The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

JANUARY 9, 1858.

THE MUTINY AT DACCA.

The private letter of which the following k an
extract comes, we are assured, from " a perfectly
trustworthy source ":

Calcutta, Nov. 25.
It was in the newspapers this morning that three com -
panies of the 34th N. 1., stationed at Chittagong, bad
mutinied, and, after having fired their lines and the bun-
galows in their neighbourhood, had taken themselves off—
it was expected in the direction of Dacca.
Since the express closed I have heard of a portion of
the 73rd, stationed at Dacca, having gone also, so that
now there is not one single regiment of the Bengal army,
undisarmed, which has not mutinied. The 73rd Regiment
has often been reported as shaky, and great tact must have
been used in keeping them together so long; but on the
news of the decadence of the 34th reaching Dacca it was
th might unsafe to leave them with their arms longer. The
only Europeans at Dacca (fighting men I mean) are
sailors ; and they, with a few volunteers , were sent oat to
disarm the company of the 73rd. The latter resisted,
were beaten, and took to the jungle. Fifteen of the sailors
are reported to be killed, and forty of the sepoys.
It does seem infatuation in these mutinying at this late
hour of the day. No black face is trustworthy. With
these men going it is difficult to believe that the Madras
and Bombay troops will not yet go.
For the troops still on their way out there will, I fear,
be plenty of work yet. Old Sir Colin is said to be urging
the Government to posh up reinforcements, or he will be
in the 08me position that Havelock and Outram were.

The following letter from Calcutta contains matters
of interest. The refusal of Government to avail
itself of the offer to raise a troop of horse is a remark.
able fact :

You will have heard of the result of the application made
by the Indigo Planters' Association to Government for com-
pensation for losses during the rebellion. The reply is as
stiff and heartless as most other things emanating from
the Government, and comes to this :—" The Governor-
General in Council is not prepared to admit the claim
which the sufferers by the late disturbances intend to pre-
fer." This short and sweet negative to men who have lost
their all by the utter neglect, stupidity, and mismanage-
ment of this Government, is worse than was generally
expected, as it cannot be doubted for a moment that Go-
vernment, instead of losing, will benefit immensely by the
rebellion, from the great number of confiscated estates,
resumed kgeers, discontinued pensions, &c. When it
was seen bow unable Government was to protect property,
S— offered his services, and proposed to raise 300 sowers
or Irregular Cavalry to act in concert with fifty Europeans
or Sikhs, as you will see by the inclosed printed paper,
copy of a letter which be addressed to the Hon. F. J.
Halliday, the lieutenant-governor. These Irregulars be
proposed to raise from his own rynts, whose relations were
I known to him as respectable and trustworthy, and who bad
lands and interests in his own villages. And the objects
he proposed were : Ist. The capture of Baboo Cower Singh,
and his brother Umar Singh. 2nd. The capture of muti-
neers and deserters, a considerable number of whom were
lurking in his district. 3rd. The capture of prisoners who
were liberated by the mutineers; and 4th, the general pro-
tection of the district from marauders. Up to this date,
three weeks after the proposal was sent in, no answer has
been given to it, and in the meantime Cower Singh and
Umar Singh continue at large, spreading terror and ruin
wherever they go. All the remaining property of the
Europeans has been reduced to ashes, and the fine dis-
tricts of Behar and Shahabad continue in a state of anarchy
and misery which it would be difficult to describe. The sth
Irregular Cavalry, after beating and nearly destroying
Captain Rattray's Sikhs at Bore Gyah, came to the °yeti
station, looted it (a second time), burnt the gaol, and came
towards Doudnugur, looting all the country round without
the least opposition; they encamped six days at
Doudnugur, burnt to the ground several factories,
looted several villages, and the seventh day creased the
Sone, &c. Had the Lieutenant-Governor accepted the
proposal of 5 in time, all this probably, or a great deal
of it certainly, would have been averted ; the bth Irregulars
would not have crossed the Sone unopposed as they did,
and the chief rebels might have been captured long ago.
Instead of encouraging and appreciating the services, good
feeling, and the co-operation of Europeans, they are all
treated as S— has been ; not even an answer deigned to a
highly meritorious proposal. I have described this as an
example of how things are managed by Messrs. Halliday,
Beadon, and Co. Although Delhi has fallen, or been re-
taken, and Lucknow relieved, do not imagine things are
getting on better ; the whole country is undermined, and
may in one moment explode in a more fearful manner
than the first explosion. We have lost the charm teat
kept the country down—the opinion, the esteem, the
prestige is gone, because the governing classes have done
all in their power to bring all Europeans oat of the service
into contempt. Those " interlopers, the " sweepings of
Europe " (as the native Government tutor and curator of
the infant malts of Bengal styled them), the natives have

T H

been taught to despise, and that feeling, which the civil
service in particular bas so sedulously created and en-
couraged, has now recoiled on the Government. But this,
I am sure, will not alter the views of the present Govern-
ment. Tu conciliate the natives at any cost is the order
of the day. To humble the Europeans and exalt the
natives, in spite of all that has happened, is the unmistake-
able determination of the present Government. Moonahee
Ameer Ali was appointed deputy commissioner of the Patna
division, and created a Khan Bahadoor. A man who was
deeply implicated in the Patna conspiracy during the Pun-
jaub war, and who was, together with other conspirators,
imprisoned in Arrah, has lately been appointed a magistrate
of Sasseram and of the Shshabad district, and is shortly to
receive a 'theist (a robe of honour) from Government of
ten thousand rupees value. His name is Shah Kuberoo-
deen. Another Mussultuan named Azeemoodeen Hoosseitu
Khan has been intrusted with the settlement of the confis-
cated estates of Baboo Cowar Singh, and instead of settling
the estates with the European sufferers, the fellow is doing
what is moat congenial to his feelings, and excluding
Christians ! Till when is this miserable infatuation to
last? I fear till we have a Queen's Government, and the
miserable civil service clique now in power is extinct.
I trust you will do what you can in England to get us
compensation and • change of Government, for
.we can
expect nothing good from the present one.
Mr. W. Taylor, our late Commissioner of Patna, was sus-
pended on the ostensible ground that he ordered the func-
tionaries of Tirhoot and Gyah to leave their stations and
concentrate at Patna, " when there was no ground for such
ill-judged panic." The fact is that there was imminent
danger of losing their lives, and Mr. Taylor acted as every
man of good judgment and humanity would have acted ; hut
the real reason of his removal, and I may say disgrace, was
that he was very severe to the mutineers and to the bad and
dangerous people of Patna ; and in putting down conspiracy
and intrigues against Government, Mr. Taylor carried the
laws into effect, and hung those who deserved it. Since his
successor, Mr. Samuels, and his deputy, Ameer Ali, all such
punishments have ceased. With this example no one dares
to punish the natives.

Another writer remarks upon the general position
of affairs :

Except in the immediate neighbourhood of the mutineers
a man may safely pass now in almost any part of the
country, carrying arms only as a protection against any
casual plunderers who might be emboldened by the relaxa-
tion of the civil power to attack a defenceless traveller.
The great difficulty will now be that of obtaining means of
transport, the scarcity of which will not only exerwse an
injurious effect upon the trade of the upper provinces
especially, but may lead to much suffering in the districts
where the crops may have been deficient.
The struggle i., however, by no means over. The forces
finally collected in Oude are very numerous and must be
desperate. The numberless and indescribable atrocities
perpetrated by them forbid the offer of any terms, and it is
a far more arduous task to deal with such a body than to
defeat an army. We do not, however, share in the opinion
that the pacification mast necessarily be a work of years.
With the means now available all will depend on the policy
adopted. Oar conviction is tliat the power, usefulness, and
prestige of our name have been frittered away—we can
find no better expression—by weak, over-refined schemes
of Government ingeniously framed in the bureau by men
far better skilled in weaving theories than in judging of
men and things. A dissertstion on government would be
out of place here, but the interests of this country and of
Great Britain alike require that the policy under which so
great a disaster has taken place should be vigorously re-
viewed. Why is there so marked a difference between the
government of the Punjaub and that emanating from
Calcutta? The answer, we think, will be, that there the
magnitude of the danger was recognised—reward and
punishment were promptly meted out—a lead was taken—
the masses moved in our favour. Here the danger was,
as far as possible, ignored ; pardon and conciliation were
talked of before our power was established, and a native
lawyer of no local standing made to represent Government
at Patna at a time when nothing but the indomitable
courage of a small band of British troops could have saved
the district and convinced the classes naturally averse to
war and all violent change, that safety might yet be on the
side of the existing Government. The difference is what
might be expected from the different systems and those
who are at the bead of them. Much bitter and indiscrimi-
nating abase has been published from this city, which
meets little general approval here, and far less in the
Mofusail, where the condemnation of all parties is more
justly levelled, not only against individuals but against the
system, and the principles upon which Indian government
and reformation has been attempted, and statesmen and
the public at home also will find much to reconsider in the
opinions heretofore generally recei►ed on this subject.
The following interesting communication is from
a gentleman in India :

The arch-fiend. Nana Sahib, has again made his escape,
and is assembling a very formidable force. It is said he
has 20,000 men of his own, with twenty-four artillery
pieces, and the Gwalior rebels, numbering 8,000 men, with
fifty heavy cannon, have placed themselves under the orders
of the Nana. In addition to this force there is the famous
traitor, Koer Singh, with a large force, both cavalry and
artillery, so that altogether there cannot be less than
100,000 men in arms against us. Were this force to meet
us on open field, even double their number would not
cause us the least anxiety ; but as they divide themselves
into several parties. and threaten us on several points—
namely, Mirzapore, Allahabad, and Cawapore—we are
unable anywhere to concentrate a sufficient force to effec-
tually check them ; and even if we kill 100 men to each
five we lose, the loss will tell more on our part than on
theirs. The great drawback ender which we are labouring
is the want of sufficient cavalry, so that we have no means