The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-01 00:00:00

were occupied by onr troops, and by the morning of the 17th Sir Cohn Campbell was in complete posses sion of the city and of 117 guns belonging to the rebels. Six such days were, of course, not without incident. The first of importance was the assault and capture of the Begum's Palace on the evening of the 11th. The Begum Ka Mahnl was a strongly intrenched position. It was earned by Sir James Outram at the point of the bayonet in a few minutes. The next morning Sir Cohn rode over the ground, and i ns p e cted his acquisition closely : A high wall, forming the outer barrier, loopholed at eve ry In • oh inclosed the building all round, but it bore frequent marks of our cannon. In front of this wall there was a high parapet of earth with a deep scarp and ditch some fifteen or sixteen feet deep, and two small bastions with embrasures for two guns, which swept the approaches to the place, or were intended to do so. The embrasures, however, had been beaten into ragged holes, choked up with sand and timber by the tire of our guns. Just in front of us, within some eighteen or twenty yards of the ditch, there was a large hole in the ground, caused by a mine which the sepoys sprang when it was too late to do them any good or us any harm. In the ditch itself there lay a heap of the dead bodies of the enemy, which our men were dragging out of the palace and flinging over the trench. The enemy had literally dug their own graves. As we crossed the narrow ramp of earth leading to the gateway we could not but feel astonishment at the small loss by which we had gained such a position. Along the front of this wall, in addition to the guns, there were loopholes for at least 2,000 muskets, and it seemed scarcely possible to effect an entrance at the point where one portion of the Ord and of the Sikhs had rushed through, with bayonets at the charge, on the astounded foe. The gateway to wide!' the ramp led was protected by loopholed turrets at the sides, and by a considerable fire from the walls of the place. The breach made by our guns was on our left of the gateway, but when our troops entered it was only to find themselves in front of a similar wall, directly under the fire of the enemy, who were concealed from them at half.pistol shot. The onlj way of getting at the enemy was by a hole, miscalled a breach, and so narrow and low that not more than cue man could enter at a time, and then only by bending his head. But to avail themselves even of this mode of entrance our men had to struggle through the outer breach or to clamber up the steep bank of the ditch, where, impeded by their numbers in the narrow space, they made for the inner breach ; they were held in check under the enemy's fire till some of them forced their way in through the bricked-up windows, which led them into small dark rooms, filled with sepoys. Held by such troops as those who assaulted the place, the Begum's Palace would have been impregnable to infantry. Entering with difficulty through the suffocating breach, rank with hot air, gunpowder, and dead bodies, I passed into the first of the courtyards in which the fight took place. It was filled with exulting Highlanders, still flushed with the heat of victory, and Sikhs burning gold and silver tissue and lace for the sake of the metals. General Lugard, seated in the midst of them, was busy giving orders to • group of officers, and first among those 1 came across was Leith Hay, leaning on the javelin of one of the Begum's state servants, and full of the incidents of the charge, in which he bore no small part, for he was, I believe. the second or third man who entered through the breach in the gateway. Brigadier Adrian Hope, an excellent and gallant officer, was also there, and he pointed out to me the narrow window through which he had leaped in upon the enemy. How a man could have escaped who entered in such a faskion is beyond my comprehension. Hut there were few slain outright, for the apparition of these brawny soldiers alone unnerved the hands of their enemies. Many fled at once, and were pursued and shot down in the courtyards without offering a resistance ; others fired their makets or matchlocks once, made a wild thrust with the bayonet, and ran also; others, surprised in holes and corners, fought with the ferocity of wild beasts. One officer of the Wird killed with his own hand eleven sepoys, whom lie shot w ith hi s revo l ver or sa b re d i n t h e cou-rt yard.—Tirres cer. Some of the rooms in this palace were veritable "Chambers of Horrors ;" the cotton clothing of the rebels had caught fire, and had burned the wearers alive:— The matches of the men and the discharges of their guns set fire to their cotton clothing ; it is fed by the very fat of their dead bodies ; the smell is pungent and overpowering, and nsuieous to a degree. I looked in at two such rooms, where, through the d ense smo k e, I cou ld see p il es o f bodies, and I was obliged to own that the horrors of the hospital at Sebastopol were far exceeded by what Witnessed. The Secunderctbagh, which was taken on the 14th, presented even a more horrible spectacle:— I never recollect encountering any odour so disgusting and intolerable as that which assailed our nostrils on aPProaching the northern side of this inclesure. The ground was covered with grinning skulk and fragments of burnt skeletons. It wus a veritable Golgotha. In this 8 1 ) 5 4 2 ,000 sepoys met a terrible punishment for their "Ines. The most callous of men in smell and sight roust have been glad to leave the place, and the officers declared to us that they could not keep the men on that side of the spare.--/b. The miserable inhabitants between the combatants "offer ail the horrors s uc h a neu t ra l p o sition inevit ably entails : Here an I there some wounded wretch had crept away to die, and one or two very miserable old women still THE PRESS, MAY 1, 1858. lurked in the huts. One sat by the side of a body covered with clotted blood, and tenderly caressed the dreadful form. Another was creeping along with a heap of rags on her back—her journey very near its close. Inside one of the inclosures one of the officers told me there lay dead a pretty little boy of some seven or eight years of age, his back torn open by a grapeshot, and beside him shrieked and chattered his pet parroquet in a cage, just as it had fallen from his hands as he was flying with it across the cornfields. Some kind hand liberated the poor bird. These are the accidental, but necessary, incidents of war. Our soldiers are not unmoved by them; and the officer who discovered the sad sight I ha v e mentioned told me that he was greatly pleased the day before by the kindness of some soldiers of the 79th to a very ugly and dirty little Hindoo, whom they had found in one of the villages. With their rough hands they washed him, combed his hair, patted him kindly on the head, and fed him, drying up his tears, and telling him in their vernacular, " Not to be afraid—that no one should hurt him."—lb. Sir Colin Campbell will no doubt follow up his success with all the vigour the hot weather will admit of. The rebels had fled in the direction of Seetapore. Nothing however can touch a runaway sepoy, and, as the hot season is rapidly coming on, iti s possible the fugitives may yet give us some trouble. Meantime, Oude is to be pacified by a proclamation : It will, I am informed, announce honours and rewards for all the landholders who have stood faithful through all vicissitudes, confirmations of their titles, and, in many instances, considerable grants and gifts. It will also pro mise to all inhabitants who may submit before a certain date a full and free pardon and amnesty, and to all land owners, with named exceptions, their lives, and anything they may obtain from the clemency of Government. The mutinous soldiery are, however, entirely excepted from the benefit of the amnesty, which moreover is strictly confined to Oude. The order is published at the right time, after the fall of Lncknow, and must produce a tranquillizing effect.—Times Calcutta cur. With respect to the rest of India, the Calpee rebels are again threatening Cawnpore They will hardly, however, venture on an attack, and, now that the chiefs attention is released, will find them- selves surrounded. Large gangs of marauders incessantly cross the river into the Delhi division, plunder a village or two, and retire, the stream being fordable in a hundred places. Nana Sabib is said to be still at Shabjebanpore, and the principal rebels are stated to he with him ; the rebels are also reported to have again entered the Futtyghur district and attacked Keuwall, and driven off the police posted there. Rewah is once more reported restless, and Bun delcund also : It is a bad tract, disaffected to the backbone, as all the districts are in which the hereditary aristocracy have re tained their power. If there is one point settled by the mutinies, it is that we have under estimated the affection borne to this class by the peasantry. It seems to Eng lishmen almost incomprehensible that men should like to be oppressed, and that these men are oppressots it needs no evidence at this time of day to prove. The Punjaub was tranquil. Gulab Singh, the brother of Shere Singh, to whom, it will be remembered, the Government gave a mili tary appointment a short time ago, has, we learn, "succeeded in raising eleven hundred Sikhs for the public service, who are now on their way from the Punjaub to Allahabad." The Governor General remained at Allahabad. At Calcutta confidence was greatly restored by in telligence of the fall of Lucknow. In Bombay and Southern India generally the last remnants of insur rection were rapidly subsiding. The trial of the King of Delhi was concluded, but the verdict had not yet been delivered. It was generally believed that the King would be sent to the Andaman Islands. The defence of the King was that he acted throughout under compulsion. Yeh, the Chinese Commissioner, had arrived at Calcutta, and was imprisoned in Fort William. CHINA. Up to the 15th March matters remained much in statu quo at Canton, and trade had not revived, yet an important imperial edict had come down from Pekin on the oth. Yeh's conduct in exciting the ire of " the barbarians" is emphatically condemned. Peh-qui (governor), Muh Kitenar (commandant), and the other principal officers, for their share in the loss of the city, are handed over to the board of punishment (equivalent to trial in our service by court-martial). Though handed over to the punish ment board, Peh is still to exercise the office of viceroy, vice Yeh, degraded until the nominated successor arrives. Peh lost not a moment on receipt of the edict to intimate a wish to enter on negotia tions at once ; but the Earl of Elgin had left for the North on the 3rd, and the desire could not be gratified. The Spanish Government had joined the allied powers in their share of the expedition, and had sent over 500 soldiers of the Manila garrison. For the present, says the Friend of China, these men will be employed in the capacity of police at Canton, and it is said the whole of the English marines, as well as the Dative troops, will be brought to Hong Kong— the 59th leaving this garrison for Canton, perma nently, until relieved by another Queen's regiment. The Russian and American Ministers have left Canton, but do not appear to have accompanied Lord Elgin, or to be with Baron Gros, who remains at Hong Kong. ➢ir. Oliphant and the Viscount de Contades have proceeded on to Soochow, accompanied by the con• suls at Shanghai for England and France, and the consular agent for America, for the purpose of de livering a letter for the Emperor. The letter was readily received by the Governor of Kiangsu, and would be promptly forwarded. The Imperial Edicts alluded to in the above sum• wary are as follows : IMPERIAL EDICT. Mur•ki•tenar and Peh-kwei, in a joint memorial fir warded by express, have reported to as that the Barba rians have rushed into their provincial city, &c. Holding the office of Imperial Commissioner for the direction of the affairs of the Barbarians, Yeh Ming-ching ought to have devised means to keep in check the said Barbarians if their demands were indeed so unreasonable and extravagant that they could not be granted, also he ought to have conferred with the commandant, the governor, and other officers of the city, so that measures for soothing and controlling them might have been season ably adopted. But while the said Barbarians did twice address com• munications to the commandant (" Tartar General") the governor ( Peh-kwei) and the major generals of Canton, the said Governor-General Yeh Ming-ching never once asso ciated them with himself in council or in action—nay, many things that were contained in the communications (from the Barbarians) he kept secret, and would not divulge. Thus, day after day, for a long time, he dallied with and put off the Barbarians, till, excited to wrath, they suddenly entered the provincial oity. So very self-sufficient and obstinate was he, perverse and reckless, utterly disregarding the duties of his high com mission. Let Yeh Miog•chin, therefore, be immediately degraded from office. To the other provincial officers of Canton—Muhkitenar the commandant, Pehkwei the governor, Chwangki and Chwangliog major-generals, Hangki the commissioner of customs, Kiang Kwohlin the commissioner of finance, and Chan Kipin the commissioner of justice—though all or more less guilty of a dereliction of their duties in affording protection ( to the city), yet inasmuch as they were not in the council of the said governor-general some indulgence may be shown. Therefore to all these let our favour be shown ; and, instead of dealing with them rigorously, ac cording •to the fall measure of their guilt, as they have requested, let them be delivered over to the board of punishment. This is from the Emperor. IMPERIAL EDICT. Let the governor-generalships of Kwangtnng and Kwangsi be given to Kwang Tsunghan, and let him pro ceed immediately by express to perform the duties of that station ; also let him receive and hold the seals of im perial commissioner, so that he may manage the affairs of the Barbarians. Until he shall have reached and entered on the duties of that station, let whatever *pertains to the office of the imperial commissioner and to that of the governor•general of Kwangtung and Kwangsi be taken charge of by Pelikwei ; and let the office of governor of Kwangtang be temporarily filled by Kiang Kwohlin. This is from the Emperor. Dated lath moon,l4th day (Jan. 28, 1858). The following proclamation has been posted at all the open gates of the new and old cities, Canton, and at other public thoroughfares : Peh, Commissioner of the Tai Tsing (dynasty) and Great Minister, exercising the Governor-Generalship over the two Kwang, makes plain his commands concerning the business referred to below. Whereas the two great nations, England and France, with our country were well at peace ; when Yeh, the governor-general of the two Kwang, by misgoverning, pro duced disturbances On the 18th day of the 12th moon of Heinfung's seventh year the imperial decree was received, specially appointing Wang Chung-han as Imperial Com. missioner, Great Minister, and Governor-General of the two Kwang, to quietly consult in the regulating and settling of the present disturbed state of affairs. Wang Chung-han not having arrived to take office, the present incumbent Peh-qni was put forward to occupy as Governor-General, pro tem. ; and, with consultation, set things in order. Fearing that the various classes of soldiers and citizens may not be able to fully understand, there fore are these commands issued for your instruction, who ought to look up with acquiescence to the holy design of the Emperor, who purposes that natives and foreigners shall be one family ; that those and these shall be cordial friends, establishing a durable and firm peace for ever, being mutually (inlet ; not, for certain, entertaining doubts and fears in the heart, and confusedly moving away. Rather give no opportunity to thievish scamps to take advantage of your confusion to plunder, after which re pentance cannot be obtained. Each should tremblingly obey, and not oppose this special proclamation. Hien Fang, Bth year, lit month, 22nd day (March 7th).