The Press. — London, England, 1857-12-05 00:00:00

In all the history of this world of ours there is nothing that in any degree approaches the most strange spectacle of Sikhs and Affghans—whose country we so lately and with so much bloodshed occupied with armies of Hindus tanees—now under our banners sitting bloody and plunder laden in the Palace of the Moguls. Yet these men are by far the most conspicuous occupants of Delhi, and to them we chiefly, in the exhausted state of our European troops, look to enable us to reoccupy our lost provinces of Hin dustan. They have served us so far with the most com plete fidelity. - - - - In another portion of his letter he speaks of the Europeans being " completely used up and ex hausted," while the efficiency of our own native regiments is cruelly diminished by the "prodigiously large proportion of loss among their European offi cers. In fact, hardly any remain, and they are com manded by new young men who know nothing of them and their peculiarities." As to our prospects tor the future, he depicts in strong terms the utter "disorganisation of the country ": The consequence of the absence of heads, civil and military, is a singular want of unity of action. The inter rupted communications, abnormal state of all things, and summary forms of procedure have considerably relaxed all discipline and subordination, and left every man pretty free to do as he chooses What between the want of generals and the want of troops, it is, I fear, very doubt ful whether the Delhi army will effect the whole of the primary objects I have mentioned without English aid; and it yet may be that the delay in furnishing chat aid may inv. - Ave &continued serious risk to the empire for some months to come The chief difficulty will be to supply to the civil power a fitting force to hold our dis tricts as we recover them, disorganised and demoralised ai they have been by the mutiny; and in their own country the sepoys may possibly yet offer a very stubborn resis tance before we can exterminate them. Desperate men, we may drive them from position to position, but when will it end? They can never submit—they can always out march us, and how soon and at how great cost shall we kill them all ? The other serious danger is, lest our present violent feeling against the Mahomedans should drive to despair that great section of the population, and induce a really general Mahomedan revolt as dangerous as the great mutiny. General Wilson has really resigned the command to General Penny, and retired to the hills to recruit his broken health. The city is comparatively empty. Our troops have been moved off in all detections ; one column, under Greathed, has marched to Agra, on the left bank of the Jumna; another under Brigadier-Gen. Showers, is marching down the right bank; the s:tud Regiment of Europeans has been despatched at once to Lahore, which is reported "uneasy," and the '2-Ith are follow rapidly. Brigadier Showers had captured and sent in two more sons of the King, Mirza Mention and Mirza. Bakhtowar. They were tried by a military commission of five officers, with Brigadier-General Chamberlain as president. Evi dence was produced before the court, principally documentary, consisting of reports, returns, &c., bearing the prisoners' seals, showing that they exer cised command of their regiments and acted. In tlitir defence they pleaded total ignorance of the intention of the sepoys to mutiny, and said that when the Meerut mutineers first reached Deli on the Ilth of May they (the princes) thought it was a Russian invading army ! They were then summoned to an audience by the King, and a few days after were appointed colonels of regiments at the request of the sepoys themselves : The court (says a letter of the 15th October), however, found the prisoners guilty, and sentenced them to death; and, accordingly, yesterday they were shot by a party of the 63th Rifles. Detachments of Rides, Artillery, Sappers, and Ghoorkas were present, and a great number of spec tators. The bodies were cast into the Jumna river. Showers had then marched upon Goorgaon and Rewarree, which he had occupied, driving out the rebels and capturing ammunition and stores. But the principal operations which have followed the fall of Delhi are those which have been achieved by Colonel Greathed. Among the many brilliant exploits of this war they stand the foremost. It will be rem-.bmbered that the mutineers who evacuated the city on the 19th of September marched some of them eastward towards Bareilly, but the greater part to the southward, in the direction of Muttra and Agra. Two days after the final occupation of Delhi Colonel Greathed went in pursuit with 1,600 infantry, r)00 cavalry, and eighteen guns. He first moved on Anopshuhur, and halted on the third day at Secun derabad, which had been quitted by the fugitives, and where were found, it is said, articles of Euro pean use, and particularly ladies' clothes—a sign that some atrocity had been perpetrated on the spot. As a punislinient Secunderabad was at once burned to the ground. On the 27th Colonel Greathed came up with the enemy at Bolundshuhnr, about fifteen miles further on. The Delhi rebels, joined by the Jhansi mutineers, had here taken up a strong posi tion; a hard fight of course ensued, the enemy were defeated, and seven guns captured. Here a curious incident is related by a cavalry officer, who writes from " Camp, Agra, Oct. 12." After detailing the artillery attack on the town, he continua THE PRESS, DECEMBER 5, 1857. The 75th (her Majesty's) were ordered to advance and storm the town, but they refused to do so, though there was nothing to prevent them charging through the streets. I never witnessed anything more disgraceful to the army, and never believed that I should see British troops refuse to advance against the murderers of their wives and cbil. dren, as well as enemies to the Government. At last they wore obliged to call upon the cavalry, and away we dashed with our squadron of the 9th, under Captain Sarel, who charged through the streets from one end of the town to the other. We took their carts and ammunition, which were hurrying away at the other side of the town, but we were unable to cut up many of them, as they bolted into the shops, dtc., on either side, whence they were able to fire upon us as we charged by without danger to themselves. The 75th, under Captain Gordon, still would not even follow us down the streets : had they done so they might have bayoneted numbers of the enemy, who were so astonished at the sudden appearance of our cavalry in the centre of the town that they were flying in all directions. The town was taken by cavalry and artillery before an infantryman set foot in it. Two days after Colonel Greatbed came upon the fort of Malaghur, abandoned by the enemy. It was blown up. The affair is remarkable only inasmuch as it cost the life of Lieutenant Home, of the Engi neerr, the gallant officer who was employed with Lieutenant Salkeld in blowing open the Cashmere Gate of Delhi. On the sth the column reached Allyghur, which it captured after a severe resistance on the part of the rebels. At this spot intelligence reached. Colonel Gruthed that the Gwalior rebels had resolved to attack Agra. He pushed on at once on the oth of October, seized Akburabad, and the next day reach Hatras, half way between Allyghur and Agra. The column reached the Agra cantonments on the 14th weary with their exertions, but they were scarcely encamped when they were attacked by some 5,000 of the enemy. Some fanatics rushed in and murdered an officer, and one of our guns was actually taken before the men bad recovered from their surprise. The battle was severe and bloody. The Sikhs fought with their usual spirit; the 9th Lancers charged in their shirt sleeves. After two hours' hard fighting the enemy wero driven back, routed, and pursued for miles. They lost 500 men, all their guns, baggage, and ammunition, and only escaped by getting across the river Khara on their road back to Dholpore. Colonel Greathed having dispersed the Delhi fugitives, driven back the Indore invaders, and saved Agra, he turned his attention to the relief of Lucknow. On the 19th he had marched twenty-two miles in a north-easterly direction to Mynpoorie. After this we have no certain information of his movements, but it was expected that by the end of the month he might be in a position to render Havelock some assistance. "No words of ours," writes a contem porary, " are necessary to insure due honour being paid to the o cer who has accomplished this extra ordinary march. Through a country swarming with enemies the little column of Colonel Greathed has penetrated, marching almost incessantly for sixteen days, fighting two battles—not to speak of smaller actions—and destroying several thousands of the enemy. Such achievements speak for themselves." The statement which has gone the round of the papers that Captain Hodson shot the two Delhi Princes he captured with his own hand appears to be confirmed. A letter from Delhi states that Hod son captured those Princes under the following cir cumstances : He started w ith Maclowell (second only to his com manding officer in all soldierly qualities) and 1(M) men for the Tomb of the Emperor Humayoon, where the rascals were concealed. He took measures to cut off all access to or egress from the building, and then sent in one of the illegitimate scions of Royalty (who had saved his own life only by turning King's evidence) and the one-eyed moulvie, Nub Ali (one of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence's most trusted emissaries) to bring out the Princes. After more than two hours of anxiety, strategy, and no small practice of the arts of offence and defence, they ap peared, and were immediately sent off in a " bhylie," under a small guard, towards the city. At a short distance from the walls the " bbylie " was stopped by the rabble, who meditated a rescue : This was no time for hesitation or delay. Hodson dashed at once into the midst—in few but energetic words explained " that these were the men who had not only rebelled against the Government, but had ordered and witnessed the massacre and shameful exposure Gf innocent women and children; and that thus therefore the Govern• meat punished such traitors, taken in open resistance," shooting them down at the word. The effect was in stantaneous and wonderful ! Not another hand was raised, not another weapon levelled, and the Mahomedans of the trcop and some influential moulvies among the bystanders exclaimed, as if by simultaneous impulse, " Well, and rightly done ! Their crime has met with its just penalty. These were they who gave the signal for the death of helpless women and children and outraged decency by the exposure of their persons, and now a righteous judgment has fallen on them. God is great ! " The remaining weapons were then laid down, and the crowd slowly and quietly dispersed. The old King is to be tried by a military commission, but it is thought bis lift 3 will be spared. The prin cipal " suspected " amongst the Mahomedan gentry 1177 of Delhi were being arrested, and would be brought to trial when sufficient evidence against them was obtained. With respect to the rest of India, the detailed news is fragmentary, and cannot be reduced into the form of a consecutive narrative. Two companies of the :32nd Native Infantry, stationed at Deogbnr, in the Santhal district, mutinied on the 2nd of September and murdered their officers, with the exception of Lieutenant Rannie, who alone escaped. Two more companies of the same regiment mutinied at Ram pore Hat. Their officers got away safely. The re maining companies at Bowsee have demanded to be led against the mutineers—a somewhat dangerous experiment. The Kotah Contingent has also muti nied, and murdered Major Burton and other Europeans. It is said to have been a salute fired by order of the Resident, on the occasion of the fall of Delhi, that led to this deed of violence. Then there is a conspiracy among the Bombay troops at Ahmedabad, and reported disturbances in the Pun •jaub, in the Deccan, in Rajpootana, and on the Coromandel coast. One statemect in the Phoenix is remarkable, if true, for it shows the kiss which our Indian Government has sustained in a money point of view. The newspaper in question gives a list of the treasuries that have been pillaged by the rebels in Oude, Bengal, and the north-western provinces, and asserts that the total amount of specie taken is estimated at ten crores of rupees—that is to say, at ten millions sterling. The Rajah of Kotah, says a letter from Neemuch, continues faithful to us, and anxiously waits for assistance. The bulk of his army, consisting of four regiments of infantry, with all his artillery, had turned against him. They were the rather strengthened in their disloyalty by the fact that in an attack on the 24th Sept. upon some rebels at Jerum, our Neemuch force had been repulsed with the loss of several officers and men. Captain Tucker and Captain Reade were killed. The Malwa flying column, consisting of three guns of the Bengal Artillery, three troops of her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons, 200 of her Majesty's Roth Foot, seven companies of the 25th Bombay Native Infantry, Ist Cavalry Hyderabad Contingent, and the Madras Sappers, left M how on the 20th October, to attack the rebe's wherever they might be found, but they, too, appear to have experienced a check. A letter from Dhar gives a very unsatis factory account of their operations. They appear to have attacked the rebels in Dhar, and after suffering some loss in forcing the position, suspended opera tions for further reinforcements, and recommenced their attack after some days, to find the rebels had decamped. The position of Saugor, with its small garrison of 130 men and 170 women and children, is extremely perilous. The fort is dilapidated and incapable of defence, and the 31st Bengal Naive Infantry, form ing part of the garrison and hitherto stanch, is re ported to have mutinied, and the territories north of the Nerbudda are completely up and in arms. Bands of rebels may succeed in crossing, and overrun the country. On a recent occasion, some of the rabble insurgents surrounding the fort, Colonel Dalzeil, commanding, marched out at bead of the 31st to attack the rebels. The sepoys refused to advance, Colonel Dalzell was killed, and the 31st marched back almost without firing a shot. A letter from Saugor, dated Sept. 23, says : From that day the officers have lost all confidence in their men. Since then the mutiny of the 50th and 5.2nd, in our vicinity, has still more shaken the Saugor sepoys and encouraged the rebels, and our position is more pre• carious than ever. Our garrison is at a loss to conceive what 80,1 Europeans and 4.000 native troops are about at Alhow. Since we have determined to hold our own, and s:tve this arsenal from filling into the hands of the rebels, it will be base indeed to le evil betide us with so large a force within twenty marches ut• us. Help must come, ur the worst may he expected. The Dinapore mutineers, under Koer Singh, are reported to be at Banda, having burned and plun dered Nagode and Kallinger. Koer Singh had not attacked Rewah, but the troops of that Rajah had joined Koer Singh almost to a man. The Rewah Rajah had fled from Rewah, but the British Resi dent, Lieutenant Osborne, courageously remained at hiA post. His position and conduct are an excellent illustration of the scenes taking place all over ledia. He is a young Madras officer, and till this outbreak but little known to any one. He is now living in Rewah, in a tent, without a single companion, with out a ffiend within a hundred mike. He is so ill with liver co niplaint that he cannot lie down, taking rest only in a chair. He has no guard, no soldiers, sentries, or reliable servants. Every day and night (writes a correspondent) the soldiery surround his tent, threatening to put him to (bath by torture He admits their power, bat tells them he can take at least six lives before he dies. And so, day by day, there he lives, sick almost unto death, all alone, and with mur deters all round, contident only that his duty is to remain at his post, and that God is above him stilt. It is not sash men as these that repoya eau subdue. So magical, indeed, 4?