The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

1034 of the cavalry, cutting, slashing, and hooting. I drew my sword, and, running forward in the despair ing hope of reaching the Mound, where I still saw some of our people, I tripped and fell. The cavalry passed over me; one man cut at but missed me. There were upwards of 250. They went right through the camp and back; their brethren stayed beyond the Mound. I at the time thought it was all over with us, for in falling I saw a man gallop from the Mound, and felt sure all had been cut up. If the whole thousand had charged, and the infantry followed, nothing, humanly speaking, could have saved us from annihilation. I got up and ran to the Mound, where such confusion reigned as I never in my life saw before. The guns were served by re cruits and Sikhs; one gun had run off its platform, carrying away the sleeper; another was our preser vation, for it blazed away on the infantry (at •) who were advancing to the attack, but who bolted in con• sternation ; but the shouting, noise, and confusion I shall never forget. The blackguards who rode through the camp contrived to carry away 250 camels. By this time our people recovered from their asto nishment in camp, and soon the whole advanced, clearing the whole of the gardens and joining our pickets at the Samy-house, and drove the sepoys back to the walls of Delhi; but it was a disgraceful affair, and owing to the treachery of the irregular cavalry, which is now with us in camp ! The Sikhs swore they aaw them in conversation with the enemy, and individuals from both sides come forward and join them. The Sikhs begged one officer of artillery to fire, hut the irregular cavalry waved their hands and said they were our friends, till a number of them were collected together, when they drew their swords and dashed forward. Though all this has been re ported, nothing has been done. LORD ELLENBOROUGH'S ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE WINCHCOMB AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. Southern Delabere, October 16, 1857. Gentlemen,—l much regret my not being able to attend your Annual Meeting to day, the more especially as I was desirous of speaking to you upon the subject nearest my heart—the war in India—and of urging you to assist, as you and all country gentlemen and farmers can, most powerfully, in bringing the country through the difficulties in wl , ich it is involved. Not having the opportunity of addressing you otherwise, I now write to you. As to the war itself, I need say but little. As to the conduct of the Ministers and of the Indian Government in this emergency, I shell say nothing. I must soon have ample and more proper opportunities of saying whatever I may think upon that subject. Gentlemen,—You may not hare looked into all the details of what has taken place in India, but you must know this—that we have there a great war forced upon us by rebels who would deprive all our countrymen of their lives, and England of an empire—that where we placed our confidence, we have been met with treachery—where we acted with kindness, we have encountered murder— murder, not directed only against men by whom resistance might be made, and from whom wrongs might have been feared; but extending equally to unoffending, helpless women—to the children at their knees, and to the infants at their breasts. Bat, too often, where death has been inflicted with torture, it has been a refuge from the horrors before wit• neased and endured. We have seen there, in almost every instance of mutiny, one general deliberate design, not only to deprive us of the dominion we have so long held with honour, but to place ns, as a people, under circumstances of outrage and of indignity, which, if we submit to them, must render us, in the eyes of all living men and of all future generations, a despised and degraded race. Will you submit to this? You will say you never will—you will have redress and vengeance. We will say nothing about vengeance—that belongs only to a Higher Power; but to punish crime so signally as to deter all hereafter from its commission, and to vindicate one sovereign authority—this is no doubt our right, and it is our duty—and you will say you will not be found wanting in the performance of it—but, then, what will you do? Depend upon it, it is not enough to sit quietly at home and to pay taxes, nor to go to public meetings and pass resolutions expressive of sympathy with the sufferers and of indignation against their destroyers. You must do more than this, and I will tell you what you can do—what none but those who are in your position can do equally well, and what you now all ought to do for the honour of the country, and for your own. You have heard of the great reinforcements of trenps which have been recently sent or are now going out to India. You have been assured that we shall have there a larger army than we had in the Crimes, and I dare say you expect from the exertions of this force early and complete success in the war. Every thing that the noblest of soldiers can do has been done, and will be done by ours in India ; and they have now a general who knows well what war is—the lions are at last led by a lion—but be assured that this is not a sudden temporary danger to be repelled by sudden temporary exertion. What at first was a mutiny is become a revolution ; to restore civil authority is more difficult than to repress military resistance, and it requires more force to occupy than it does to subdue. Be assured that the military institutions of this country, managed as they now are, are insufficient permanently to supply the number of men required to reconquer what we have lost, and to hold our empire hereafter in security. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 24,1857. It is only through a change in those institutions, which no Minister would willingly propose, or through a great practical improvement in the working of them, which your co•operation may supply, that the necessary force can be maintained. I am satisfied that the principle upon which our militia is now founded—that of voluntary enlistment—is the one most acceptable to the people ; and I feel assured that a militia maintained at its full complement, us it may be, and can only be by the patriotic exertions of country gentle. men and farmers, is the best foundation of our military system. If you, and such as you. will, by your efforts, keep the militia up to its complement, the regular army will take care of itself. It may cost more to draw the recruit for the army through the militia, but the recruit so obtained is in most cases one who would not have been procured mall unless he had first entered the militia, and there acquired a taste for military service. Employ in the obtaining of recruits for the militia but half the zeal you would display in getting votes at an election, and you will certainly succeed. A hundred recruiting sergeants could not do what each of you can do within the sphere of his personal influence. When I tell you that you have this power, I speak from my own experience. When the militia, as now constituted, was first established in 1Et.53, i took much interest in the success of the measure, and I earnestly requested several farmers I was acquainted with to do their utmost to obtain recruits. Some zealously exerted themselves, others were more lukewarm ; but in every instance in which an in fluential farmer cordially undertook the duty the result was uniformly the same; and I am convinced that, if all who could have done so, had acted as some did, the country could in that year have raised, not between fifty and sixty thousand, but not less than one hundred and twenty thousand men. No doubt you would be greatly aided in your exertions to obtain recruits if the militia of the country should be embodied. Men will more willingly enlist in a regiment they can see marching with all the pomp and circumstance of war, than in a corps a hich remains invisible, and of which the existence is only to be found in official records. But, let others do as they may, it is for you to do your duty. Where you lead, others will follow; and while you do much good by your individual efforts, you will do yet more by your example. I ask you only to do what I know you can do, and what I feel you ought to do for the assistance of the country in this critical juncture of our affairs. It is impossible to over-estimate its importance. There is nothing man holds dear for which we have not now to fight. If we should not bear ourselves manfully in the contest thus forced upon us, if we should not succeed in it, we must be content, not only to lose the noblest empire in the world, but to make the name of Englishman a bye word of shame amongst nations. The wives and daughters of our countrymen hare been publicly violated, their children have been put to death with circumstances of cruelty surpassing all we read of in history as the punishments inflicted by God upon the offending Jews. It has not been deemed sufficient to destroy us. We were first to be dishonoured, and this in a country through which we have proudly—perhaps too proudly—stalked as conquerors for a hundred years. Do you suppose that, if we could submit to this in India, we should not be threatened with it in England? Do you imagine that the great military powers of Europe, always prepared for war, offended by our pride, resentful of our former victories, and coveting our present wealth, would long permit us to enjoy in peace the luxuries we cling to and the dreams of irresistible strength in which we fatuously indulge? Be assured that if, under the strongest necessity ever imposed upon a people, we do not rise as one man to vindicate our national honour and to re-establish our Indian empire, the horrors we read of with shuddering as perpetrated at Meerut and at Delhi will not for ever be averated from our island home. I counsel you, therefore, to give at once your cordial assistance, as you best can give it, to the country. In the prosecution of this contest which we cannot avoid— the greatest and the moat difficult in which we have ever been engaged—it will not do to confine ourselves to a cold compliance with what may be requireil from us by the law. To succeed in this war, the people must make it its own.—l remain, gentlemen, with much regard, your very faithful servant, ELLENBOROUGII. SIR E. B. LYTTON ON INDIAN AFFAIRS. Sir E. B. Lrrroa, M.P, on Wednesday addressed a portion of his constituents at the meeting of the Tring Agricultural Association, which was very fully attended. Lieutenant• Colonel SMITH DonatEN, of the Herts Militia, having returned thanks for the army, SIR E. B. LYTTON rose to respond to the toast of "The County Members." He said : Gentlemen, recollecting the bast which was drunk at an earlier part of the evening, and considering whose guest I was last night,-1 mean my friend Colonel Smith Dorrien, who responded in a way that showed his manly spirit and his vivid recollection of the deeds of his youth,-1 am proud to think that Hertfordshire has contributed so many of these men to the service of our country. Out of that noble body of militia which this country produced, and which received, as it deserved, the highest encomiums from the highest military anthorities,—out of a body of 770 men, under the admirable training of the gentleman who site on my right hand (a Harts man ), no less than 600 men were contributed to the Line. We may well be proud of Hertfordshire, and especially at this moment. Ah! who is there who is not thinking of India? Ilas there been a single assembly of this kind, even where the strictest rules prohibit our touching on anything not immediately bearing on the subject before us—has there been a single agricultural meeting where , a member of Parliament has addressed his constituents, when he has not Seen impelled by the feeling of the meeting to say something on the con dition of India? We all feel confident that no such man would debase such a subject to a party question. No man, whatever he may think, whatever may be his opinion as to the faults or the merits of particular parties —no man, I say, in this society, and I hope no man in England, would be base enough to make a party question of the British empire. In this convivial meeting we cannot recall—it would cause too deep a pang—all that has taken place in India. Of all that has been said on the subject lately nothing, to my mind, has been better or more to the purpose than a letter of Lord Ellenborough. There is no party spirit there • there is a reservation, so f ar , f or consideration hereafter, as to what may be our civil or our political duties; but there is the appeal of an old Englishman to English courage, English energy, English determination. And it is perfectly true. It might be quite possible for us to lose India,—as if India were sweet into the ocean,—and still to remain a great and magnifi cent people. But it is impossible for us to remain a great people—l will say it is impossible for us to remain a safe people—if we were to lose India in the way we are now threatened. It is impossible for us to be sofa against Europe, it is impossible for us to be safe against any of the despots of the earth, if it could be said, " England in the plenitude of her strength, England with her countless army, England with all her pride, could allow not only her soldiers, not only the flower of her army, but her women and infants to he massacred, and cease from the contest before she had achieved a triumphant, an effectual, a permanent victory." If we could endure that, I believe the ocean would flow around us in vain. I believe the ocean would soon be passed, that as England has before now been invaded,—as the sea has been crossed when England had not men, as she has now, to defend her, so, though similar atrocities could not take place in this country, the time might come when England would have to submit to a foreign despotism. If England loses her reputation, she loses that which distinguishes her from the rest of Europe. No doif3t there is a good deal which we must calmly consider, which it would not become me now to enter on. At present our duty is not that of calm reflection—our duty is to put down the revolt, and to rally with all our strength around the Executive Government, no matter in whose hands that Government is placed—the Executive Govern ment which represents the Majesty of the, Crown, and whose duty it is to preserve the lives of our endangered countrymen. So long as the danger lasts our tongues are in some degree fettered. While they are putting down the rebellion we must be careful not to utter a single word to weaken their authority. If at this moment a mad bull were let loose among us, I don't think the hest graver in Yorkshire would induce us to listen to &lecture on the management of horned cattle in general. I think the wisest man would be, not he who could instruct you in the best method of dealing with dangerous cattle generally, but the man who made the shortest work of the bull. Gentlemen, that is now our object—we must make short work of the bull. After that we shall have to consider the wisest, or, what is the same thing, the justest and mildest manner, consistent with our empire, of ma naging the wild cattle we shall have to subdue and tame. Christianity imposes on us great obligations. The whole question connected with India is so difficult that we ought to have the greatest indulgence for the errors of any Government that may have preceded us, and to consider carefully, wisely, and without any spirit of party, bow we may best do our duty to God and to that vast population committed to our sceptre. AN EAST INDIAN DIRECTOR ON THE INDIAN REVOLT. Mn. J. P. Wirs.ovonny, M.P. for Leominster (whose name has recently been before the country in re ference to the affairs of the East India Company, of which he is a director), in addressing a meeting at Leominster last week, made the following remarks upon the crisis in India, premising that he offered them as his own individual opinion and not as that "of a party organ " : First, then, I cannot agree with those who view this revolt as a national one. I see no indication of its being a general movement on the part of a people rising against misgovernment, oppression, and wrong; if so, I should despair of a speedy restoration of peace and tranquillity. But I see many indications that it is not a national struggle for independence. The masses of the population are with us ; the industrial, the agricultural, the commercial classes are all on our side, and even the resources round Delhi are at our command. Look, again, at the native chiefs and princes, who, with a trifling exception, are all on oar side, and have given us ready and extensive aid. In that part of India with which I was so long connected there has been no rebellion ; all have proved faithful to the Government, and have given us the readiest help. Even from the remotest provinces the people have come forward to assist the British Government—sonic with men, some with money, and some with both. Far from considering this a national movement, I think the British adminiatra• tion in India has received a severe teat that our rule is satisfactory to the general masses of the population. Then, the revolt is peculiarly a military one, confined to a portion only of our army, though a very large portion. The first act of the mutineers was to release from gaol I!,000 or 12,000 criminals, and they were joined by that miscreant Nana Sahib and the scum of the population