The Indian Mutiny of 1857/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
CALCUTTA IN JUNE AND JULY.
I left Lord Canning and his councillors, at the end of May, endeavouring, by the despatch of troops by driblets from the capital to the North-west, to strengthen that weak middle piece upon the security of which, until reinforcements should arrive in sufficient strength, or until Dehlí should fall, the safety of the Empire seemed to depend. For a moment the opinion prevailed that the second of these contingencies would happen first. For, as I have had occasion more than once to mention, the strength of Dehlí was greatly underrated, and the majority of British residents, military as well as civil, believed that the appearance of General Anson before the gates of the city would suffice to induce the rebels to surrender it. That was certainly the opinion of Lord Canning and his councillors. It was under the influence of this conviction that the Home Secretary had disdained the offers of the Englishmen and foreigners who had volunteered to enrol themselves, telling them that 'the mischief caused by a passing and groundless panic had been already arrested.'
But the first week of June saw the hopes of the Government rudely shattered. Thick as hail, post by post, came tidings of disaster. Accounts of the mutinies at Kánhpur, at Allahábád, at Lakhnao, of the defection of Oudh, related in the last chapter, of revolts and murders at Ázamgarh, at Juánpur, at Banáras, at Jhánsí, to be yet related, followed one another in quick succession. To counterbalance these misfortunes came the news of Brigadier Wilson's victory at Ghazí-úd-dín Nagar on the 31st of May. But the information, which reached Calcutta about the same time, that General Anson had succumbed to cholera at Karnál, on the 27th, seemed at the moment a misfortune great enough to outweigh even this victory.
Lord Canning and his councillors, however, made a great attempt to repair it. They telegraphed to Madras for Sir Patrick Grant, Commanding-in-Chief at that Presidency, to come up to Calcutta to replace Anson. Grant was an officer in the Bengal army who had filled the office of Adjutant-General, and it was supposed that, in the existing terrible crisis, one who had been able to rise to such a position would possess experience from which the Government might profit. The mistake was a natural one, but it was not the less a mistake. A clerk promoted to the headship of the department in which he has served is rarely able to lift his mind above routine. So it was with Sir Patrick Grant. Sent for in the crisis of a mutiny, whilst the entire country was surging with revolt, he arrived with his mind full of reconstruction and reorganisation, and he was unable to the last to apply it to any other consideration. For all the good he effected he might as well have remained at Madras.
Before he arrived the news from the revolted districts became daily more alarming. To the list already given might be added Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, and a part of Central India. The Government was indeed to be pitied. Little more than a fortnight had elapsed since they had refused the offers of the British and foreign residents of Calcutta to volunteer, on the ground that all difficulties had been arrested, and now insurrection was approaching daily nearer to their doors.
For the state of the three armed native regiments, within fifteen miles of Calcutta, was such as to cause great alarm. The followers of the ex-King of Oudh, considerable in number and hostile in feeling, swarmed in a very near suburb of the capital. Lord Canning could not but feel, under these circumstances, that he had been somewhat hasty in rudely repulsing the offers made to volunteer on the 25th of May. On the 11th of June, then, he sent for the Town-Major, Major Cavenagh, a man possessing a singularly practical mind and quick perceptions, and consulted with him as to the advisability of conceding the prayer which he had previously rejected. The advice of Cavenagh was in entire accordance with his character. On the following day, then, the necessary orders were issued. The enrolment began immediately, and in an incredibly short space of time the Government had at its disposal a serviceable body of gentlemen, horse, foot, and artillery — men devoted, unselfish, desirous only to serve their country, and serving it with all their might, and whose enrolment permitted Lord Canning to despatch to the threatened districts the troops which, but for the volunteers, he would have been forced to retain at the capital.
The order for the enrolment of the volunteers had been issued on the 12th of June. On the 13th the Governor-General and his councillors passed an Act to gag the press. That some restraint was requisite for the native press may be admitted, for it was preaching sedition all over the country. But to include in the gagging measure the loyal English press, which, whilst it had supported the English interests, had not shrunk from indicating, in no measured language, the mistakes and shortcomings of the Government, was considered as but a poor return to the independent classes of Calcutta for the services which the Government had but the day before accepted. The feeling engendered by the inclusion of the English press in this otherwise necessary Act was, then, very bitter, and remained so to the very last.
The Act was read three times on one day, and passed. The day was a Saturday. At a late hour that night Sir John Hearsey, commanding at Barrackpur, sent an express to Lord Canning telling him that he had certain information that the sipáhís of his brigade would rise the following day; that he had therefore ordered down from Chinsurah the 78th Highlanders, and that, with their aid and that of the 35th Foot and a battery of guns, he proposed to disarm the sipáhís the following day. Lord Canning gave him the required permission.
It is perhaps as well that I should state what I witnessed in the capital on that eventful day, known in history as 'Panic Sunday.' The morning was clear and bright. There was nothing at the time to indicate that a crisis was at hand. At eleven o'clock I proceeded, as was my wont, to the church within Fort William. As the service there proceeded I was struck by the continuous sound of the trampling of horses and the rolling of gun-carriages, evidently quitting the fort. On the conclusion of the service I drove to the house of the Home Secretary, Mr Beadon, then residing with two other gentlemen in Chauringhí. Mr David Money, of the civil service, a relation of my wife, was staying with him. Mr Beadon was in his shirt sleeves, engaged in writing, and apparently much occupied. I told him and his friends what I had heard in the fort, but my remarks elicited no reply. I returned home to luncheon, and remained in my house the rest of the day. About four o'clock I was roused by a sound of the movement of horses and carriages, and almost immediately afterwards a note was placed in my hand. It was from Mr David Money. It ran as follows: 'Come over with M. at once; the regiments at Barrackpur have mutinied, and are marching on Calcutta. There is no time to be lost. We have a stone staircase, five good rifles, and plenty of ammunition. Come without delay.' Proceeding to the gate of my house, which was in Chauringhí, and commanded the plain as far as the glacis of the fort, I saw that plain covered with fugitives, some riding, some in carriages of sorts, some in palanquins, some running, some walking — men, women, and children all making for the nearest fort gate. It was a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. Deeming that at such a crisis it was the duty of every Englishman to stay at his post, I declined the kind offer made me, and stood there for some time watching the extraordinary scene. I noticed, as I drove out that evening, that many of the houses near me were deserted, and that a terrible panic had taken hold of the Eurasians. I ascertained, too, that many high-placed officials had sent their families on board ship, that some of them had proceeded thither themselves, whilst others had been content to barricade their houses, to await, without undressing, the events of the night.
There was just this reason for the alarm. The native regiments at Barrackpur had contemplated rising on that day. The admirable foresight and energy of General Hearsey defeated their plans. That night, Saturday, he summoned, by express, the 78th Highlanders from Chinsurah. One wing of the regiment started at once, and though misled by a guide, reached Barrackpur at daybreak. The other wing came in about three hours later. At four o'clock in the afternoon Hearsey paraded the brigade — the three native regiments, a wing of the 35th Foot, and the 78th, the two latter having their muskets loaded with ball, and a battery of artillery, the guns of which were also ready for action. The sipáhís obeyed without a murmur the orders given to them to pile their arms, and the danger was over. It was the dread of what might have happened which had led so many in Calcutta to believe that it had happened.
Early the following morning the Foreign Secretary, Mr Edmonstone, escorted by a party of English soldiers, proceeded to the residence of the ex-King of Oudh at Garden Reach, and, at the interview which followed with that prince, informed him that the exigencies of the time required that he should change his quarters to Fort William. The ex-King behaved with dignity and propriety, protesting in the most solemn manner that neither by word nor deed had he encouraged the mutineers. He declared himself ready to proceed whithersoever the Governor-General might direct. Taken to the fort, accompanied by his late prime minister and a few other nobles, he was lodged in the Governor-General's own house. There his comforts were thoroughly attended to, and as, even when he was residing at Garden Reach, he had never quitted the domain allotted to him, it may be said truly that never was captivity less felt.
The day after this event Sir Patrick Grant arrived in Calcutta and took up the nominal command of the army. He did not quit the city during his six weeks' tenure of office. His presence there may then be passed over as an incident not affecting the progress of affairs.
The next day, the 17th, the news of the action fought by General Barnard before Dehlí reached the capital. It was even rumoured that the success was greater than that which had been achieved, and that Dehlí had fallen. Everyone expected that it would be so. In the exultation caused by the impression, Lord Canning, four days later, despatched a request to Barnard to send down a column to clear the weak middle part of the Duáb. But the truth soon became known. Before many days had passed the Government and the public alike realised that General Barnard's task was only beginning, and that assistance for the weak middle piece would be available only from Calcutta.
Meanwhile, darkness was closing round them. At the close of the third week of June, whilst they had heard of further mutinies at Jhánsí, at Náogang, at Nímach, and at Juánpur, they had no news from Kánhpur and Lakhnao later than the 4th. Agra was safe, they knew, on the 10th. They knew likewise that Banáras and Allahábád had been made secure in the manner yet to be described.
During the next fortnight, up to the 4th of July, the accounts became worse and worse. On the 2d of July the Government heard of the mutiny of the native regiments at Kánhpur, and that, joined by Náná Sáhib and his followers, they were besieging Wheeler in his intrenchment; that Sir Henry Lawrence was about to be besieged in the Residency at Lakhnao, but that all was well there to the 30th of June; that Agra was safe up to the 15th, but that Bandah had gone; that the troops of the Gwáliár contingent had mutinied on the 15th; and that an uneasy feeling prevailed at Haidarábád. The next day Lord Canning received a letter from Sir Henry Lawrence, dated the 28th of June. The letter simply stated that the writer had every reason to believe that the English at Kánhpur had been destroyed by treachery. Certain details, which eventually proved to be correct, were added as native reports, but these reports, it was said, were not believed at Allahábád or Banáras.
The Government had up to that moment hoped that Wheeler would be able to hold out until they could relieve him. One regiment had been despatched in May, under Colonel Neill, and that officer had already secured Banáras and Allahábád. It was even hoped that he would be able to leave Allahábád for Káhnhpur, somewhere about the 25th of June, with the four regiments which had been gradually collected at that station. Sir Henry Havelock, fresh from his Persian campaign, having come up with Sir Patrick Grant on the 16th, had on the 24th been directed to proceed to Allahábád to assume command of that force. He had started the very next day. But if the news received from Sir Henry Lawrence were true, he must inevitably be too late to relieve Wheeler. The situation was alarming in the extreme. If Kánhpur were indeed gone, the weak middle piece was broken in twain. With rebellious Oudh on the one side, and the mutinied Gwáliár contingent on the other, what hope was there that even Havelock, with his four English infantry regiments, his scanty artillery, and his volunteer horsemen could possibly prevail?
In this state of terrible suspense I must leave the Government at Calcutta whilst I tell the sad story of the ' leaguer of Kánhpur.'