The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

Serree found the enemy strongly posted in an intrenched position, which I have the satisfaction to inform you we carried after an engagement of about three•quarters of an hour, and proceeded to take up our present position, which we found to be over disputed ground the whole way, and finally a well-defended line of defence from the signal tower to the Hindoo Rao-house. Our troops behaved with the greatest gallantry and persevering endurance, and after facing very determined resistance, drove the enemy within the walls of Delhi. Al! this was accomplished by nine o'clock in the morning. Our loss has been compara tively trifling, only one officer being killed; but 1 regret to say that officer is Colonel Chester, adjutant-general to the army, who was esteemed by all for every qualification that could adorn the soldier. I have not been able to ascertain the particulars of oar loss, or capture of guns, but I fear I cannot estimate the former under from forty to fifty killed, the number of guns taken to be about sixteen or eighteen. On the following day, the 9th, as we learn by a noti fication issued from the Judicial Commissioner's office at Lahore, a sortie of the mutineers took place. They were attacked by the cavalry of the Guides, which bad joined the army, and driven back to the walls by a brilliant and successful charge, in which, hOwever, the commandant, Quintin Battye, fell mortally wounded. The Times correspondent, writing from Bombay, July Ist, remarks : Whatever else may be uncertain, that Delhi was not taken on the 12th of last month is perfectly certain. It was still in possession of the mutineers on the 16th, the date of our latest accounts from the army. On the 13th or 14th a second sortie was made from the city, in which the mutinied 60th, late of the Umballah garrison, took a leading part. Like that of the 9th, it was repulsed with severe loss, and on this, as on the former occasion, the gallantry and conduct of the Corps of Guides was eminent. I find that not only, as I supposed, the cavalry of the corps, but also the infantry, are with the army, the latter having been brought down from the Punjab on camels. The cavalry made the astonishing march of 750 miles in 28 days. It were well if the general commanding could get a few thousand men like these, for of reinforcements he is sorely in need, and for want of them he was, on the 16th, pausing in his attack. By the 21st, however, he would, it is thought, receive a considerable addition to his strength in the Euro pean troops of the Jullundur Brigade, set free to act beyond the limits of the station by the mutiny and flight of the native portion of the brigade, the 6th Cavalry, and the 30th and 61st Infantry, who rose on the night of the Bth, and were chased out of cantonments till they dispersed. The Bth Foot, Major Olpherts' troop of Horse Artillery (first of the Ist Brigade), and the headquarters of the let Battalion of Foot Artillery, are thus rendered available in whole or in part ; and from Ferozepore, since the mutinies and the disarming, her Majesty's 61st is able toipare a wing for Delhi, and two companies, I believe, of artillery. It is in the latter arm that the besieging force is especially weak, while the rebels are actually said to have no less than 150 guns in position. True, they have very few artillerymen, only one company to work them, but even in the hands of sepoys the great guns may do a good deal of mischief. Their number may be exaggerated, but it is to be remembered that the rebels have the great arsenal of Delhi in their undisputed possession. You will be anxious to know what number of the insurgent soldiery has collected in Delhi, while Generals Reed and Barnard were waiting for reinforcements. On the 16th. according to the Judicial Commissioner of Lahore (the best autho rity now-a-days, for the telegraph is in working order be tween this city and the camp before Delhi), " 3,000 of the rebels were encamped outside the Ajmere•gate, and the force of the mutineers in Delhi appears not to ex ceed a few thousands, even with the addition of the 60th Native Infantry and some others who have lately joined them." There is a vagueness in this account which, though perhaps inevitable, is un satisfactory. The phrase " some others" is, it may be feared, an elastic one. Allowing that the mutineers of Jullundur and Phillour (where the 3rd Native Infantry has risen) are unable to reach the revolted capital, still from Allahabad and even Benares, in the south (of which more presently), and from the Rohilcund stations in the east, there is nothing to prevent the rebellious sepoys arriving at the point to which it is known they were tend ing. Not that I think this consideration a discouraging one. On the contrary, I regard it as highly satisfactory that the revolt has chosen for itself but one centre, for, that annihilated, it is utterly broken. Only knowing the vital importance of the conflict to which our generals are committed, the smallness of the force under their command—which even with reinforcements will hardly, I imagine, reach 6,000 men—the great extent of the city (five or six miles from north to south). its populousness, and the tact that on the eastern or river side it is now entirely open to the mutineers to receive men or supplies from the Doab—se must not murmur against our chiefs if some days yet elapse before we hear that the place is taken. So much for the position of affairs at Delhi. With respect to the catalogue of mutinies and disarmings, we may state, first, that at Calcutta, on the 14th of June, upon the Government receiving intelligence of the intention of the native troops to attempt the capture of Calcutta, the entire native brigade were at once disarmed. A similar measure of precaution has been adopted at Barrackpore and Moultan. As to the Bengal army, the Times correspondent writes ; When I closed my last I calculated that, in one way cr another, some 28 regiaients of regular infantry had ceased to carry arms for the Company. I now count up- Wirci 0 46—perhaps as high as 46. In Bohilcund THE PRESS, AUGUST 1, 1857. probably all the four regiments are gone, certainly the two at Bareilly—the 18th and 68th, with the Bth Irregular Cavalry and a Company of Native Foot Artillery. Most of the officers have escaped, it is believed, to the hill station of Tynee Tal or elsewhere, but the Brigadier, Sibbald, is said to have fallen, and many civilians are missing. Cawnpore, we believe, has been saved by the arrival of the 84th and of the 64th, the latter from Bombay. But the 12th Native Infantry has mutinied in Bundlecund, and at Allahabad the 6th Native Infantry, which had been loud in its protestations of loyalty, and of its desire to be led against Delhi, rose and murdered Captain Bird, the Fort Adjutant, and all the Europeans they could lay hands upon. The rest took refuge in the fort, where they are still in safety, the mutineers having marched for Delhi. At Benares the 37th Native Infantry mutinied on an attempt being made to disarm them. Joined by the 13th Irregular Cavalry and the Sikh Regiment of Loodhiana, they killed Captain Guise, of the cavalry, and attacked the guns of the European company of artillery, hut were repulsed by a discharge of grape, and by the resolute attitude of a handful of the Queen's 13th and of the Madras Fusileers. At Azimghur the 19th muti nied, and shot their adjutant, Lieutenant Hutchinson. At Ghazeepore the 65th hiss been disarmed. At Jaun pore the detachment of the Loodhiann Regiment followed the example of the headquarters at Bermes, killed Mr. Cuppage, the civilian, and badly wounded Lieutenant Mara, their commanding officer. All this in the Benares district. The rest of the Dinapore division has been quiet, with the exception of one deplorable occurrence at ltohnee. Major Macdonald, Sir Norman Leslie, and Dr. Grant, three officers of the sth Irre gular Cavalry, were attacked one evening when sitting in the verandah of the major's house. Sir Norman was killed on the spot, and the other two severely wounded. The assassins, at, first supposed to be disbanded sepoys, belonged, it now appears, to their own regiment, and have been given up for execution by their comrades. The intelligence from the north-west provinces and from Central India is not encouraging : Turning back to the North-West, we pause for an instant in Oule to see the gallant and able Sir Henry Lawrence grimly busy in hanging the mutineers at Lucknow, with loaded field-pieces and lighted port-fires on either side the scaffold, and to hope that there is no truth in the report that he has been forced to abandon the capital and fall back upon Cawnpore. Pass rapidly through the Doab ; nothing new hiss happened to detain us, though it will take an army from Allahabad or Cawnpore one of these days to restore it to tranquillity It remains to consider the position of the great tract of Central India to the southward and westward of Delhi, with its numerous independent chiefs. Approaching this district from the north, I have first to note that the contin. gent of the Jheend Rajah has been doing true and loyal service under the walls of Delhi. In his neighbourhood are the British stations of Hansi and Hisser. Here the Hurrianah Light Infantry battalion has mutinied, killing, it is feared, Lieutenant Barwell, and other Europeans. The levies of the Rajah of Bhurtpore, to whom was com mitted the charge of keeping open the road between Delhi and Agra, proved faithless, and their officers, Captains Nixon and Munbee, of the Bombay army, scarcely regained Bhurtpore with their lives. The Ulwar Horse are, it is feared, equally false. • With regard to the conduct of the native princes the intelligence yet is extremely meagre. Rumour, writes the Daily News—" chiefly pro ceeding from native sources—attributes to the King of Oude complicity in a plot to subvert the British sway in Bengal and Upper India, and restore the Mussulman dynasties. It is said that to the titular King of Delhi was to have been allotted the north-west territory ; to the King of Oude, Lower Bengal ; to his brother, the heredi tary possessions of the family; and some provinces to the Nawab of Moorshedabad. With respect to the measures of the Government, it appears that little is done except to pray for re inforcements, and to watch with no small anxiety the conduct of the ruling native princes. The intelligence from Paris, through Russian sources, states that General Barnard cannot attack Delhi for some time to come. He wants, it is asserted, 8,000 men at least, and an amount of artillery and ammunition which could not be brought up very readily during the hot season. But what is worse still, if true, the military depots of our Indian army are said to be in a very low condition as regards ammunition ; that the Govern ment has neglected to keep up the necessary stores. It is declared, therefore, that we shall not hear of the fall of Delhi for some time to come. The next assertions are to the effect that, although the forces of Madras and Bombay are not in open mutiny, we cannot depend upon them, and any unfavourable turn of events might obligo at least a general tits banding.—Post, second edition. CHINA. THE news from China is confirmed. General Ash burnham and his staff had arrived. Lord Elgin remained at Singapore. The entire junk fleet before Canton has been destroyed. The Chinese appear to have selected their positions with great skill, and to have fought their guns with remarkable precision and bravery. The Times correspondent gives the following graphic account of that hero Captain Keppel. His boats had just arrived at the entrance of a nano* passage in the Fatshan Creek, deieoded 17 twenty junks of war ;• 751 One of these funnel passages has been staked and is impassable. The other has not &water to carry two boats abreast. At this perilous passage Keppel and his crew now dashed. The three boomboata took the ground in attempting to follow. The base of this triangular island consists of high land which the grounded boomboats could not fire over, so their guns were useless ; the apex, or, to use my more familiar illustration, the knuckle part, was low, paddy fields, which the junks' guns could not sweep across. It was a position worthy of a Carthaginian—locus insidiis natus. No sooner did the boats appear in the narrow pas sage than twenty 32-poundersisent twenty round shot, and a hundred smaller guns sent their full charges of grape and canister at a range of 500 yards right among them. The effect was terrible. Keppel was sounding with the boathook for water for the boom boats, and went back amid the storm to get them up. They start afresh, and make another effort to get through. The Commodore pushes on ahead. There was Captain Leckie in his galley, with Major Kear ney by his side. There was Captain Rolland in the launch of the Calcutta, and Lieutenant Seymour in the barge of the same ship. The Tribune's cutter was in among them. The Hongkong, who had worked herself up through the mud to within 500 yards. of the scene of action, had sent her gig. Perhaps there were others, but amid so much smoke and fire even those who were in it cannot agree as to minute de tails. If the gunners of the Excellent bad been in those Chinese junks, and had worked those 32- pounder guns, they could hardly have thrown the round shot straighter. Keppel's galley, not a large mark, is hit three times l in two minutes; a 32- pounder shot strikes Major Kearney in the breast, tearing him to pieces. He must have died without a sensation. Young Barker, a midshipman of the Tribune, who wore upon his finger a ring bequeathed to him by his brother, who was killed at Inkermann, is down, mortally wounded. The Commodore's cox swain is killed, and every man'of his crew is wounded. But the miracle is not that the men are falling, but that any escape. The God of Battles is there, and wonderful are the instances of His merciful pro tection. Captain Cochrane has the sleeve of his coat torn away by a shot, which leaves him unharmed. A round shot enters the Tribune's boat and passes along her line of keel, from stem to stern, without touching a man. " That was close, Victor," said Keppel to his flag-lieutenant, as a cannon shot passed between their heads. Fortunately for him self, Victor (Prince Victor of Hohenlohe, as thorough and as unpretending a British seaman as if his name were Drake or Jervis) was leaning forwards, and using his handkerchief as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of a seaman whose hand bad just been shot off, otherwise that ball must have taken Victor's head off. At this time the galley was disabled, and she was drifting down under the guns of the junks. Even Keppel saw that it would not do. The matter was, however, settled for him, for the next shot; tore away the stern sheets of his galley while he was fortunately standing up with the tiller ropes in his baud, " Seymour, you must take me in," and he stepped from his sinking galley into the barge of the Calcutta. All the other occupants of the galley were also removed into the barge; all except the mangled corpse of the coxswain and the favourite dog of the commodore, who had been accustomed to be tended by that man, and would not leave his body. With this freight the wreck of the galley drifted with the rising tide up towards the junks. That same afternoon, upon the junks getting under weigh, he pursues them, captures five, de stroys the rest, and then, arriving off a town at the head of the creek, proposed " to land his howitzers and pass the night in the city":— A daring scheme which might have produced a ransom of half a million of dollars or utter destruc tion, as the fortune of war might incline. A message from the admiral, however, recalled him. He had his five junks towed out before him, and as he left the city he stood up in the stern-sheets of his boat, and shook his 'fist' good-humouredly, saying, "You rascals, I'll come back again to you soon ;" and those extraordinary Chinese, they too laughed—a broad, good-humoured grin—and so they parted. Now the boats retired amid a sounding of gongs, strange shouts of triumph, and a redoubled fire. They retired to the Hongkong, which was aground astern ; , but„ supported by the Starling, threw shot and shell up among the junks, and received from them a full equivalent for their fire. lilt, was three o'clock when Commodore Keppel re turned to the flagship, which was now anchored where the Chinese admiral's junks had been moored at the commencement of the engagement. As be came down his lost dog recognised the yellow Rebeigh boat, and swam off to his master. The death of Mr. De lane, so long connected with the Times, is reported. Mr. Delane died at the house of his son, near Norwich, oi) tl. 2144 i 4 *5. • • tlitb year of his age, • I