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

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,

who held a public execution of all the Christians in the
place. Many officers who were sent off unhurt by their
sepoys, fell into the hands of villagers, who murdered them
at once, or took them to their headmen or zemindars, by
whose orders they were murdered. And the concealed
arms that have suddenly been brought up ! The Ranee of
Jhansi dug up from beneath the fort twenty heavy guns
which had been buried under ground for better conceal-
ment, and a large force of her own is suddenly assembled,
well eptipped with firearms and ammunition. It was the
same with the Nana Sahib, whose few miserable rabble
(always, on account of their arms and accoutrements, the
source of amusement to every Englishman who saw
them) suddenly turn out a numerous and well-armed force
in every respect. It was the same with Koer Singh's
forca in Shaliabad. Some inkling of how these firearms
were obtained may be gathered from the enormous pur-
chases of firearms during the last two years from T. E.
Thomson and Company, the Calcutta branch of a large
Wolverhampton house in the hardware trade. During
last year the indents made on the Wolverhampton house,
chiefly under orders from natives, were so large that they
refused to send them out, telling the Calcutta branch that
the latter must have over-estimated the demand. A native

- -
shop in the same line, in Calcutta, made enormous sales
during the last year and the early part of this year. In
fact, I believe it has been the same with all the gun shops
here. The conspirators knew very well that the large
arsenals in India could he in the hands of the sepoya at
any moment, but they wanted arms for their own re-
tai tiers.

Again, as to the general character of the conspiracy. In
nearly all the revolted districts the former (native) officers
of Government are still continued in the same employment
under their new masters, especially the revenue officers,
which shows that they, too, must have been in the con-
spiracy. Time is fast revealing how wide spread that
conspiracy has been, and how far wrong we all were who
at first thought, as it i 3 the end and aim of this Govern-
ment and all connected with it to make people think, that
this rebellion was a mere Repo), revolt.

But there is another diffic-ulty which has arisen, and
which, if not immediately guarded against, will be fraught
with most disastrous consequences. The European troops
are impatient to avenge the foul murder of the wives of the
soldiers, and have begun to become unruly. One of the
Company's officers ventured to scold some of her Majesty's
soldiers, and in a moment they had their muskets ready,
and would have shot him had not one of their own officers
quickly interceded. This shows the spirit that prevails
in Queen's corps against Company's officers; and I am
afraid that the soldiers will give us much trouble.—Daily
News.

The following are extracts from a letter to a gentle-
man in Glasgow, from his brother:—

Umballali, August 28, !857.—The whole of Oude is in
the hands of the mutineers ; but whenever our reinforce.
ments arrive, wo will take summary vengeance upon them.
If the Sikhs—our old enemies—had not proved our
friends, not a single European in the N.W. provinces of
India would have lived to tell the tale. Consider the
native troops here in the N.W. provinces amounted, I
believe, to 150,000 well armed, well•trained soldiers. The
force of British troops might number 4,000 or at the utmost
5,000 men. The Sikhs, fortunately, hate the " Poorbeits,"
or Indian sepoys, more than they hate us, so they have
taken our part, and under ourcommand are working havoc
among the enemy. The Affghans and wild border tribes
also, against whom we have always had to fight, along our
frontiers, and whom we have been accustomed to shoot,
hang, and destroy for constant robbery and murder, are
now becoming useful to us. We have raised regiments of
them, and with English officers the tide of their vengeance
is turned against the " Poorbeits." A regiment of these
wild borderers passed here a day or two ego. AR they
marched down the wall I went out to see them. There
were 700 of them in all sorts of dresses, but the majority
almost naked, with only a kumerbund or cloth round the
loins. They were all armed with musket and bayonet,
and many with frightful.looking crooked knives besides.
Their commanding officer, Captain Green, rode on his
horse in front. All the it regular regiment officers are
picked men—good soldiers, and of a tall commanding
appearance. Such a one is Captain Green. He was here
during the day, and told me he had been obliged to pistol
some of his men on the way down for looting (robbing)
on the road. These are the men required to command
irregulars—perfect dare-devils, without too tender sensi-
bilities--for the men they command are the wildest and
most ferocious savages that the interior of Asia produces.
To see them marching on was a curious sight—the wild-
beastlike appearance of the mass, the stare of curiosity
at everything, and the apparent strength and agility which
every one possessed. These are men wlri will fight
like perfect fiends ; but the momer.t the enemy is defeated
they rush on for loot (or plunder), so that it is impossible
to follow up a conquered foe with them—they are only
useful for destroying enemies, as they kill and plunder
every one they can lay hands on. They fight for plunder
only, and for that they will dare anything. Another tribe
of borderers who have been the salvation of Upper India
in taking our part are the Ghoorkas. We have had them often
here passing on to " the seat of the corner.stono of wisdom "
—the great King of Dellit's city—the doomed pandemo-
nium. They are very little men, about four feet ten inches
or five feet. They aro very active, anti their thirst for
blood is something fearful. They are brave as lions ; and
their officers have all to he picked also. They act some-
thing like what we have heard the Highlanders did in the
&ye of Montrose or Prince Charlie. Each man, besides
his musket and bayonet, has a weapon something like a
bowie knife. When the charge is sounded, they rush
fortvard, fire their muskets and throw them down, out with
their knives, and work the most fearful havoc. These
knives are called " kookrtios," and the sight of one makes
a Ruidoo or Mussuloaa4 shudder, Nothing will stop the