The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-31 00:00:00

1056 first, a rising of 200 Saabsls within sixteen miles of Hazarebaugh, and their defeat by a body of Sikhs, and, lastly, the first symptoms of a❑ outbreak in the hitherto peaceable valley of Assam, one of our frontier stations. The following is from Assam, dated September 10th : The fearful rebellion bag cast its dark shadow over our hitherto peaceful valley, although as yet we are spared its dread reality. The first intelligence that a conspiracy had been discovered in Upper Assam came upon us like a thunder clap, and immediate and energetic measures were judiciously adopted at all the stations, and the crisis, we now trust, has passed. Colonel Halms) , has intrenched himself with his Ghoorkas at Debrooghur, and sent off his Hindoostanee sepoys to Jerhat, where there are no Euro. peon residents. Actual mutiny has not broken out at any station, but all feel that they are on a volcano. All is out wardly quiet just now, and everyone tries to feel secure, although great alarm actually exists, for there is not a European soldier in the province. It is said that Koer Singh is the instigator of the plot discovered here. The ladies have left Nowgong for Gowhatty. There a volunteer force has been formed, consisting of the residents and some few natives in high position. We are hoping a steamer may soon be up, and that things may be kept so till then, but our position is certainly very shaky. It is said that the Rajah of Assam has been deported from Upper Assam to the large gaol in Central Assam. With respect to the arrival of reinforcements from England, the steamers Cleopatra and Thebes had arrived at Galle, and were at once to sail for Cal cutta. The Belief.'le, with the 93rd, reached Calcutta at the moment of the mail leaving. lier AlHjesty's ship Sansparell, and other vessels, with the re mainder of the China force, had arrived. _ _ Sir James Outram, G.C.8., has been reappointed Chief Commissioner in Oude, vice Sir Henry Law. rence, deceased. Mr. W. J. Money, of the Bengal Civil Service, has been nominated private secretary to Sir James Outram as a temporary measure. The Poonah Observer understands that Colonel Lugard, C. 8., does not go round to Calcutta for the present, and that he will return to Poonah in about a fortnight hence. We believe the reason fur this to be that General Havelock will contiaue to hold the office of adjutant-general of her Majesty's forces in Bengal until his proinctiou to major general comes out. It is quite possible that this may be received by the next mail; but under any circumstances the delay cannot extend be3ond a few weeks. Major• General Mansfield has assumed his appoint me•nt of chief of the stall in the East Indies. The commissariat floes not appear to be very effec tive in India. Here is a description of a voyage up the Ganges in a river fiat:— We have been very much crowded on board these flats and steamers, and altogether a perfectly miserable voyage— black biscuit and stinking meat, cooked by a miserable lot of dirty looking blacks ; no place to lie hut on the deck, exposed to the weather night and day, and almost eaten up with sand flies, and mosquitoes, rats, and beetles running over yon all night long. After leaving Dinapore we went as far as a place called Ban, about 120 miles from Dina pore, which took us about five days. When we arrived here we were ordered back to Dinapt:re--what for we never could find out. Sickness had now broken aut. We lost one of our surgeons the second time we were at Dinapore, he, poor fellow, having been carried off by cholera. You would have pitied the poor fellows to have seen them lying about the deck half dead, afflicted with fever, diarrheas, dysentery, and cholera, and no soft bed or hos. pital accommodation, or any other comfort at ell. I thank God 1 managed to keep in good health, with the exception of a slight bowel complaint now and then. We arrived at Allahabad on the 4th of September, after a voyage of severe trial, having lost nearly thirty men coming up the Ganges. Some of the poor fellows we had to throw into the river, for, dying of cholera and such diseases, they would not keep until we got into a station. The voyage up here certainly would have been very delightful if we had had proper accommodation. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 31, 1857. manity and the honour of the country they belong to, he calls upon them to spare all women and children that may come in their way. It is so imperative, not only for their safety but for the success of the assault, that men should not struggle from their column, that the major-general feels it his duty to direct all commanding officers to impress this strictly upon their men, and he is confident that, after this warning, the men's good sense and discipline will induce them to obey their officers and keep steady to their duty. It is to be explained to every regiment that indiscriminate plunder will not be allowed ; that prize agents have been appointed, by whom all captured property will be col lected and sold, to be divided, according to the rules and regulations on this head, fairly among ell men engaged ; and that any man found guilty of having concealed cap tured property will be made to restore it, and will forfeit all claims to the general prize; he will also be likely to be made over to the provost•marshal to be summarily dealt with. The major-general calls upon the officers of the force to lend their zealous and efficient co-operation in the erection of the works of the siege now about to be com menced. He looks especially to the regimental officers, of ali grades, to impress upon their men that to work in the trenches during a siege is as necessary and honourable as to fight in the ranks during a battle. He will hold all officers responsible for their utmost being done to carry out the directions of the engineers, and he confidently trusts that all will exhibit a healthy and hearty spirit of emulation and zeal, from which he has no doubt that the happiest results will follow, in the brilliant termination of all their labours. GENERAL WILSON'S ORDER. The force assembled before Delhi has had much hard ship and fatigue to undergo since its arrival in this camp, all of which has been most cheerfully borne by officers and men. The time is now drawing near when the major general commanding the force trusty that their labours will be over, and they will he rewarded by the capture of the city for all their past exertions and for a cheerful en durance of still greater fatigue and exposure. The troops will be required to aid and assist the engineers in the erection of the batteries and trenches, and in daily expo sure to the sun, as covering parties. The artillery will have even harder work than they yet have had, and which they have so well anti cheerfully per. formed hitherto ; this, however, will be for a short period only, and, when ordered to the assault, the major-general feels assured British pluck and determination will carry everything before them, and that the bloodthirsty and mur derous mutineers against whom they are fighting will be driven headlong out of their stronghold or be extermi nated. But to enable them to do this, he warns the troops of the absolute necessity of their keeping together, sod not straggling from their cclumns—by this can success only be secured. Major-General Wilson need hardly remind the troops of the cruel murders committed on then• officers and oomrades, as we 1 as their wives and children, to move them in the derily struggle. No quarter should be given to the mutineers; at the same time, for the sake of kw. NANA. SAHIB'S PROCLAMATIONS. The following proclamations issued by th s mis creant have been forwarded to us for publication. The first is dated the Ist of July : As, by the kindness of God and the ikbal or good fortune of the Emperor, all the Christians who were at Delhi, Poonah, Sattara, and other places. and even those $OOO European soldiers who went in disguise into the former city and were discovered, are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and sagacious troops, who are firm to their religion ; and as they have all been conquered by the present Government, and as no trace of them is left in these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and servants of the Government to rejoice at the delightful intelligence, and to carry on their respective work with comfort and ease. Proclamation dated the Ist of July, and issued by order of the Nana : As, by the bounty of th 3 glorious Almighty God and the enemy-destroying fortune of the Emperor, the yellow. faced and narrow•minded people have been sent to hell, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it is necessary that all the subjects and landowners should be as obedient to the present Government as they had been to the former one; that all the Government servants should promptly and cheerfully engage their whole mind in executing the orders of Government; that it is the in burnbent duty of all the ryots and landed proprietors of every district to rejoice at the thought that the Christians have been sent to hell, and both the Hindoo and Ma. homedan religions have been confirmed ; and that they should as usual be obedient to the authorities of the Government, and never to suffer any complaint against themselves to reach the ears of the higher authorities. Order dated the sth of July to the city Kotwal (Mayor) by the Nana : It has come to our notice that some of the city people, having heard the rumours of the arrival of the European soldiers at Allahabad, are deserting their houses and going out into the districts ; you are, therefore, directed to proclaim in each lane and street of the city that regiments of cavalry and infantry and batteries have been despatched to check the Europeans either at Allahabad or Futtehpore ; that the people should therefore remain in their houses without any apprehension, and engage their minds in carrying on their work. A letter from Cawnpore, dated the 3rd instant, states that Naua Sahih is at Futtehpore Chowra.ssee, fifteen miles up the river on the Oude side, and that his family and household have gone to Lucknow. INDIA: THE SEPOY MUTINEERS AND THE NATIVE PRINCES. The following extracts from a long and able letter upon the Indian revolt, and which appeared in a contemporary on Saturday and Monday last, contain matter for serious reflection.— It is to be remarked throughout the rebellion that all the mutinous troops within several hundred miles of Delhi seem to have made for that place a 4 the centre and nucleus of the rebellion. They have established no local posts, indulged in none of the ease of districts all their own, but have marched to the point where a common stand was to be made against the common enemy—the Feringhee. Still more strange, they have generally not divided the plunder treasure ; no man has been permitted to act for himself ; there has been none of that wild dispersion to their homes of a soldiery sated with booty which might have been expected. They have, almost in regular order, marched to Delhi with the treasure, as public treasure. Indeed, the quiet, orderly, and peculiar character of the sepoy has been throughout the rebellion our greatest difficulty. In any other country, among any other race, and especially among men of much greater individual torce and energy—mu tineers in possession of unlimited treasure and plunder would have broken into every excess, and order could never have been maintained. These wild but determined and bloody 11 intloos have maintained the order which is their greatest security. They seem to have given themselves up to a cause (I believe they themselves hardly know what cause), and each individual scarcely even cares to burden himself with rupees when within his reach. Thus, then, continual accessions of troops and treasures have come to the mutineers at Delhi. I believe that all the contingents of native States who have gone over are our own men, raised by ourselves and officered by our officers. So far as we know, the Rajahs of Gwalior, Rajpootana, Bhurtpore, Ulwar, &c., the Nawabs of Rampore and Nageebabad, the hill chiefs, and others have all come forward to render more or less what aid they could. But it is the Cis•Sutlej Sikh chiefs who have occupied the most critical position, who have rendered the most active aid, and who, indeed, may be said to have saved the empire—if saved it be. Of the country between the Jumna and Sutlej—the basis of the operations of our little army against Delhi—almost half is still held by the protected chiefs, and I think I may say that from the nature of their system they have a more complete command over their resources, their carriage, and supplies than we have. Hence, for these most material aids we have relied very much on them, and well have they rendered them, but still more when the war ( I must now call it so) broke out. The Rajahs of Plittceallah and Jheend have in person taken a part, without which our army could probably neither have moved to nor held our position before Delhi in the way we have done. The Rajah of Jheend, in fact, himself, with his petty force, led the van of the army, and now covers its rear. The Rajah of Putteeallah has territory and great resources ; and though his troops are not very efficient for actual fighting, for all kinds of miscellaneous but indispensable duties they hove been invaluable. In fact, whatever we have not got, or do not know how to get, we ask him for, and he must somehow or other supply the deficiency. Of these things the most needful is money. Our treasuries were plundered or exhausted. The chiefs have all accumulated treasure. We borrowed from them in the Sikh war, and never repaid them as we hail promised ; but, on the contrary, indulged in some very sharp practice touching a reduction to four per cent. interest. Now again we have asked them for money, and money we have got largely. Though I have been, and perhaps will be, an annexationist, I am free to confess that in this very peculiar crisis I could well have wished that a large proportion of Hindostan were held by native chiefs—by men who have something to lose—and that those who exist had not been burdened by our Hin dostanee contingents ; that Oude had been native and Gwalior more free. But, on the other hand, if the Punjaub had not been conquered we could not so long have held our own at Delhi ; we must probably have succumbed in all this part of the country ; the British power would have been swept from Upper India, and the British population have ceased to live. It may prove that the British Punjaub has saved India. THE GRAVE AT CkWNPORE. A correspondent of the Times this week relates the following suggestive conversation lie held recently with a retired officer, a relative of some of the Cawn pore victims : " They talk," he said, " of raising R monument over that well. They don't understand the natives, or they would do nothing of the sort. What does a Hindoo care for a marble pyramid or obelisk? Now, what they should do is this,—build above that well a Christian temple, as small as you like, but splendid, so that after generations of Christians shall say to as many generations of Mahome dana or Hindoos, ' Look here ! On this spot your fathers wrought the blackest of their deeds to get rid of Christianity from India. See what came of it! Christian rites are now celebrated and Christian worship presented on the very site of that well, and above the ashes of 200 martyrs !' That would be worth 100 missionaries." Letters from Calcutta do not give a very vivid picture of the state of affairs there : In Calcutta we all most bitterly condemn the hideous folly of the Home Government in sending out troops round the Cape. It seems to put in the shade all the folly that has been committed here. The only possible suggestion in its favour is that political difficulties are in the way of the transport of troops overland. We cannot believe that such difficulties have arisen, inasmuch as we are told by electric telegi aph from Bombay that 5,000 troops are at Malta awaiting steamers to convey them to India. Bat 5,000 troops is but a tenth of the number actually required in this country. The troops round the Cape cannot all be here before the end of November, nor in the north-west before the end of December. It' were a sad and gloomy speculation to endeavour to realise all that may happen in the north-west by that time. The idea of 20,00 , 1 English soldiers being idle on board ship for three or four long weary months, when those same troops might in six weeks have been in India, in ample time to relieve their despair ing countrymen, is horrible indeed. Every drop of English blood which may be shed through this wicked delay must be on the heads either of those out here, who did not sufficiently explain to the authorities at home the magni tude of the danger, or of those who, by sending troops round the Cape in sailing vessels, showed their contempt for the emergency, and their want of sympathy for their beleaguered countrymen in India. Circumstances come to light almost daily to show us more and more how general has been the conspiracy against us. We find that the bloodiest and most sweeping massacres have been perpetrated at the instigation, or under the immediate oonnnand of native rajahs and chiefs, Hindoo and Mahometlan, who have had nothing in common with the army. The tragedy of Cawnpore would never have taken place but for the Nana Sahib. Tito sepoys had left the station, and intended making for Delhi, when they were cajoled or bribed by the Nana to remain for the purpose of killing the Europeans. The sepoya at Jhanai would have left the people in the fort. alone but for the Ranee of Jhanai, who induced them to remain for the purpose of attacking the fort. At Bareilly it was not the mutineers, but the Mahomedan chieftain,