron of Carabiniere, Hughes’s irregular cavalry, detachments of Coke’s Rifles, of the Nusseree battalion, and of the 3d Punjaub infantry, and a troop of horse-artillery. At Roorkee another corps was to be formed, under Major Coke, to consist of Punjaub regiments about to arrive. It was proposed that these three bodies – the movable column at Meerut, Brind’s corps at Looksar, and Coke’s corps at Roorkee – should ultimately form a Rohilcund field-force, under General Penny. What was effected by means of this force, will come for notice in a future page; little could be achieved until the commander-in-chief had broken the strength of the enemy in Oude, now the great centre of rebellion.

The hilly country in and around Kumaon, although too far removed from the Jumna regions to be frequently engaged in the horrors of war, was nevertheless occasionally made a battle-ground between hostile forces. Early in February, Colonel M’Causland, commanding in Kumaon, formed a camp at Huldwanee, to protect the Kumaon hills, and to clear the Barbur and Turale districts of rebels. He found two formidable bodies of the enemy threatening that region. One, under a leader named Fuzul Huq, consisting of 4000 men and 6 guns, was encamped at Sunda, in a strong position on the banks of the Sookhee river, about fifteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Peleebheet road. The other, under Khali Khan, consisting of 5000 men and 4 guns, was encamped at Churpurah, on the Paha Nuddee, sixteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Bareilly road. So far as could be judged, it appeared as if these 9000 men intended to make a combined attack on Huldwanee, and then to force the hill-passes. To encounter these enemies, M’Causland’s force was but small, consisting of 700 Goorkha infantry, 200 horse, and 2 field-guns; nevertheless he resolved to confront them boldly. On the 9th of February he commenced a movement intended to prevent the junction of the two hostile forces. In the dead of the night, leaving his tents to be guarded by a few men in a barricaded square called the Mundee, he marched out as quietly as possible to the place occupied by Khali Khan’s army. He came up to them at daybreak on the 10th, and found them encamped in a strong position; with their rear and left protected by the Paha Nuddee, a small village filled with infantry on their right flank, their front protected by rough ground intersected with nullahs and long jungle-grass, and the road commanded by four pieces of artillery. So completely did he surprise them, that when his cavalry first appeared, the rebels thought their allies under Fuzul Huq had arrived. Finding the enemy’s right flank the best to attack, the colonel sent most of his men to that point, covered by the fire of his two guns. The contest was sharp and severe. In about an hour the Goorkhas had captured the enemy’s guns, cut down every artilleryman serving them, and dislodged the enemy from the village. Meanwhile the few horse made a gallant charge, repulsing a superior body of the enemy’s cavalry, and taking a standard. The colonel’s two guns worked immense execution among the enemy’s cavalry, ‘into which’ (to use the professional language of the commander) ‘they poured shrapnel with beautiful precision and tremendous effect.’ The victory was complete. The enemy lost their guns, ammunition, standing-camp, baggage, 300 killed, and 600 wounded. The colonel, having thus defeated nearly six times his number, returned to Huldwanee – his gallant Goorkhas having marched thirty-four miles and fought a severe battle in thirteen hours. It was deemed necessary to return at once, lest their prolonged absence from Huldwanee should tempt Fuzul Huq, whose army was not far distant, to make a dash on the camp and station.

Nynee Tal was deeply interested in all these movements. During February it was hemmed in by the rebels on one side, and by the hill-snows on the other. The enemy, deterred by the gallant force at Huldwanee, hoped to penetrate to the little colony by a detour through the Kulleedongee Pass. This hope, however, was not worth much to them; for the pass was long and fatiguing; and near its top was a small body of Goorkhas, who, with a few guns, were determined to make a stout resistance if any attack were made.

The Punjaub and Sinde were nearly at peace. The few instances of turbulence, or of military operation, may pass without record here.

In that vast range of country which has in so many chapters required attention, comprising Rajpootana, Gujerat, Central India, the Mahratta States, Bundelcund, and the Saugor territories, the month of February exhibited the gradual strengthening of British columns sent up from Bombay and Madras, and the success of numerous small engagements in which the names of Rose, Roberts, Orr, Whitlock, Stuart, Steuart, and other officers are concerned. Being small in themselves, these engagements hardly need separate notice; but taken collectively, they tended to assist the commander-in-chief’s plans towards the general pacification of India.

The month of February witnessed the conclusion of a series of services rendered by a small force under somewhat remarkable circumstances. Mention has frequently been made of Captain Osborne, political agent at Rewah, almost the only Englishman within a turbulent district. Fortunately, the Rajahs of Rewah and Nagode remained faithful to the British; they, with the aid of Osborne, formed a corps of such of their native troops as they felt could be trusted; and this corps was placed under Colonel Hinde for active service. It was November when the corps was first organised; but, the troops being undisciplined, badly equipped, and badly armed, and the arrangements for marching and camping being very defective, it was the middle of December before the corps started from the town of Rewah. The duty to be performed was to keep open and safe the road from Rewah to Jubbulpoor (one of the great highways of India), and to capture such forts by the way as were in hostile hands. Imperfect as were the materials at his command, Colonel Hinde nevertheless, between the middle of December and the middle of February, captured six forts, forty guns, two mortars, and two standards; rendered the great road to the Deccan secure; re-established dâk and police bungalows; restored order in the Myhere territory; annexed the small territory of the rebellious chieftains of Bijeeragooghar; appointed tehsildars and police therein; and captured a large number of turbulent rebels. The six forts taken were Kunchunpore, Goonah, Myhere, Jokai, Khunwara, and Bijeeragooghar. These services having been rendered, Captain Osborne recalled the corps to Rewah; and the governor-general thanked both him and Colonel Hinde for what they had effected in a troubled region, with very limited means. It is pleasant – amid the treachery of so many ‘Pandies’ and ‘Singhs’ – to read that Osborne and Hinde had a good word to say for Dinbund Pandy, Lullaie Singh, Sewgobind Pandy, Davy Singh, and Bisseshur Singh – Rewah and Nagode native officers, who were both faithful and brave in the hour of need.

Brigadier Whitlock, with a Madras column, was rendering service in the country between Nagpoor and Bundelcund. He had various skirmishes with bands of rebels at Jubbulpoor and Sleemanabad; and when he had restored something like order in that region, he moved off towards Cawnpore, there to take part if necessary in the operations of the army of Oude.

Few Europeans in India had better reason than those at Saugor to welcome the approach of some of their countrymen as deliverers. So far back as the month of June, the officers, their ladies, and the civilians, had been shut up in the fort by orders of Brigadier Sage, on account of the suspicious symptoms presented by the 31st, 42d, and other native regiments. There they remained throughout the whole of the autumn and part of the winter, too strong to be seriously molested, and too well supplied with food to suffer those privations which were so sadly experienced at Lucknow. Sir Hugh Rose arrived with his force at Saugor on the 3d of February, and liberated those who had so long been confined within the fort. No battle was needed to effect this; for though the garrison were almost entirely without reliable troops, they were not besieged by any considerable force of the enemy. Rose, who had collected a force with much difficulty from various quarters, prepared after the relief of Saugor to attack numerous bands of rebels in that part of India. He assaulted the strong fortress of Garra Kotah, at the confluence of the Sonah and the Guddarree; he captured it, pursued and cut up the enemy, and then marched towards Jhansi, where busy work awaited him in the following month.

General Roberts, towards the close of February, was collecting a force at and near Nuseerabad, for operations in that part of Rajpootana. He went with the head-quarters of H.M. 95th from Deesa to Beaur, and thence to Nuseerabad, where he arrived on the 22d. He was to be joined shortly afterwards by the 72d Highlanders from Deesa, and by 200 of the Sinde horse under Major Green; and when strengthened by other regiments, especially a good body of cavalry, he intended to march towards Kotah, a very strong fortress which had long been in the hands of a rebel chieftain.

The regions forming the central and southern portions of the Bombay presidency were a little disturbed by fanatical Mohammedans, who, though unable to bring any very large number of conspirators into their plan of action, did nevertheless make many attempts to raise the green flag, the symbol of Moslem supremacy. There were no mutinies of whole regiments, however, or even companies of regiments. Indeed the instigators of mischief were rather rioters than soldiers; and the authorities only regarded these outbreaks seriously as sparks that might possibly kindle inflammable materials elsewhere.

The Nizam’s country, generally peaceful on account of his fidelity to the English, became a field of temporary struggle owing to the insubordination of a minor chieftain, the Rajah of Shorapore. His small territory, bounded on one side by the river Kistnah, occupied an angle in the dominions of the Nizam. Wishing, perhaps, to rise from the rank of a petty chieftain to one of greater power, he had for some time displayed hostility towards the British. But his career now came to an end. A force left Belgaum at the end of January, to advance to Shorapore; another left Kulladghee for the same destination; while a third advanced from Madras. The Nizam, at the same time, acting in harmony with his prime minister and Colonel Davidson, issued a proclamation denouncing as rebels any of his subjects who should assist the chief of Shorapore. These various measures had the desired result; the insurgents were dispersed, Shorapore seized, and the chief made prisoner.

In reference to such occurrences as the one described in the last paragraph, it may be observed that many of the residents, or British representatives at the courts of native princes, exhibited a wisdom and intrepidity which claim for them a rank by the side of the military heroes whose names are much better known to the world. Such a one was Colonel Davidson, British resident at the Nizam’s court at Hyderabad in the Deccau. During many months, he, with a few hundred faithful troops, maintained English prestige amongst a fanatic Mussulman population of two or three hundred thousand men, who often threatened the handful of British in the city. ‘Disaffected persons,’ a well-informed authority has said, ‘thronged to the Nizam’s palace by day and by night, with imprecations upon their lips against Europeans. It was impossible to tell when mutiny might break out among the native soldiers; and it was certain that the rabble were only awaiting their opportunity to glut themselves with English blood. Yet amidst all this the British resident never faltered or wavered; and by mere force of character he preserved peace in the city and district, and succeeded in securing to our side the Nizam and his minister Salar Jung. This Salar Jung was a young and well-educated man, who for his friendship to the British was hated by the Mussulmans.’ The position of this minister was almost as dangerous as that of the resident; for if the attack of the 17th of July129 had succeeded, he would have shared the common fate of the British. Colonel Davidson not only secured Hyderabad, but was subsequently enabled to send a considerable cavalry force for service elsewhere.

Among other political arrangements of the month, was the termination of a short governorship in the regions around Allahabad. On the 4th of August, in the preceding year, after the Northwest Provinces had been thrown into anarchy by the mutiny, a ‘lieutenant governorship of the Central Provinces’ was established, and placed in the hands of Mr John Peter Grant, one of the members of the Supreme Council at Calcutta. A few weeks afterwards, on the 19th of September, some of the other provinces in the Jumna regions were placed under a ‘chief-commissioner of the Northwest Provinces.’ Both of these offices were abolished by the governor-general in council, on the 9th of February; and Viscount Canning, then at Allahabad, took under his immediate authority and control the whole of the provinces lately placed under those officers. He became in fact, though not in name, and for a temporary period, governor of a presidency of which Allahabad was the capital. At or about the same time, Meerut and Delhi were handed over to the chief-commissioner of the Punjaub. Thus, all the political power between Calcutta and the Afghan frontier being in the hands of Canning and Lawrence, and all the military power in Sir Colin Campbell, it was hoped that greater energy and precision would be thrown into the combined operations.

Notes

Sir Colin Campbell’s Army of Oude.– On the 10th of February, as stated in the text of this chapter, the commander-in-chief made a formal announcement of the component elements of the army with which he was about to enter Oude. These particulars we give here in a note, as a permanent record of an interesting matter in the military history of the Revolt. It must be clearly borne in mind, however, that this army of Oude comprised only such troops as were at that date under the immediate command of Sir Colin. Columns, corps, and field-forces, under Franks, Seaton, Jung Bahadoor, Macgregor, Windham, Van Cortlandt, Penny, M’Causland, Greathed, Roberts, Rose, Steuart, Stuart, Whitlock, and other officers, were rendering active or defensive services in various parts of India; and it depended on the course of circumstances whether any and which of these could assist in the grand operations against Lucknow.