No More Learning

69.
a
12-2


## p. 180 (#216) ############################################

180
THE MUTINY
disposed, the eldest of the famous Lawrence brothers upheld British
authority, despite mutinies at Nimach and Nasirabad, throughout
the crisis;but at Agra towards the end of June the approach of the
mutineers compelled Colvin to remove the English women and
children into the fort, where he had hitherto forbidden them to take
refuge. Brigadier Polwhele, the military chief, who, believing that
the mutineers intended to join their comrades at Delhi, had resolved
to remain on the defensive, allowed himself to be persuaded to attack
them, and suffered a defeat: but the garrison, thanks to Sindhia and
Dinkar Rao, who still contrived to keep their troops inactive, escaped
a siege; and throughout the summer volunteers, raised by the magis-
trate and collector of Meerut, did much to restore order in his
district.
Meanwhile important events occurred along the line between
Calcutta and Delhi. Fortunately, during the three weeks that followed
the outbreak at Meerut, the sepoys remained absolutely passive. But
the governor-general, deceived by this lull, failed to take full ad-
vantage of it. Rejecting offers made by various bodies to serve as
volunteers for the protection of Calcutta, on the ground that "the
mischief caused by a passing and groundless panic had already been
arrested”, he refused to disarm the sepoys at Barrackpore because
he trusted the profession of loyalty which they were careful to make,
and feared that the troops at other places might be exasperated.
Towards the middle of June he found it necessary to authorise both
these measures, which, if they had been adopted in time, would
have enabled him to send two British regiments to threatened stations.
Meanwhile, however, he had been diligently preparing for the arrival
of the expected reinforcements; and the undeserved odium which he
incurred by the famous “Clemency Order” and various local enact-
ments in no respect weakened his authority.
Fortunately Patna, the most important provincial town in the
Presidency of Bengal, was in strong hands. William Tayler, the com-
missioner, had had a dispute with the lieutenant-governor, Frederick
Halliday, who intended to transfer him, on the first colourable pretext,
to another post. There was not a single British soldier at Patna, and
at Dinapore, only ten miles off, the British regiment was detained by
the necessity of watching the sepoy troops, which Canning refused to
disarm. A Sikh battalion, which Tayler summoned to his assistance,
arrived on 8 June; but the commandant reported that it had been
insulted on the march by the rural population. Halliday insisted that
a mutiny of the Dinapore sepoys was inconceivable, and General
Lloyd, the commander of the division, whom Tayler urged to disarm
1 Cf. George Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 278 sqq.
: Major Williams, Narrative, pp. 11, 12, 14; Bunlop, Service and Adventures with the
Khakee Ressalah.
• Cf. Parl. Papers, 1857, XXX, 20-3.


## p. 181 (#217) ############################################

PATNA
181
them, replied that he could keep them under control. Left to his own
resources, Tayler arrested three moulvis, who directed the Wahabis
--the most dangerous Muhammadans in the city—knowing that he
would thus ensure the obedience of their disciples, and, feeling that
he was now master of the situation, required all the citizens to sur-
render their weapons. A riot which broke out on 3 July was sup-
pressed by the Sikhs, and the ringleaders were hanged. " Supported
by three Indians, who gave him information which only natives could
obtain, Tayler was able to keep order in the city; but the outlying
districts were still imperilled. British troops were about to pass through
Dinapore; but Canning left Lloyd to decide whether he would use
them. Unable to nerve himself to take the decisive step, the latter
thought it enough to remove the percussion caps from the magazine,
and afterwards, though the British force was then at dinner, ordered
the sepoys to surrender those which they carried. They replied by
firing on their officers, and, joined by a Rajput noble, Kunwar Singh,
who had been ungenerously treated by the Revenue Board of Bengal,
made a raid upon Arrah, the chief town of the most turbulent district
in the Patna division. The European residents, warned of their
approach and reinforced by fifty Sikhs, whom Tayler had sent to their
assistance, took refuge in a small building, which had been fortified
and provisioned by its provident owner. A force sent by Lloyd to the
rescue was ambushed and overwhelmed; but the little garrison con-
tinued to repel every attack, Major Vincent Eyre of the Bengal
Artillery, who, though he had been ordered to proceed to Allahabad,
assumed the responsibility of attempting to succour them, and per-
suaded the commandant of an infantry detachment to serve under
him, defeated the rebels near Arrah, thus not only relieving the
garrison, but quelling an insurrection which had threatened the whole
of Bengal and restoring the safety of communication between Calcutta
and the north-west. Before this success, however, Tayler, foreseeing
that if the garrison should be overpowered, the besiegers would over-
run the province of Bihar, ordered the district officers at the most
exposed stations to withdraw to Patna. Halliday, stigmatising the
order as an act of cowardice, dismissed him from his post; but at a
later time, while many of the foremost men in India declared their
conviction that he had saved Bihar, two ex-members of Canning's
council, retracting the censure which they had joined in passing upon
him, added their testimony to the value of his services, and the chief
of the three moulvis whom he had arrested was sent to the Andaman
Islands as a convicted felon. While Tayler was crushing rebellion in
Bihar, the valley of the Ganges was in peril. In Benares, as dangerous
a stronghold of Brahminical as Patna of Muhammadan fanaticism,
1 Tayler, Thirty-eight Years in India, 11, 237 599.
· Holmes, op. cit. pp. 195 sqq. and references.
• Tayler, op. cit. 11, 242 599.


## p. 182 (#218) ############################################

182
THE MUTINY
there were only thirty English gunners to watch the 37th Native
Infantry, a regiment of Irregular Cavalry, and the Ludhiana Sikhs.
On 4 June it was known that the sepoys at an outlying station had
mutinied, and as a hundred and fifty British soldiers from Dinapore
were by this time on the spot, Colonel Neill of the ist Madras
Fusiliers, who had arrived on the previous day with a detachment of
his corps, persuaded the brigadier to disarm the Bengal regiment. The
affair, for which the brigadier declared himself responsible, was mis-
managed. Panic-stricken by the approach of the British troops, the
men fired at their officers; the Sikhs, some of whom were disloyal,
while the rest were apprehensive of treachery, charged the guns; and
a disaster was barely averted by a swift discharge of grape. The
sedition that followed in the city was suppressed by the judge, aided
by influential Indians; Neill put to death all the mutineers who were
caught; and in the surrounding country, which was placed by the
governor-general under martial law, rebels, suspects, and even dis-
orderly boys were executed by infuriated officers and unofficial
British residents who volunteered to serve as hangmen.
Neill had already pushed on for Allahabad, which, standing at the
confluence of the Jumna and the Ganges, commanded the communi-
cation between the lower and the upper provinces of Northern India.
Yet, though Outram had implored both Canning and Anson to
provide for its safety, it had been left without a single British soldier
until, after the outbreak at Meerut, sixty invalid artillerymen arrived.
On 19 May the 6th Native Infantry volunteered to march against
Delhi; on 6 June, after their confiding colonel had read to them a letter
in which the governor-general expressed his gratitude for their offer,
they mutinied, and murdered five of their officers. Sedition, pillage and
arson followed; the railway works were destroyed; and the telegraph
wires were torn down. The fort, indeed, was saved by Captain
Brasyer of the Ludhiana Sikhs, who, constraining his men, though
they had just heard of the slaughter of their comrades at Benares, to
support him, disarmed a company, forming part of the garrison, of
the regiment that had mutinied; but though a detachment of the
Madras Fusiliers arrived on the next day, anarchy was rampant when
Neill appeared with forty of his men. Within a week, despite physical
prostration, he restored order in the fort, where British volunteers
were demoralised by drunkenness, and by ruthless severity suppressed
all disturbance in the districts. Conjointly with Brasyer he had saved
the most important post between Calcutta and Cawnpore, and con-
verted it into an advanced base. But while he strove to discriminate
between the innocent and the guilty, volunteers and Sikhs slaughtered
every Indian whom they met, and villages, from which harmless old
men and women with infants at their breasts were forced to flee, were
remorselessly burned. The Old Testament was then revered, and
Neill, who was preparing to dispatch a column to Cawnpore under


## p. 183 (#219) ############################################

CAWNPORE
183
Major Renaud of the Madras Fusiliers, gave him instructions (which
Havelock approved) in the spirit of Joshua.
The garrison of Cawnpore consisted of four sepoy regiments, with
which were associated fifty-nine British gunners and a few invalids.
Sir Hugh Wheeler, who commanded the division, determined imme-
diately after the outbreak at Meerut to secure a refuge for the non-
combatants. The only defensible position was the magazine, a strong
roomy building, protected on its northern side by the Ganges; but
Wheeler decided against it on the ground that before he could occupy
it he would be obliged to withdraw its sepoy guard, which migl::
precipitate a rising. The sepoy regiments, if they mutinied, would,
he
believed, hasten at once to Delhi, and, at the worst, he would only have
to repel a mob of budmashes before succourshould arrive. It is probable
that, if he had waited for reinforcements, which he was soon to receive,
he could have occupied the magazine without resistance; but he con-
tented himself with throwing up an entrenchment, which any active
lad could leap over, near the north-eastern corner of the town. On
4 June the native cavalry, followed by the ist Infantry, mutinied.
Next day, the 56th was persuaded to join them. The bulk of the 53rd
was still standing its ground when Wheeler impulsively ordered his
artillery to fire, and all but eighty, who to the last remained faithful,
fled. The Nana Sahib, whose palace was near Cawnpore, promised to
lead the mutineers to Delhi, but, influenced by one of his advisers,
persuaded them to remain and besiege the entrenchment.
For three weeks the little garrison—some four hundred English
fighting men, more than seventy of whom were invalids, with the
faithful sepoys, defended their women and children against a con-
tinuous fire, enduring hunger, thirst, exposure to the midsummer sun,
the torture of wounds for which they had no remedy, and, finally,
despair. On the seventh day and on the centenary of Plassey the
besiegers attempted an assault, but were resolutely repelled. Two
days later the Nana offered a safe passage to Allahabad to every
member of the garriso. . "who had not been connected with the acts
of Lord Dalhousie”. Wheeler reluctantly accepted the offer. Next
day terms of surrender were arranged, including a proviso that the
defenders should be allowed to retain their arms; but the guns were
to be delivered over to the enemy. On the morning of the 27th a wan
and ragged company quitted the entrenchment, and, surrounded by
a great crowd of onlookers, proceeded to embark on thatched barges,
which the Nana had provided. Tantia Topi, his trusted counsellor,
superintended the arrangements.
Immediately afterwards the thatch, strewn with glowing cinders,
burst into flame; grape-shot and bullets, fired by sepoys who had been
posted behind cover, poured into the throng; troopers rode into the
water and sabred the women. Suddenly a messenger from the Nana
1 Cf. Kaye, op. cit. 11, 268 n.


## p. 184 (#220) ############################################

184
THE MUTINY
ordered that no more women or children were to be killed, and the
survivors, a hundred and twenty-five, were dragged back to the town.
The only boat that escaped, without oars, rudder, or food, was fired
upon by sepoys who moved along the bank. On the third day it
drifted into a side current. Descrying villagers and sepoys about to
attack them, two officers, a sergeant, and eleven privates leaped
ashore, scattered the crowd, and fought their way back-to find that
the boat had drifted far away. The officers, Mowbray Thomson and
Delafosse, who with two privates alone survived the ordeals of that
day, found shelter, after swimming six miles, with a friendly raja of
Oudh. The boat was overtaken, and the passengers—wounded men,
women and children—were brought back to Cawnpore. The women
and children were incarcerated in one building with the hundred and
twenty-five who had survived the first massacre; the men were put
to death. A few days later the captives were transferred to a small
house called the Bibigarh, where, with fugitives from the Doab, whose
companions had been already slain by order of the Nana, they were
subjected to the grossest indignities. On 15 July the Nana heard that
his troops had been defeated by an avenging army. The few men who
had been suffered to live thus far were instantly killed in his presence;
the women and children, after sepoys had refused to shoot them, were
hacked to death by a band of ruffians. Perhaps, as it has been alleged,
he was persuaded by a woman in his zenana to permit the final
massacre; at all events it is probable that revenge for the cruelties
committed by Englishmen and Sikhs at Benares, at Allahabad, and
on Renaud's march, was one motive for the tragedy of Cawnpore. 1
Throughout the Mutiny Cawnpore was linked closely with Luck-
now, the capital of Oudh. Sir Henry Lawrence, who had been
appointed chief commissioner in January, speedily redressed the
wrongs committed by his predecessor. He had spent his official life
in toiling for the welfare of Indians; his sympathetic nature won their
devotion and the love of his own countrymen; and no one was better
fitted to prepare for the ordeal which he foresaw. “I have struck up
a friendship”, he wrote to Canning, "with two of the best and
wealthiest of the chiefs, and am on good terms with all. ” He im-
prisoned a moulvi, who preached a holy war at Faizabad. But he
knew that with the sepoys conflict was inevitable; and a durbar, held
in his private garden before he heard of the outbreak at Meerut, in
which he exhorted representatives of the sepoy regiments to pay no
heed to agitators, and rewarded individuals who had proved their
fidelity, was regarded by those who attended it as a sign of fear.
Lawrence intended that the Europeans, in case a siege should
become inevitable, should take refuge in the residency and its out-
lying buildings, which stood on a plateau bounded on the north by
the Gumti, a tributary of the Ganges. The roof of the principal
1 Cf. Holmes, op. cit. pp. 227 sqq. and references.


## p. 185 (#221) ############################################

LUCKNOW
185
edifice commanded a view of the city and its environs. Eastward and
westward along the southern bank of the river extended an irregular
space, covered by palaces and mosques, surrounded with gardens:
beyond them a vast maze of sordid streets stretched southward and
eastward as far as a canal, which entered the river three miles east
of the residency and was crossed by the Cawnpore road.
Lawrence began his preparations by amending the distribution of
the troops. The only British regiment—the 32nd Foot—was quartered
in barracks about a mile and a half east of the residency, while five
regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry were located at various
points within the city and on both sides of the river. On 16 May
Lawrence, yielding to the financial commissioner, Martin Gubbins,
and the military authorities, moved a detachment of the 32nd to the
residency, then at th« mercy of a sepoy guard. Next day he trans-
ferred the women and children of the regiment to the residency, sent
the remaining companies to watch the native troops in a cantonment
north of the river, and stationed a corps of Europeans and picked
sepoys
in the Machi Bhawan, a dilapidated fort, west of the residency,
which would overawe the city and might be useful as a temporary
post. Two days later, having been invested at his own request with
plenary military power, he assumed command of the whole force in
Oudh. He had already begun to repair the Machi Bhawan; a few
days later he set to work on the residency and its annexes; and soon
afterwards the English ladies were warned to take refuge there with
their children. Gubbins urged him to disarm the native regiments;
but, fearing that to do so would impel the troops at outlying stations
to mutiny, and knowing that loyal sepoys would be needed to aid in
defending the residency, he refused. On the 30th mutiny broke out
in the cantonments north of the city, and three officers were murdered;
but morethan five hundred sepoys sided with the British; and, although
on the next day there was a rising in the city, Lawrence had posted
a force to guard the connecting road, and thus prevented the mu-
tineers from abetting the rioters. “We now”, he wrote to Canning,
"know our friends and enemies. "
Nevertheless the mutiny produced disastrous effects. Hitherto the
country districts had been tranquil: the courts of justice remained
open: and the revenue was punctually paid. But in the first few days
of June the sepoys at every ctation rose. Many officers, many Euro-
peans, were murdered; but many fugitives owed their lives to Indians
whose hearts had been won by the sympathy with which Lawrence
redressed their wrongs. The talukdars, of course, ejected those upon
whom their estates had been bestowed, plundered rich citizens, and
wreaked vengeance upon old antagonists; but very few aided the
mutineers, and some actually sent supplies to Lawrence for provi-
sioning the residency.
Meanwhile in Lucknow mutineers were being daily hanged, and,


## p. 186 (#222) ############################################

186
THE MUTINY
although after the outbreak the Indian merchants no longer carried on
business, the administration of justice was not interrupted, and order
was fairly well maintained. But under the grievous announcements
from the districts Lawrence's health broke down, and he was forced
to delegate his powers to a council, of which Gubbins was appointed
president. Three days later, hearing with indignation that his col-
league was bent upon getting rid of those sepoys who had not yet been
disarmed, he resumed his authority, and devoted himself, despite
a mutiny of the military police, to the work of strengthening the
residency. Gubbins, however, was constantly urging him to attack the
rebels assembling in the neighbourhood; and gradually, perhaps sub-
consciously, he allowed himself to be persuaded. 1 On the last day of
June, although his preparations were incomplete, he marched in a
north-easterly direction against the advanced guard. Before the
march began the British troops who formed a part of his force were
exhausted by many days and nights of labour; and they had advanced
little more than three miles when the colonel, supported by one of
the surgeons, declared that they were unfit to go into action. Brigadier
Inglis, to whom this protest had been made, was asked by Lawrence's
aide-de-camp whether they could go on, and replied, evasively but
significantly, “Of course they could, if ordered”. About a mile
farther, near the village of Chinhat, they encountered the enemy and
suffered an overwhelming defeat, but succeeded, though with the loss
of one-third of their number, in reaching the entrenchment. In a
scene of terror and confusion the siege began. Next day by Lawrence's
order the Machi Bhawan was blown up, and, while the mutineers
were plundering the city, the detachment that had occupied it
marched noiselessly to reinforce the garrison. On 2 July, while Indian
servants, tempted by extraordinary rates of pay, were working
feverishly at unfinished bastions and terrified women were praying
in their rooms, Lawrence, who, despite his final error, had made a
defence possible, was mortally wounded by the bursting of a shell;
and two days later, after giving his last instructions to Inglis and
imploring him never to surrender, he died, mourned by all.
Less than a thousand British soldiers, aided by about a hundred and
fifty civilians and seven hundred loyal sepoys, were now besieged by
some ten thousand disciplined troops and a band of talukdars' re-
tainers. Fortunately, the besiegers were under incompetent leaders,
whom they treated with contempt. The entrenchment, about a mile
in circuit, enclosed detached houses and other buildings, the defences
of which-mud banks and trenches, palisades, crows-feet, and similar
obstacles-were still incomplete. On the east, south and west, how-
ever, outlying buildings served as a protection against artillery, and
made it impossible for storming parties to advance in strength: the
one open space where the besiegers could assemble for a general
1 Cf. Kaye, op. cit. in, 669-71.
а


## p. 187 (#223) ############################################

HAVELOCK
187
assault or plant batteries to breach the defences was on the north,
where a high bank, scarped and strengthened by a parapet, formed
the strongest part of the position. Still, no place within was safe.
Though the gunnery of the besiegers was erratic, sharpshooters kept
up a galling fire from the surrounding houses. Numerous mines were
sunk with the object of breaching the defences; but almost all were
stopped or destroyed before they could reach their aim. On 21 July
a sepoy pensioner, named Angad, made his way into the entrench-
ment, and announced that Havelock, having thrice defeated the Nana,
was in possession of Cawnpore; but weeks passed away, and the
expected relief did not arrive. Three several assaults were vigorously
repelled; but the defenders, whose numbers daily diminished, were
becoming exhausted by incessant toil, and disease still further wasted
their ranks. The chief of the commissariat was disabled; and though
there was actually sufficient grain to last for many months, Inglis
supposed that the stock was nearly exhausted, and reduced the rations.
Towards the end of August Angad appeared with a letter containing
the warning that Havelock could not arrive before twenty-five days
and the ominous injunction, "Do not negotiate, but rather perish
sword in hand”. On 16 September, when more than a third of the
British soldiers had fallen, he was sent out with dispatches for the last
time. 1
Henry Havelock, who had fought with distinction in Burma,
Afghanistan, Gwalior and the Panjab, had abandoned the ambition
which he had qualified himself by constant study to fulfil, when, old
and physically feeble but in spirit indomitable, he was appointed to
command an army for the relief of Cawnpore and Lucknow. A few
hours before the siege of the residency began he reached Allahabad.
On the same day Renaud started for Cawnpore at the head of the
little column which Neill had organised; on 3 July the destruction of
Wheeler's force was announced, and a few days later Havelock, with
a thousand British soldiers, a hundred and thirty of Brasyer's Sikhs,
twenty volunteer troops and six guns, began his march. Charred
ruins of forsaken villages, corpses hanging from trees along the road,
testified that Renaud had even exceeded his instructions. On the
12th Havelock overtook him; within the next three days, although he
was obliged to reinforce Neill with a hundred of the Sikhs and to
disarm Renaud's mutinous cavalry, he gained three victories; and on
the 16th, beneath the fiercest sun which the soldiers had yet felt, he
defeated five thousand men, whom the Nana himself commanded.
Next day the victors entered Cawnpore and, hurrying to the Bibigarh,
sa w bullet-marks, sword-cuts, clotted blood, shreds of clothing, and
women's long tresses—the signs of the final massacre.
A week elapsed before Havelock was able to push on. Neill, who
arrived on 20 July, was to defend the recovered city; and Havelock,
1 Cf. Holmes, op. cit. pp. 244 599.


## p. 188 (#224) ############################################

188
THE MUTINY
being unable to place more than three hundred men at his disposal,
fortified the position close to the river, which he ordered him to
occupy. The bridge had been destroyed by mutineers, and it was with
great difficulty that the passage of the river, which, swollen by the
rains, was flowing with torrential force, was accomplished in suc-
cessive trips by boats. On the 25th Havelock, whose force now num-
bered fifteen hundred, resumed his march. After two more victories
he had advanced about half the way when, reflecting that his little
army was daily wasted by cholera and the enemy's fire, that the
recent mutiny at Dinapore would delay reinforcements, and that, if
he persisted, hundreds must still fall before he could approach the
residency, he reluctantly decided to return. From Mangalwar, only
five miles from Cawnpore, which he reached on the last day of July,
he wrote to inform Neill that he could not attempt to relieve Lucknow
until he received a reinforcement of a thousand men and anoiher
battery of guns. Aglow with indignation, Neill presumed to admonish
his superior, who sternly replied: “Understand. . . . that a considera-
tion of the obstruction which would arise to the public service. . .
alone prevents me from placing you under immediate arrest".
Nevertheless, reinforced by no more than one company of British
infantry and a half-battery, and hearing from Calcutta that for two
months he must expect no more, he once more set his face towards
Lucknow, advanced to the point which he had reached before, and
there gained his seventh victory. But the reasons that had before
compelled him to retreat were hardly less cogent now. The mutinous
Gwalior contingent was reported to be threatening Cawnpore; the
zamindars, encouraged by his recent retirement, were arming their
matchlockmen; the cholera was unabated. Anxiously considering
what his duty required, he returned again to Mangalwar. The resolve,
as he himself recorded, was the most painful that he had ever formed.
Meanwhile Neill, believing thať "severity at the first is mercy in
the end”, had determined to avenge the massacre in the Bibigarh by
a punishment that should never be forgotten. Every prisoner whom
he considered especially guilty was to remove the stain of blood from
an allotted space. “The task”, so ran the order,
will be made as revolting to his feelings as possible, and the Provost-Marshal will
use the lash in forcing anyone objecting to complete his task. After properly
cleaning up his portion, the culprit is to be immediately hanged.
But Neill, who had told his chief that his retreat had destroyed the
prestige of England, was compelled to appeal to him for help; for
four thousand rebels were threatening to overwhelm his little force.
Havelock, resolved to show that he was undismayed, first advanced
again and routed them, then recrossed the Ganges and re-entered
Cawnpore. The talukdars of Oudh, who, with a few exceptions, had
hitherto remained passive, now began for the most part, under
pressure from the rebel durbar, to send their retainers into the field.
>


## p. 189 (#225) ############################################

HAVELOCK
189
Three days after his return Havelock defeated the force which had
threatened Neill, but on the next day learned that he had been super-
seded by Sir James Outram, who, moreover, was appointed chief
commissioner of Oudh. Reinforcements were by this time coming up
the Ganges. On 15 September Outram reached Cawnpore, and on
the following day issued the famous order in which he announced his
intention of leaving to Havelock the honour of relieving Lucknow
and of serving under him as a volunteer. But in the emotional nature
of Outram generosity was not quite unalloyed: he intended to be not
only a volunteer, but a counsellor with a decisive voice.
Havelock's force, now more than doubled, numbered about three
thousand two hundred men. A floating bridge was thrown across the
Ganges; and on 21 September the final advance began. Havelock
had learned from Angad that if the defenders of the residency were not
relieved before the end of the month, they would have no meat left.
Driving the rebels before them, the troops on the 23rd captured the
Alambagh, a strong place two miles from Lucknow, where they were
heartened by the announcement that Delhi had been taken by
assault. Next day, while they were resting, Havelock and Outram
considered what plan they should adopt on the morrow. Although
rains had made the open country impassable for the heavy guns,
Havelock argued that the best course would be to cross the Gumti,
then, after a detour, to recross it by a bridge north of the residency,
and, thus relieved from the perils of street-fighting, to traverse the
narrow space that separated the bridge from the entrenchment.
Outram dissented from this view, and, though he had resigned the
command, dictated to a staff-officer the orders for the advance. The
troops were to cross the canal by the Charbagh bridge, south of the
city, then, avoiding the direct road, where the rebels were prepared to
resist, turn to the right along the bank, and, keeping outside the city,
move past the palace to their goal. Havelock, who had been made
apparently responsible for what he did not approve, was obliged to
give way.
The morning of the 25th was beautifully fine. Havelock rose early
and spent some time in prayer. The column advanced under fire to
the bridge, which was commanded by sharpshooters and defended
on the farther side by five guns. The Madras Fusiliers carried it with
a rush. While the 78th Highlanders held the bridge-head, the rest of
the column crossed, and pushed on almost unopposed till they came
within three-quarters of a mile from the residency, when they were
met with a heavy fire from the Kaisar Bagh; but, replying as best they
could, they soon found shelter in a court beneath the walls of the
Chattar Manzil. The Highlanders, who had diverged by a shorter
road, presently appeared and found themselves at the head of the
column. While soldiers, camels, guns and litters bearing wounded
men were thronging into the court, Outram and Havelock were


## p. 190 (#226) ############################################

190
THE MUTINY
observed in animated discussion. Outram, arguing that the enemy
would expect the column to advance through the streets, desired to
halt for the night, thus allowing the rear-guard to close up, and to
move on next morning through the successive courts: Havelock,
seeing that the enemy would then have time to occupy the courts,
sharing in the ardour of the soldiers, and fearing that the rebels might
succeed by a desperate effort in overpowering the garrison, implored
him to push on. The discussion waxed warm. Outram lost his temper;
but he gave way. “Let us on then”, he cried, “in God's name.
Highlanders, Sikhs, and Madras Fusiliers moved successively out of
the court; Neill fell from his horse at the exit, shot through the head;
but the column, plunging under a hail of bullets from adjoining
houses through trenches which had been cut across the road, and
descrying the flag waving on the roof of the residency, struggled un-
falteringly on till they entered the entrenchment. But though the
garrison had been reinforced, they had still to wait for the relief that
would enable the non-combatants to be removed to a place of safety.
Even more important were the events that occurred at Delhi, the
head-centre of revolt, and in the Panjab, with which it was throughout
connected. The officers whom Dalhousie had selected to administer
that province were a harmonious brotherhood. Except in the Pesha-
war valley, which was exposed to the raids of turbulent borderers, the
people had been disarmed; but in the matter of land-revenue they
had been generously treated. 1 Between Sikhs and Hindustanis there
was a national, between Sikhs and Muhammadans a religious, anti-
pathy. A perennial danger had been removed when Herbert Edwardes
won the consent of Dost Muhammad, the amir of Afghanistan, to a
treaty of alliance. The sepoys numbered thirty-six thousand: but ten
thousand British soldiers were quartered in the province; and the
Panjabi Irregulars, some thirteen thousand strong, next to the Gurkhas
the finest native troops in India, were an additional source of strength.
When the telegram announcing the seizure of Delhi reached Lahore,
John Lawrence was away; but the judicial commissioner, Robert
Montgomery, was a man of action, and the military officers supported
him. The sepoys at the neighbouring cantonment of Mianmir,
though they outnumbered the Europeans by eight to one, were
adroitly disarmed; the native portion of the garrison of Lahore was
treated likewise; and on the same day Montgomery sent letters of
warning and instruction to the principal civil officers, nearly all of
whom justified his confidence. Though a mutiny broke out at Feroze-
pore, where the commandant failed to follow the example of Mian-
mir, three important stations-Amritsar, where the rural population
were thoroughly loyal, Kangra, which dominated the hill-country on
the north, and Phillaur, commanding the Grand Trunk Road-were
instantly secured.
1 Cf. Holmes, op. cit. pp. 33-4; also p. 91, supra.


## p. 191 (#227) ############################################

THE PANJAB
191
Meanwhile momentous decisions were formed at Peshawar.
Herbert Edwardes, the commissioner, John Nicholson, the deputy-
commissioner, who had so tamed the lawless frontiersmen of Bannu
that in the closing year of his rule there was not a single attempt at
crime, Sydney Cotton, the brigadier, and Neville Chamberlain, the
commander of the Panjabi Irregulars, met in a council of war. The
principal resolutions, confirmed in due course by Lawrence, were that
a movable column should be formed to repress mutiny wherover it
might occur, and that recruits should be enlisted from the province
and the frontier, te absorb and utilise the lawless. During the next
few days Nicholson, in the absence of Edwardes, who had been sum-
moned to confer with Lawrence, set a watch over every ferry on the
Indus; but before Edwardes returned treasonable letters addressed to
sepoys were intercepted, and when Nicholson tried to persuade the
chiefs of the valley to raise their followers, the answer was significant:
"Show us that you are the stronger, and there shall be no lack of aid”.
At midnight on 21 May Edwardes and Nicholson heard that the
55th Native Infantry at Naushahra had mutinied. It seemed probable
that a detachment of the same regiment at Mardan had followed their
example, and that the troops at Peshawar would soon be infected.
The two friends instantly awakened Cotton, who agreed with them
that the infantry regiments must be disarmed; and in the morning
all, except those who were needed to carry on the work of the station,
were forced, despite the protests of their officers, to pile arms. Imme-
diately afterwards a multitude of men, protesting their loyalty, eagerly
offered to enlist. It was now possible to act against the 55th at
Mardan, who had been joined by the mutineers from Naushahra.
Flying before the force that marched against them, they were hunted
by Nicholson, who with his mounted police was alone able to overtake
them, into the hills adjoining Kashmir, where the survivors were
destroyed by the hill-men, or enslaved, or executed after they sur-
rendered in despair. Meanwhile Edwardes and Cotton, compelling
the disarmed sepoys to attend, were hanging or blowing from guns
deserters and mutineers; and, having proved themselves the stronger,
they had no difficulty in enlisting the recruits whom they required.
Not every station, however, was so firmly held. At Jalandhar, in
the opposite extremity of the province, the brigadier neglected to
disarm his sepoys, and when they mutinied delayed to pursue them;
but the deputy-commissioner of Ludhiana, through whose district
they passed on their way to Delhi, did all that one man could to repair
the error, and speedily put a stop to the commotion which their
presence caused. Lawrence, fearing that the sepoys at Multan would
rise as soon as they heard of the mutiny, and knowing that the loss of
that station would'involve the loss of the Southern Panjab, determined
to disarm the garrison, although, for want of an adequate British force,
he had hitherto shrunk from the attempt. Major Crawford Chamber-


## p. 192 (#228) ############################################

192
THE MUTINY
>
lain, in whom he had more confidence than in the commandant, was
entrusted with the duty, which he successfully performed. “The dis-
arming at Mooltan”, said Lawrence, “was a turning point in the
Punjab crisis, second only in importance to the disarmings at Lahore
and Peshawar. "
Lawrence was thinking not only how he could save the Panjab, but
how he could contribute to the recovery of Delhi. As soon as he saw
that the Panjabi soldiers had no fellow-feeling with the Hindustanis,
he resolved to compensate for the losses entailed by mutiny and de-
sertion by augmenting their numbers; and from first to last thirty-four
thousand Panjabi troops were raised. A 6 per cent. loan, to be repaid
within one year, first opened by the commissioner of the Cis-Satlej
states, was soon extended to the whole province; and though bankers
and merchants were chary in contributing, the chiefs who had helped
the government with their arms subscribed liberally. The police, loyal
from the outset, were strengthened. Criminals were ruthlessly
punished, and every plunderer who was caught was forced to make
restitution; but there was no great increase in violent crime. The
treasure in the various stations was secured with the loss of not more
than ten thousand pounds. Some districts remained absolutely tranquil
throughout, and the comparatively few disturbances that arose,
generally from distrust of the stability of British rule, were mostly
traceable to the machinations of Hindustanis, large numbers of whom
were expelled. Nearly all the civil courts remained open; the revenue
was paid almost in full; and attendance at the government schools
was but little diminished. In the Cis-Satlej states, where it was not
less important to maintain order than in Peshawar in order to repel
the influx of mutiny from the east, the task was exceptionally difficult.
The mixed population, more akin to the Hindustanis than to the
Panjabis, sympathised with the mutineers, and violent crimes in-
creased alarmingly: but the commissioner, Barnes, supported by the
rajas of Patiala, Nabha and Jhind, and by the Sikh portion of the
inhabitants, stamped out every symptom of revolt; and by the end of
July the crisis was over. So successfully, in short, was the Panjab
ruled that Lawrence, loyally aided by Bartle Frere, the commissioner
of Sind, who sent battalion after battalion to support him, was able
to supply the army at Delhi with stores of every kind and to reinforce
it by troops of all arms, British and Panjabi. The Guides, that famous
corps of frontiersmen which left Mardan when the seizure of Delhi
was announced, marched for three weeks at the rate of twenty-seven
miles a day, encamped on the Ridge on the day after Barnard arrived,
and within three hours engaged the mutineers. Twenty-eight years
later a civilian, himself destined to rule the Panjab, listened in his
novitiate to Sikhs who proudly related how they had fought for the
raj in the days of Nicholson. 1
1 O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, p. 40.


## p. 193 (#229) ############################################

THE SIEGE OF DELHI
193
But when Barnard took command, his army, far too small to invest
Delhi, could not attempt without siege artillery to breach the walls.
All that he could do was to cling to the Ridge; and with this object
he posted piquets at various buildings, the most important of which
were Hindu Rao's house on the right and the Flagstaff Tower on the
left. On the fourth day Metcalfe House, between the Ridge and the
city, was captured and placed in communication with the Flagstaff
Tower, and Barnard was persuaded to sanction a plan for a coup-de-
main; but an accident prevented it from being attempted, and an
amended plan was so strongly opposed by his advisers that he declined
to accept it. In the next week, however, the assailants made some
progress. The possession of Metcalfe House had made it impossible
to turn their left; successive attempts to capture Hindu Rao's house
were repulsed; and although the mutineers made a great effort on the
centenary of
Plassey, they were expelled from an important building
in the suburb of Sabzi-Mandi, south-west of the Ridge, the loss of
which prevented them from attacking the British rear without a long
detour. Reinforcements had already begun to arrive; and Colonel
Baird Smith, who on 3 July took over the post of chief engineer,
destroyed several bridges over canals on the rear and the south-west
of the Ridge, and thus made the position comparatively secure. But
the mutineers also had been reinforced; many British soldiers had
fallen or succumbed to disease; and on the 5th Barnard, who, though
he failed to inspire confidence, had won the affectionate respect of all,
died of cholera. A few days later his successor, General Reed, who
had long been in poor health, resigned in favour of Wilson.
Some weeks earlier Lawrence had informed Edwardes that he
intended, if the army at Delhi should appear in danger of failing, to
send the British troops in the Peshawar valley to help them and invite
the amir of Afghanistan to occupy the valley on the understanding
that, if he proved faithful, it should be ceded in perpetuity. Edwardes
was amazed. The amir, he insisted, would regard the offer as signi-
fying the end of the British raj, and would follow the retreating troops
as an enemy. To cede Peshawar would involve the loss of the Panjab;
but all would be well if we maintained the capitals on the sea and the
frontiers, for “Between the two it is all a family quarrel, an insurrec-
tion in our own house". Finally he declared that rather than obey an
order to abandon Peshawar, he would feel bound by conscience to
resign and explain his reason to the government. Canning, to whom
Lawrence appealed, saw that to abandon territory would be fatal,
and decided, just before Wilson took command, in favour of Edwardes.
Meanwhile fresh bands of sepoys had been streaming from all
quarters into Delhi. Their officers were unable to control them.
Hindus quarrelled with Muhammadans; both plundered the shops,
i Cf. Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, 11, 49 sqq. ; Cunningham, Earl Canning,
pp. 122-4.
CHI VI
13


## p. 194 (#230) ############################################

194
THE MUTINY
debauched the wives and daughters of respectable citizens, and treated
the aged king with gross disrespect; while all who had anything to lose
lamented the downfall of the British raj. " It was the custom that each
successive band should go into action after its arrival; and fighting
on the Ridge was maintained without a pause. In six weeks there
were more than twenty combats. The British troops cheerfully en-
dured the discomfort of water-logged tents, kept up their spirits by
riding pony-races or playing cricket, and, though many of them treated
the camp-followers with a cruelty which Wilson could not wholly
check, fraternised cordially with their gallant comrades, the Gurkhas
and the Guides. Foot by foot they added to their ground until Sabzi-
Mandi was completely in their power; and by the end of July in-
variable defeat was weakening the confidence of the enemy. Still,
Delhi remained in their possession; and the Panjabis were losing
confidence in the British power.
Nicholson, who had taken command of the Movable Column,
almost immediately found it necessary to disarm two of the regiments.
On 8 July, hearing at Amritsar that an outbreak had occurred at
Jehlam, he disarmed a third; and two days later, learning that the
garrison of Sialkot had broken loose, he disarmed a body of his own
cavalry belonging to one of the mutinous corps. His remaining force
consisted of no more than one untried British regiment, a few Panjabis
and undisciplined police sowars, and nine guns; but within the next
two days, after covering forty-four miles in a single march, he defeated
the Sialkot murineers on the Ravi, near Gurdaspur. Four days later
he annihilated the survivors, who had sought refuge on an island in the
river, and on the 24th set out for Delhi. On the last day of the month
a body of sepoys who had murdered four of their officers at Lahore
was beaten on the Ravi by native police and villagers; and on the
following day Frederick Cooper, the deputy-commissioner of Amritsar,
who had captured the survivors, put them all to death, and thus
(Montgomery declared) saved the Lahore division.
Other dangers were not less successfully overcome. Edwardes
compelled the capitalists of Peshawar, who shrank from supporting
a government which they no longer trusted, to contribute four
hundred thousand rupees to the loan; disturbances on the border
were suppressed, partly by force, partly by tactful management; and
at Peshawar, where one of the disarmed regiments, stimulated by a
fanatic, seized the weapons belonging to newly raised irregulars, seven
hundred mutineers were either slain in pursuit or summarily executed.
Nevertheless, disbelief in the vitality of British power was begetting
disaffection in the Panjab, now denuded of so many troops.
About a fortnight after Nicholson arrived at Delhi it became known
that the siege-train was at last approaching. A strong body of sepoys
1 Cf. Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives of the Mutiny in Delhi; Press List of Mutiny Papers,
1857.


## p. 195 (#231) ############################################

THE STORM OF DELHI
195
marched to intercept it; but Nicholson signally defeated them, and
on 4 September the train arrived. Wilson was ill and overwrought,
but, influenced by Baird Smith, who, though he was suffering intense
pain from a neglected wound, and was weakened by chronic dysentery,
had established an ascendancy over him, he consented to prepare for
the assault. The mutineers were still twice as numerous as their
opponents, and only the lack of a directing mind, who would have
concentrated on the decisive point forces that were wasting th ir
strength elsewhere, prevented the disparity from being overwhelming.
Within the next few days the engineers, protected by the fire of field-
guns on the Ridge, constructed four siege batteries opposite the
northern face of the city; and the gunners, working under a galling
fire of musketry (for the hostile guns were soon silenced), destroyed
the bastions and breached the curtain. On the 13th Wilson and Baird
Smith arranged the plan of operations. The first and second columns
were to storm the breaches, the third to penetrate the city through
the Kashmir gate, after it had been blown open, the fourth to expel
the enemy from the western suburbs and then to enter the city by the
Kabul gate, opened by their comrades from within. The command
of the operations was entrusted to Nicholson. The breaches, examined
under the starlit night, were reported practicable; and Wilson,
accepting the advice of Baird Smith, ordered the assault to be de-
livered at dawn.
About three o'clock the whole camp was astir. Sikhs, Pathans,
Gurkhas and Kashmiris stood side by side with Englishmen. The
mutineers had filled up the breaches in the night, and it was necessary
for the batteries to reopen; but at length the impatient troops were
permitted to advance. The first two columns under a fire of musketry
and an avalanche of loosened stones, by which many of the ladder-
men were killed, fought their way into the city; the third, followed
by the reserve, achieved its aim; but the fourth, disorganised and
disheartened by the disablement of their commander, failed, and
Hindu Rao's house, threatened by their emboldened opponents, was
with difficulty saved. Meanwhile Nicholson, seeing that the mutineers
in the city were regaining courage, attempted, despite the failure of
the fourth column, to assault the Lahore bastion, which the com-
mander of the second had neglected, in default of express orders, to
attack; but the cannonade which he encountered was so appalling
that his men shrank from the final rush, and while he was appealing
to them he fell mortally wounded. The result of the day's fighting, in
which about one-fourth of the attacking force had fallen, was that the
space between the north-eastern angle of the city and the Kabul gate
was in British hands. Wilson was so dissatisfied that he spoke of with-
drawing the troops altogether; but Baird Smith and Neville Chamber-
lain induced him to hold on.
i Cr. Vibart, Richard Baird Smith, pp. 49 599. , 121 599.
a
13-2


## p. 196 (#232) ############################################

196
THE MUTINY
>
Next day many of the British soldiers, finding bottles of beer, wine
and spirits which the mutineers had purposely left in deserted shops and
on the pavements, became helplessly drunk; while of those who were
not exposed to or resisted this temptation many were enticed into dark
alleys and killed. Infuriated by this, their comrades, though they
treated women and children with forbearance, showed no mercy to
the men. By the 19th the city was completely mastered. The king
had been persuaded by a traitor to remain with his family at the tomb
of Humayun outside the city, where he was captured by Hodson, the
famous leader of light horse, who also shot the old man's sons after they
had surrendered. “This sad act was most uncalled for”, wrote Hope
Grant, rejecting the plea of a possible rescue. 1
Though the recovery of Delhi, which, like the relief of Lucknow,
had been accomplished without reinforcements from England, ended
hopes of resuscitating the Moghul Empire, and in the Panjab restored
waning confidence in British power, it was too late to produce all the
results that had been expected. A column, dispatched from Delhi
through the Doab, burned villages, drove mutineers before it, and at
Agra defeated a force which had alarmed the garrison; but the bands
which it had scattered returned after it passed and renewed their
depredations. In the spring of the next year the king of Delhi, found
guilty of rebellion and complicity in murder, was sentenced to im-
prisonment for life: but John Lawrence, pleading with Canning for
the citizens, many of whom had been tried and executed by a merciless
commission, insisted that the great mass were innocent; and the
territory of Delhi was placed under his control. It remained for the
veteran, Sir Colin Campbell, who had been appointed commander-
in-chief, to paralyse the surviving energies of the revolt.
His first aim was to relieve Lucknow. Havelock had been only just
in time to avoid encountering mutineers from Delhi, who reinforced
the besiegers, and to prevent their overwhelming the garrison. Within
two days after his arrival the troops that had not been able to join in
the final advance made their way into the entrenchment. Outram,
in order to accommodate the multitude under his command, seized
and occupied the palaces along the Gumti, and in frequent sorties
destroyed hostile batteries; but his force was not strong enough to
remove the non-combatants, for whom, moreover, he was unable to
procure carriage, and he found that there was enough food to last
several weeks. Lack of vegetables, however, produced scurvy, while
the soldiers had no tobacco, and the cold autumnal air penetrated
their summer clothing. Meantime Sir Colin was providing for the
equipment of his expected reinforcements, securing the road, which
was infested by rebels in Bihar, and, since the railway was open only
as far as Raniganj, arranging for transport thence to Allahabad. On
3 November he reached Cawnpore. Tantia Topi with the Gwalior
i Holmes, op. cit. pp. 384-7.
2 Cf. Metcalfe, op. cit. p. 72.


## p. 197 (#233) ############################################

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL
197
contingent, which Sindhia could no longer restrain, was threatening
that city; but Sir Colin, rejecting the advice of Outram, who urged
him to secure its safety first, resolved to advance, and contented him-
self with leaving a detachment under General Windham to oppose
Tantia. On the 13th his force, numbering about five thousand men,
encamped at the Alambagh. The chief engineer advised him to adopt
the plan which Havelock had proposed—to cross the Gumti and
recross it near the residency. Though this route traversed open ground,
where the heavy guns could act and the enemy were not prepared,
he preferred the advice of Outram, who recommended him to cross
the canal near its junction with the river, and thence to follow the
route by which the main body had advanced in September. On the
16th the army crossed the canal. The enemy, deluded by a recon-
naissance which Sir Colin had made on his left, offered no opposition
till the advanced guard, moving in a narrow lane, was deluged by a
hail of bullets from the Sikandar Bagh on its right. For the moment
the situation seemed almost desperate: but by herculean efforts a
troop of horse artillery clambered up the bank on the side of the lane;
heavy guns were dragged through an opening which the sappers cut;
and within an hour a breach appeared. The defenders, trapped
between the assailants and others who had forced an entrance through
a door, were gradually overpowered, and by sunset the survivors,
crowding into the towers at the angles of the building, were utterly
destroyed. Nearer the residency, the Shah Najif, a large mosque,
standing in a garden surrounded by a wall, withstood the heaviest
artillery, and Sir Colin had ordered the guns to be withdrawn when
a Highland regiment passed through a cleft which had fortunately
been discovered in the wall, and found that the garrison had fled.
Havelock had already captured buildings on the east of the residency:
next day the only remaining strongholds that barred the advance
were stormed; and in the afternoon the relieving army joined the
garrison. Two days later, Sir Colin having secured his left fank, the
women and children, the sick and the wounded, were removed.
Outram and Havelock besought him to seize the Kaisar Bagh and
thus re-establish British supremacy; but, although the formidable
citadel was breached within three days, he refused to leave behind
the small force for which they asked, insisting that his entire army
would be needed to secure Cawnpore. The garrison therefore
evacuated the entrenchment; and two days later Havelock, weakened
by privation, succumbed to dysentery. On the 27th Sir Colin, leaving
Outram at the Alambagh to withstand the rebels until he should
himself return to crush them, marched with the convoy for Cawnpore.
The low tremulous sound which tells that artillery is at work at some
distant place was plainly heard.
Sir Colin had ordered Windham to occupy and strengthen the
entrenchment which Havelock had constructed, to send on to Luck-


## p. 198 (#234) ############################################

198
THE MUTINY
now any British infantry that might join him, and, if Tantia should
threaten to attack him, to extend his force conspicuously in advance
of the entrenchment, but not to assume the offensive unless there
should be no other way of saving the position from bombardment.
Learning that Tantia was near, Windham obtained leave to retain
a portion of the expected reinforcements; but within the next few
days various reports led him to fear that his chief had suffered a
reverse. Knowing that if he himself should be attacked, the defensivo
display prescribed by Sir Colin would be of no avail, he had prepared
and forwarded for approval a plan for destroying iwo of the most
important posts which Tantia occupied; but, owing to the interruption
of communication, he received no reply. Though he shrank from
executing this plan on his own responsibility, he attacked and defeated
a detachment which Tantia personally commanded, but immediately
retreated and selected a more defensible encamping-ground, west of
the town. Hearing that all had gone well at Lucknow, he hoped that
Tantia would not venture to attack him before Sir Colin returned.
Tantia, however, knew that Windham would not have followed up
a victory by retreat if he had not felt anxious; his own force was
enormously superior; and in the next two days he twice defeated
Windham, who failed at the critical moment to support his best
officer, and was ill-served by another. Sir Colin, who received urgent
letters on his march, rode on, fearing that the bridge might have been
destroyed, in advance of the column, and at sunset saw the battle still
raging and flames rushing up above the city. But Windham had pre-
served two vital points: not only the bridge, but also the entrenchment
remained intact. Next morning Tantia opened fire upon the bridge;
but his artillery was overpowered, and Sir Colin's army, with the
convov, safely crossed. For a week he remained on the defensive,
to allow the convoy to get out of danger; but on 6 December he gained
a victory which would
have been decisive if the chief of the staff had
not missed a chance of cutting off the retreat of two-thirds of Tantia's
army.
While Sir Colin, kept inactive by want of carriage, was awaiting
the return of the carts that had transported the convoy to Allahabad,
he thought out his plans for the rest of the campaign. Before he could
reconquer Rohilkhand and Oudh, it was necessary to get control of
the Duab. As three of the important points—Delhi, Agra and Alla-
habad—were already in his possession, it only remained to secure the
fourth, Fatel. garh, on the Ganges, east of Agra. This was accomplished
by converging columns, which drove numbers of reliels into Rohil-
khand, whereon many of the villagers supported the re-established
civil officers. Sir Colin desired to utilise the remaining months of cool
weather for the reconquest of Rohilkhand; for, knowing that the
subjugation of Oudh would require a longer time, he was unwilling
to expose his troops to the hardships of campaigning in the summer,
a


## p. 199 (#235) ############################################

LUCKNOW RETAKEN
199
a
and he believed that it would be safe to wait until the autumn if the
rebels were prevented from invading other provinces. But Canning
pointed out that military must give place to political reasons. To
restore order in Rohilkhand, which had long been under British rule,
was a matter of police: Oudh represented a deposed dynasty, and all
India was waiting to see whether the British could regain their
sovereignty. Sir Colin loyally obeyed. In order to maintain his hold
upon the Doab and to cover the march of reinforcements to Cawnpore,
where they were to concentrate before advancing against Lucknow,
he retained the position at Fatehgarh, and made an arrangement with
John Lawrence, in accordance with which a force was to hold
Rohilkhand in check until it should be time to reconquer it.
Ever since Sir Colin left Lucknow, Outram had defended the
Alambagh against a force which outnumbered his in the proportion
of thirty to one, thus nullifying the aciivity of a hundred and twenty
thousand rebels, preserving the safety of Cawnpore, and preparing
for Sir Colin's return. On 28 February, 1858, Sir Colin left Cawnpore,
where he had been superintending preparations for the siege of Luck-
now, and marched to Banthira, near the Alambagh, where the whole
army—the most powerful that a British general had ever commanded
in India—was assembled. A Gurkha force, under Jang Bahadur, the
virtual ruler of Nepal, and a column under General Franks, which
had conjointly enabled the civil authorities to resume their work in
the Benares and Allahabad divisions, were coming to take part in the
siege. Lucknow had been strengthened by the destruction of the
bridges over the canal and by three successive entrenchments which
protected the eastern side of the city, the innermost covering the
Kaisar Bagh. But the rebels had made one fatal blunder. As neither
Havelock nor Sir Colin had operated beyond the Gumti, they had
neglected the defence of the northern side. Sir Colin accordingly
adopted a plan devised by the chief engineer, Brigadier Robert
Napier. While he himself crossed the canal and, turning the enemy's
right flank, moved against the Kaisar Bagh along the Hazrat Ganj,
by which the Highlanders had advanced in September, Outram was
to cross the river and take the left flank in reverse. Aided by Outram's
enfilading fire, Sir C-lin's force found the first line of works abandoned,
then, turning the others, sapped through the houses on the left of the
Hazrat Ganj, and finally captured the Kaisar Bagh, the Chattar
Manzil, and other palaces on its right: but three successive oppor-
tunities of cutting off large rebel bands were lost.