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

THE PRESS, AUGUST 8, 1857. were overtaken and brought back, and thirteen or fourteen hung, pour encourager let auteet. None have gone since. All their private arms, which every soldier has, were also taken away, guns kept constantly pointed towards their lines, with bodies of Europeans ready to turn out at a moment's notice, and a station flooded with a-host of levies brought up from Mooltan by the foresight of Edwards, who raised them in the last Punjaub campaign. One of them offered to polish off all the sepoys at 61. four annas) a head. The crisis may he said to have been over on the 22nd; but our position then was a most dangerous one, from which the hand of Providence, using as his instru ment the best soldiers and politicals in India, has rescued us. Fancy 2,000 Europeans in a station with seven regiments, all, with one exception, prepared to rise on us, backed up by a cantonment populated with the greatest scoundrels, a city full of ruffians ready to join the muti neers, and a chain of forts surrounding us, garrisoned by four more regiments, ready to combine and march down upon us! Further on we were encircled by the hills, full of fanatics, thirsting for our blood, and in open concert with the mutineers To add to our troubles, the country people, knowing vhat was impending on that day ('2n4.1), would not bring in supplies, nor would the Moulton levies take service till it was seen how we should fare. The immediate disarming of the regiments above mentioned was imperative, and done accordingly with effect. Confi• deuce was at once restored, and supplies and levies came in the next day. A force of Europeans with guns was sent round the forts, one of which, Meerdiin, was held by the 55th Native Infantry in open mutiny; they tried to escape when our force appeared, and some got off to Swat; the others were made prisoners, 150 were killed on the spot, nine tried by drumhead court martial, and instantly shot, including a native officer of a regiment not in mutiny, who would not act as he was ordered. Others were driven into the hills and killed by the hill men, a price of ten rupees being set on their heads. The colonel of this regiment blew out his brains in disgust at the mutiny. The villains kept their officers in confinement, and told them if they tried to escape they would roast them alive. They did, however, manage to escape. The force then went and disarmed all the other regiments in the forts and quieted the district. At Allahabad and Mirzapore there would seem to be symptoms of a disposition among the peasantry to rise. The Supplement to the Overland English man, published at Calcutta, on Saturday, June 20, professes to contain the very latest news which had reached Calcutta, and states the following to be from Allababad Fort, dated the 13th of June : A party of us went out of the fort this morning to re connoitre, and fell in with some thousands of the rebels, strongly posted, in ar•ns about a large puckah house. Braayer and his Sikhs made a good fight of it, hut were called upon by our new commanding officer, Colonel Neil, to retire, and to-morrow we storm and take the rascals' position. We sadly want supplies, attah, &c., here, and we must have more Europeans. I have not had my sword off for a moment, night or day, since the 6th iust. ; no more time. Later accounts, up to the 15th, report all well at Allahabad on that day : On the 15th, at Baroul, halfway between Allahabad and Gopeegunge, three zemindars, who had set themselves up, one as rajah and the other two as naibs, were seized by a detachment of the Madras Fusiliers and a party of the 13th Irregular Cavalry, who have done excellent service under Lieutenant Palliser, accompanied by Messrs. Moore and Chapman, were brou;ht into Gopeegunge, and hanged. The bridge of boats at Allahabad is in our hands, and de. fended by five guns. The following news was received from Mirzapore on the 15th : The dour of our magistrate, St. George Tucker, against the village of Gawrah, has been most successful. He and the deputy magistrate, with fifty sepoys of the 47th Regiment, arrived at the village early yesterday mot fling. The steamer with 100 Europeans had not yet reached the ghiit, but was in sight. The villagers, on seeing our force, assembled to the number of some 3,900. In the meantime the steamer anchored and landed the English bulldogs, who, to a man, without orders, rushed at the insurgents, fired into them, and killed thirty or forty ; the rest took to their heels. The village, which was quite deserted, was burnt to the ground. Major Hohnes's Irregulars at Segowlee appear to be have well so far : June 15. We have been very bag) , making arrangements for the march of the Ghoorkas, but now they are not to come. We have saved Goruckpore, and have patrols out all over the country. We have sent two detachments to recover Azinghur, one by Allygunge, the other from Goruckpore. That country is one scene of pillage. We hung two tepoys of the 37th, mutineers, the night before last. This part of the country is kept in perfect order, but every one now Knows that he will be hung for one word of treason. Wa have not (remarks the Times correspondent) been without our little alarms either in Bombay, or in Pooaah or elsewhere ; hut no outbreak has taken place (for the Mahomedan riots at Broach some time back, though ending in bloodshed, arose only out of a local quarrel between that people and the Parsees), nor did any sensible person doubt the fidelity of the native troops, but only the temper of the loose popu lation of the bazaars. At Poonah the station was 769 patrolled nightly by parties of the 14th and 12th Lancers. At Sattara a man employed as a peon or chuprassie in Government employ was apprehended and handed over to the authorities by a party of the 22nd Native Infantry, with whose loyalty he was en deavouring to tamper. He was banged, " game " to the last, and uttering passionate bursts of disaffec tion. A troop of the 14th and a company or two of the 3rd Europeans went down from Poonah to aid the 22nd iu case of a rising in this important and so lately independent Mahratta city. At Calcutta the Government had passed for one year a measure intended to restrict the native press, which was most licentious and seditious in its tone. The following is a specimen from a Parsee journal published at Bo:nbsy. Alluding to the mutinies, the writer blasphemously apostrophises the Almighty in these words : Oh, Lord, the English have now seen a specimen of Thy power. Today they were in a state of high com mand ; to•morrow they wrapped themselves in blood, and began to fly. Notwithstanding that their forces were about three lacs strong in India, they began to yield up life like cowards. Forgetting their palanquins and carriages, they lied to the jungles without either boots or hats. Leaving their houses they asked shelter from the meanest of men, and, abandoning their power, they fell into the hands of marauders. He then again appeals to the Deity, and concludes in the following strain :- 0, Englishmen, you little dreamt that the present King would ever mount the throne of Delhi with all the pomp of Nadir Shah, Bober, or Tamerlane. The state of public feeling at Calcutta was quite the reverse of confidence. There was an almost total cessation of business ; Government paper was valueless, the new Five-per-Cent. Loan without sub scribers, and the Four per Cents at 20 discount. Every Englishman in the city was armed and en rolled, and the greatest anxiety was felt for the future, from the enormous extent of country now in the hands of marauders and banditti, which must prevent cultivation, and may lead to a famine. With regard to the conduct of the native princes the in. telligence yet is extremely meagre. Rumour, writes the Daily News—"chiefly proceeding 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." The Times correspondent says : The Hurrianah Light Infantry battalion has mntinied, killing, it is feared, Lieut. namell, and other Europeans. The levies of the Rajah of Bhurtpore, to whoia was coin 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. The Kotah contingent was at the latest dates still loyal, posted between Agra and Muttra with two guns. Of the United Malwa contingent the cavalry regiment has gone. Despatched, the head quarters of it, from Mahidpore to follow up and attack the Neemuch mutineers, itself muti nied, slew its ufficers—Brodie and Hunt—and, returning to camp, endeavoured, but in vain, to induce the infantry and artillery to follow their example. The other wing stationed at Indore abandoned their quarters, but without committing any act of violence. Aju.ere is safe, garri- soned partly by the flying Bombay column from Deese, partly by the Mhairwarra battalions. The deserted station of Nusseerabad has been reoccupied by the Bombay Lancers. But what is Scindia doing? This is a question of grave moment, and one not readily to be answered at present. We knew that the 7th Native Infantry Regiment of his contingent mutinied at Neemuch. We know that the telegraphic wire has been cut near Seepree, and all regular communication with Agra, beyond lndore, inter rupted ; and we have reason to believe that both at Seepree and nt Augur the regiments of the contingent have risen. Indeed, I know that fears aro entertained in the best informed quarters that the whole of the contingent (which consists of four companies of artillery, two regi ments of cavalry, and seven of infantry) have turned against us, with the exception of three companies which garrison the isolated fort of Asseeghur in this Presidency. Then, what will Scindia do? Will he be allured into believing that our power is on the wane, and into declaring against us, or will he, at the head of such troops as may remain faithful, resist the strong temptation, and oppose disloyalty even to the death? Like his fathers before him, he is a sturdy little Mahratta ; be is young and active, riding his fifty or sixty miles a day when necessary ; and energetic, too, as he showed on one occasion, when his then newly raised artillery hesitated to fire upon a hotly of the old levies who had refused to disband. Scindia jumped off his horse, seized a lighted pottire from the hand of a gunner, and himself discharged the first gun. Such a man, with the command, moreover, of considerable trea sures, has the stuff in him to work us much good orill. The state of the Madras Presidency appear highly unsatisfactory, if the following letter from au Lieutenant Grant was killed at his picket—the mutineers ran at his men, some of whom turned and fled—a shot from the mutineers then wounded poor Grant, and the euhadar of the guard concealed him under his charpoy. The mutineers then came up, and were told that the sahib had got away ; they were not, however, to be deceived, and at last a havildar on the guard, belonging to Grant's own regiment, pointed him out to the mutineers, when he was bayoneted and brutally mutilated. The cantonment soon became one blaze of fire, and it was not deemed prudent to move the guns for fear of the mutineers finding their way into the city. The only means of checking them was by sending detachments of irregular cavalry through the lines. Sharp firing took place frequently between the sowers and the mutineers, without much effect, however, upon either side. Lieutenant Harainge distinguished himself greatly in these skirmishes, in one of which a mutineer fired at him within a yard, and, missing him, charged him with his bayonet, which went through his wrist and entered his chest, where its further progress was stopped by a bullet from Harding° into the stomach of his assailant, which sickened him of the contest. Lieu tenant Chambers, adjutant of the 13th, had a narrow escape, and was wounded in the leg. This state of affairs lasted until two o'clock in the morning, when the fires began to abate, and two guns were moved up to each of the Residency gates, which were guarded by a havildar's guard from the 13th, and escaped confligration. At four a.m., the rebels had reached the 7th Cavalry lines, at Moodkeepore, which they set on fire, and then returned to cantonments, where Sir Henry had prepared to meet them. Leaving a company of Europeans, six guns, and a squadron of Irregulars on the encamping-ground, he marched towards them with two guns, the Europeans, some two hundred in number, the 7th Light Cavalry, and a handful of each of the irregular cavalry regiments, Daly's, Gall's, and Hardinge's. His force, as lie came along the native lines, was increased by men from the 71st, 13th, and 48th Regiments, who had not joined the insurgents, amounting in all to about five hundred men. The 7th Light Cavalry were sent on in advance, but, on nearing the rebels, some west over to them. The inaur_tents then retreated, and by the time the artillery had debouched from the lines they were a thousand yards off, so that they could be only dealt with by round shot. One was sent at them, when they immediately turned ar.d fled, followed as quickly as possible by the artillery and the Europeans. On reaching Moodkeepore, the force came across the body of poor young Cornet Raleigh, of the 7th Cavalry, who had only joined the regiment a day or two before, and who, being too unwell to ride, was left behiad when the regiment was ordered to cantonments. He was lying on his face, wiih the back of his skull blown away, so that his death must have been instantaneous. The artillery and the Euro peans halted beyond Moodkeepore, but the rebels were chased by the cavalry as far as Iluxetalow, some ten miles off, and there scattered in all directions. Only two or three mutineers were killed, butsixty were taken prisoners. Sir Henry Lawrence fully intended to follow them up again, but it was reported ou excellent authority that an insurrection would certainly take place that night in the city, and his force was too small to enable him to do both —follow the mutineers and take the necessary precautions L{ . for the defence of the city. Leaving, therefore, 2 )0 Europeans and four guns in the cmtonments, he moved the remainder of the force to the Muchee Bhowun and to the Residency, together with two guns to each fortification. A good deal of firing took place in the course of the following day between the city bud mashes and the police, in which the latter had by far the best of it. After eight o'clock all was quiet, the insurgents probably being awed by the additional force thrown into the city, and by the gallantry displayed by the police. The Kotwal h is been made a bahailoor, and a reward of 1,000 rupees and a sword given to him, and 5,000 rupees have been distributed amongst the police, who so nobly distin guished themselves by their courageous conduct. The murderer of Lieutenant Grant. and a spy lately caught in the lines of the 13th Infantry, were hanged on June 1, and six more mutineers suffered the same Eenalty on the morning of the 2nd. During the following days Sir H. Lawrence was occupied evening and morning in the execution of mutineers. A gallows had been erected outside the fort, and a couple of guns, loaded with grape, awed the people round the scaffold. Martial law was pro. claimed, the King's brother detained as prisoner, and quiet energetically enforced. But in the meanwhile the mutineers of the 13th, 49th, 71st, and 7th Cavalry had marched towards Delhi, and were joined in mutiny by the troops at Seetapore—two regiments of Ou.te Infantry, the 41st Native Infantry, and a win; of the 15th Irregular Cavalry, the regiments at Mooradabad and Bareilly, the 18th, 69th, and 29th Native Infantry, and the 28th Native Infantry at Shahjehan pore. Far up in Peshawur, although there had been no actual rising, the position of our forces was really very critical. A letter, dated June 14th, gives some details of great interest, and the writer, with a few graphic touches, gives us a perfect picture of the position and its peril at Peshawar : Peshawar, June lt. We have had no outbreak here, but we have had to disarm three native infantry regiments and one of cavalry, having discovered that they intended to massacre us all on the 22nd (May). It was done at the same moment to all the regiments, though at different points of the station, a small European force, guns and cavalry, being told off to each. That night the disarmed men began to desert in numbers—a proceeding it was actually necessary to stop lest they should raise the city and neighbourhood; so they