The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-23 00:00:00

80 D. the open again. I must leave the account of our getting out till my next, as I post this at once to save your heart aching any more. Poor Stephenson is gone ;he died the morning after he was taken out of the city. Grant is a trifle better. I have not seen him for a week. Poor Mrs. Banks! I took her ont myself, she hanging on my arm, and her dear little baby in my arms. I was obliged to take her under the fire of large guns nearly all the way; but had to make her believe most of them were our own guns. I never felt so thankful as when she was in sidety. I then returned to Lucknow, and came out with the garrison. I have got a small tent for her and a capital carriage. I was so jolly at being able to do so much for her. I know not our movements yet ; however, rumour says we are to remain here and hold our own. My little note sent out in a quill was captured by the enemy. The following extracts are from letters of Mrs. Banks, mentioned above : Lucknow, Oct. 4. My dearest —,—l hope you may have heard of the blow which has fallen upon as before my letter reaches you, for I cannot soften the miserable tidings. Your brother is gone, I trust and believe, to a happier world, and in all human probability his child and I shall soon follow him. I cannot attempt to tell you of our three months' siege and all its horrors. My husband was, as always, the foremost where anything difficult and dangerouswas to be done, and when, on Sir H. Lawrence's death, he WAS appointed chief commissioner, neither I nor others could persuade him to remember his own peril enough. He died nobly, leading on the Europeans to repel a furious attack on an out post. Those who were near told me that the bullet struck his temple, and that he fell b►ck without a groan. . . . After threee months of siege, relief came to us, but the force sent was not strong enough to take away the number of wounded and of women and children that are here, and to-night they march back to Cawupore, leaving us with a slight augmentation of our garrison, but with a fearfully diminished stock of food, and with an enemy who will be much emboldened by their retreat. General Outram hopes to return in six weeks with 10,000 men, but we have had too much experience of how slowly relief can be afforded in this country to look very hopefully on the:prospect The defences of the place are very weak now, and the enemy ontaide are said to muster in greater numbers than ever. We have heard too much of the tragedies at Cawn pore and elsewhere not to dread the fate that awaits us if they succeed in carrying the place, and our other danger is want of food, which, should the army be unable to return, we shall be in the utmost distress for. Thank God, I can feel assured all is well and wisely ordered, though very bitter has been the trial.—Your affectionate sister, E. H. B. P.S. Oct. s.—The tromps did not go last night, for oar men got possession of a good many houses during the day; and, I believe, the general is going to wait a hale longer, and see if there is any hope of our sufficiently com manding the road to get in supplies, so our prospects are • shade brighter. It may please God yet to save us, and truly it will be a marvellous deliverance. That it is all right and ordered for the best I know, and that it will be so to the end. Dil Kooat Park, outside Lucknow, Nov. 22. My dearest —,--We are at length released from oar long siege. On the 19th all women and children left the Residency, and the same night reached this place, about four miles, and scarcely two from my old house. I can not attempt to describe all the horrors of that first march, under a burning sun, on foot, and in many places exposed to a heavy fire. My child and I have been brought safely through it. We are encamped here until the military plans have been settled. Many think that Lucknow must be abandoned fur the present, and that the whole force will soon join us here and march back to Cawnpore ; a few days mast show. I must hope that the papers will give you all public intelligence and help you to understand my letters, for 1 have neither time nor heart to enter upon a detail of the last five dreadful months. When we meet, if please God we timer do, I shall be able to tell it all ; I cannot write it.... The poor children have been deprived of milk and every proper food for them. The air we have been breathing was tainted by the dead natives and animals nninterred close to our walls, and for certainly two months of the siege the daily return of young children buried in the graveyards at Lucknow must have averaged seven a night. It is a melancholy sight that graveyard ; in one corner close together lie poor Sir Henry, my darling Sherbrooke, and our chaplain (Polehampton), who died of cholera. If any garrison remain, one of his friends has promised to get a stone put up for me to mark the spot ; but if the place be abandoned, its only mark will be in my recollec tion; and I even could go to it only once, and that by night, the musketry fire was so incessant there. Some time ago, when General Havelock's force came in. I wrote you a letter, which I inclose in this ; it never had the opportunity of going, but it will give you some idea of what our state was at that time, and of the little anticipa tion I then had of ever leaving Lucknow. The resolution which had then been taken of sending the force back to Cawnpore was given up. Two or three days after some wheat and some bullocks were brought in by a sallying partool ' and, though not much, it enabled us to hold out a deal longer on half rations than we otherwise could have done. When Sir C. Campbell came with real relief we were taken out with twenty-four hours' notice Surely such fearful events as have passed here in the last few months have scarcely occurred before in the history of the world. The accounts given of the Cswnpore tragedy by officers now with this army are dreadful—beyond any thing one can imagine ; and the sight I have witnessed in Lucknow can never be forgotten —Your affectionate sister, E. H. B. THE PRESS, JANUARY 23, 1853. OFFICIAL DESPATCHES. Another supplement to the London Gazette was issued on Saturday evening with further despatches from India. This supplement contains the de• spatchea respecting Lucknow and the operations of Sir Colin Campbell that have already been printed. These are followed by an account of the defeat of the insurgents at Bulleh, in the Kurnaul district. Lieutenant Hughes says : - Nothing could exceed the gallantry with which the sowers tore down the barricade and attacked its defenders ; and I have since had the satisfaction of hearing, from the villagers themselves, that twenty of the insurgents were killed, and twenty-two wounded, in our charge through the suburbs. After a short cannonade, the town was carried by the Infantry and a party of the Ist Punjaub Cavalry. The pukka-built houses I could not easily fire, but the suburbs, containing large quantities of stacked forage, were com pletely destroyed. Large stores of grain, ghee, Sze., which were found in the town itself, were confiscated to Govern ment, and made over to the Tehseeldar of Gurroundah. Four of the Lumburdars, and some other influential men of the place, who are prisoners in my camp, have begtred to be allowed to redeem the confiscated property, and I have agreed to their doing so, on payment of 1.000 rupees over and above the balance of revenue due. I fully expect this money to be paid in the course of to-day. The destruction of this place—the most important town in the neighbourhood—has had a very salutary effect ; so much so, that two adjacent villages ( against which M Le Bas had requested me to proceed) this morning brought in their revenue, as also did the Lumburdar of Dhurrum ghur, in the Paneeput district. The loss of the insurgents cannot be estimated at less than 130 or 140, and of these, I should say, some 70 or 80 were cut up by the troop under Lieutenant Millett. Despatches and returns follow relative to the operations carried on during the siege of Delhi, re ceived at irregular intervals, accompanied by a general order, in which we have recorded our apuro. bation and thanks to the officers in command, and to those who have specially distinguished themselves, and to the troops by whom they were supported in the frequent engagements in which they were op posed to the enemy. These despatches contain the reports of the officers commanding in the first actions with the mutineers at Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur, where the gallant conduct of her Majesty's 60th Regiment, of the Carabineers, and of the Bengal Artillery, was conspicuous, and at Budlee ka Serai ; as well as the accounts of other contests in which the British troops have been engaged, always suc cessfully, with the enemy; each occasion furnishing examples of the undaunted courage, determination, and endurance by which the last crowing success was subsequently achieved. The Governor-General in council speaks of the services rendered in the operations connected with Delhi in terms of high commendation. Returns of killed and wounded follow, but not to any large extent. administered the government in India that the heads --- of states and the people had remained true to the Compa ny ., rule. The Court of Directors expressed their conviction that a change so important would be misunderstood by the people of India, and submitted that if any such change should be really thought desirable, it should be introduced at a time of tranquillity, when the circumstances of India could be regarded without prejudice, and when the changr, could not, in the eyes of the natives, be connected with the late calamitous events. The court remarked that they had always shown themselves ready to acquiesce in any change that would prove useful to the general interests. The directors would not object to relinquish their trusts if a better system could be devised for India; but in 1853 the question was thoroughly investigated and exhausted, and the present system was the result. The directors thought the present system a good one, though doubtless capable of some improvement, and the objections to the " double government " were rather nmninal than real, as the duties of the Board of Directors were of an executive rather than of a deliberative character. They abstained, however, from offering observations in the absence of the bill, which they trusted might be communicated at the earliest possible period. The SECRETARY next read the following reply of the Prime Minister : Piccadilly, January IS, ISA Gentlemen,—l have had the honour to receive your joint-letter of the 31st December, 18.57, on the subject of the measure it is the intention of her Majesty's Govern ment to propose to Parliament, in reference to the future system on which the government of India is to be con. ducted . I beg to assure you that the observations and opinions therein expressed will be duly considered by her Majesty's Government. I forbear entering at present into any examination of those observations and opinions. First, because any cor respondence on this matter would be most conveniently carried on through the usual official channel, the President of the India Board; and, secondly, because the detailed arrangements of the measure which her Majesty's Govern ment mean to propose will be best explained when that measure shell be submitted to the consideration of Paula. ment.—l PALMERSTON. . _ To the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors, &c. The SECRETARY then read the petition which it is proposed to present to Parliament from the Company against the proposed change of Government accord ingly. It was a most voluminous document, and nearly an hour was occupieJ in the reading. The following are some of the most important passages: That your petitioners have net been informed of the reasons which have induced her Majesty's Ministers, with out any previous inquiry, to come to the resolution of putting an end to a system of administration which Par liament, after inquiry, delitentely confirmed and sanc tioned less than five years ago, and which in its modified form has not been in operation quite four years, and can not be cmsidered to have undergone a sufficient trial during that short period. That your petitioners challenge the most searching inves tigation into the mutiny of the Bengal army, and the causes, whether remote or immediate, which produced that mutiny. They have instructed the Government of India to appoint a commission for conducting such an inquiry on the spot; and it is their most anxious wish that a similar inquiry may be instituted in this country by your honour able house in order that it may be ascertained whether anything, either in the constitution of the Home Govern ment of India, or in the conduct of those by whom it has been administered, has had any share in producing the mutiny, or has in any way impeded the measures for its suppression ; and whether the mutiny itself, or any cir cumstance connected aRh it., affords any evidence of the failure of the arrangemen:a under which India is at present administered. That, if the administration of India had been a failure, it would, your petitioners submit, have been somewhat un reasonable to expect that a remedy would be found in annihilating the branch of the ruling authority which could not be the one principally in fault, and might be altogether blameless, in order to concentrate all powers in the branch which had necessarily the decisive share in every error real or supposed. To believe that the ad ministration of India would have been more free from error, had it been conducted by a Minister of the Crown, without the aid of the Court of Directors, would be to be lieve that the Minister, with full power to govern India as he pleased, has governed ill, because he has had the assis tance of experienced and responsible advisers. That the more attention is bestowed, and the more light thrown upon India and its administration, the more evi dent it will become that the Government in which they have borne a part has been not only one of the purest in intention, but one of the most beneficent in act, ever known among mankind ; that during the last and present genera tion in particular it has been in all departments one of the most rapidly improving Governments in the world ; and that, at the time when this change is proposed, a greater number of important improvements are in a state of more rapid progress than at any former period. That your petitioners most earnestly represent to your honourable house that, even if the contemplated change could be proved to be in itself advisable, the present is a most unsuitable time for entertaining it; and they most strongly and respectfully urge on your honourable house the expediency of at least deferring any inch change until it can be effected at a period when it would not be, in the minds of the people of India, directly connected with the recent calamitous events, and with the feelings to which those events have either given rise, or have afforded an opportunity of manifestation. THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. THE adjourned meeting of the Court of Proprietors was resumed on Wednesday at Leadenhall•street ; Mr. Mangles, M.P., in the chair. ENCE BETWEEN THE DIRECTORS AND THE The CHAIRMAN reminded the meeting that they were assembled to continue the debate on the fol lowing resolution, proposed by Mr. Crawshay, jun., at the special meeting held on the 13th inst., viz.:— That the transfer of the governing powers of the East India Company to the Crown is opposed to the rights and privileges of the East India Company, is fraught with danger to the constitutional interests of England, is perilous to the safety of our Indian eropin , and calls for the resistance of the corporation by all constitutional means. Before proceeding with the debate, he begged to state that ha had received from Government an answer to the communication addressed to them by the Court of Directors, and he should be happy, with the approval of the meeting, to submit to them the The . CLERK read the letter addressed on the part of the Company to Lord Palmerston, and dated the 31st of December. After acknowledging the receipt of his lordship's letter, containing an intimation that it is the intention of Government to propose a measure to Parliament for the purpose of placing the Government of India under the direct authority of the Crown, the writers stated they felt it due to themselves and the constituent body they represent to lose no time in offering such observations as sug gested themselves on the occasion : They stated that the court proposed that a searching inquiry should be instituted into the causes of the mutiny of the Bengal army, and intimated that they had in structed the Government of India to appoint a commission to make such inquiry. They stated that it would be satis factory to them if a similar inquiry were proposed in Parliament, with power to extend the investigation to an inquiry respecting the conduct of the Home Government. They expressed surprise that, withort imputing blame to the Company, the Government, even hefcre the mutiny was qudled, and while considerable excitement prevails in India, should propse the entire supersession of the East India Company, who were entitled to the credit of haring so