The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMI3n 12,1857.

thereby have a great deal of work to do, but the excitement
keeps me all right, and my fractured leg is sound and
strong for field duty.
At present we stand thus :—We are in the fort—
Madras Fusiliers about
Pensioners

Volunteers

Total Europeans .. 670
Outside the fort we have on our side doubtful friends in
the
Sikh Regiment 4OO
And about 50 of the late Oude Cavalry

4AO
Europeans as above 670

Gross total of our strength 1,120
And the writer then proceeds :

Our fort is at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna.
The native city stretches therefrom for three miles along
the Jumna, and about one mile broad, with many detached
bazaars and villages. This city forms the barrier between
us and the rebels, who are intrenched in the gardens
which surround the touch at Khoosro, the son of Akhbar
the Great. At that holy place their standard is hoisted,
and up to this they have maintained their ground. We
keep up day and night a cannonade on the city, and are
now shelling it from our ramparts and from a steamer
sent up the Jumna. Two evenings ago the sick and
volunteers emerged from this fort into the city. The
Sikhs went ahead of us. firing on every one right and left
as they went. We took their right, and every man con-
tinued his fire until all ammunition was gone. At this
time the flames ascended from the bazaars and dry inflam-
mable roofs of the houses until the blaze completely closed
across the street from side to aide. The Sikhs could not
return through the fire, but joined us by another road,
when it became dark, and we returned to the fort, leaving
the city in flames behind us. This sort of work continues,
and is getting hotter every day. On this morning a com•
pany of the Fusiliers, our volunteers, the Oude cavalry,
and the Sikhs entered the city. We were met by thou-
sands of armed men ; the fire was brisk on both sides.
We suffered no loss except two officers wounded—one of
them was of the Fusiliers, and the other the adjutant of
the Sikh regiment. Two of the Fusiliers were killed this
morning and five wounded ; also some Sikhs and Oude
cavalry. The volunteers have not yet lost a man. We
are all overworked on pickets at night, and out by day,
morning and evening; but since we are fighting not only
for glory but for our lives, we do the work with good cheer.
This fort had almost fallen, as it was in the hands of the
sepoys, as guards, until the disturbances began, when sod-
denly the solunteers and pensioners took up their position
at the breech of the cannon, and compelled the guard of
sepoys to lay down their arms. The moral influence of
the white face had that good effect. Had it come to blows,
we should have been seaten, as we were only few and un-
disciplined. We receive rations daily like any other
soldiers, and are subject to the same martial law, which
is proclaimed. As soon as we get five or six European
regiments, we shall give the niggers such a thrashing as
was never equalled in any time or country; for every
man's blood is boiling, seeing that all Christians, whether
man or woman, over the breadth of the land have been
hunted down like foxes, and not simply killed but barba-
rously butchered and mutilated. We know nothing of
what is going on around us, as all communication is cut
off. I believe history cannot furnish anything equal to
the Indian rebellion of 1857. The land will remain un-
tilled ; tens of thousands will fall, if they have not already
fallen, by the sword, and millions must follow by famine.
The colonel in command here now is a man of energy and
action. He was in the Crimea during the late war as
" General Neill." He has this moment called on us, or
such of us as are good riders, to join the c..valry.
Lord Harris has received an address, signed by
several Hindoo and Mahomedan inhabitants of
Madras. The tone of the address is Been by the
first paragraph :
To the Right Honourable Lord. Harris, Governor of Fort

Saint George.
My Lord,—We, the Hindoo and Mahomedan inhabi-
tants of Madras, beg to address your lordship in council
at the present critical juncture of affairs in Bengal and the
North-West, where the Bengal army has added to the
guilt of mutiny and rebellion the unprovoked and indis-
criminate murder of many of their officers, and, still
worse, of a great number of defenceless European women
and children ; we want words strong enough to convey the
feelings which are inspired by the frightful atrocities that
have been committed. Their crimes admit of no pallia-
tion, misguided though they may have been through the
secret misrepresentations of evil-minded men ; but we
have the fullest confidence that the alarm occasioned
among the Bengal soldiery by the introduction of the new
cartridges originated solely in a delusion so far as the in•
tentions of Government are concerned, and that neither
an infringement of the laws of caste, nor an outrage to
religious feelings, bad ever for one moment been contem-
plated; and we earnestly trust that the might of the
British Government will be put forth, until all who either
actively took part in or abetted the unheard•of barbarities
of the revolted troops have been subjected to the condign
punishment of the State.

It is important to observe the way in which the
alarm about the greased cartridges is referred to in
the foregoing declaration.

The deaths of the two missionaries (Messrs. Hay-
cock and Cookey) are confirmed by a letter from Dr.
Kay, addressed to the Be,. Ernest Hawkins, secretary

to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
Dr. Kay writes :

My last letter from Mr. Haycock was dated May 31.
He had then taken refuge in cantonments. He mentioned
to me that his maulvie had told him six months previously
that the) would " soon feel the sharpness of the Mussul•
man's sword."

The native Christians had dispersed in various three.
tions previously to the last outbreak.
Thus it has pleased God to allow His heavy judgments
to fall on those two cities (Delhi and Cawnpore), in es-
pecial, where the society had maintained missions. What
should be done hereafter will be a matter for earnest
thought, under the guidance of Him who has bid us " sow
beside all waters."
Our departed (may I not say martyred ?) brethren were
both men of patient, laborious, unostentatious habits—not
marked by any great intellectual endowments, but well
acquainted with the language of the country, with revealed
truth, and, I trust, with the power of religion.
May their death be " precious in God's sight 3"
The prognostication that before six months "we
should feel the sharpness of the Mussulman's sword,"
is worthy of note.
The following letter (says the Glasgow Daily
Mail) is from an officer in the Madras Presidency to
a gentleman in Glasgow. The gallant officer has
been thirty years in India :

Witham, Vizagapatam, July 17, 1857.
Thanks for your most kind letter, which I received a
couple of days ago. In these times of trouble and uncer
tainty, I am sure that you will be glad to have it under my
own hand and seal that our heads are comfortably on our
own shoulders, and that, so far as human foresight goes,
matters look well for us in Southern India. Our sepoys
have in no instance proved faithless ; they have been
severely tried, and invited to strike a blow for native su-
premacy and their religion. This is a religious war, there
is not a doubt of it; but it is one excited by a small party,
no doubt of Mahomedans. In this party the King of
Delhi and the ex-King of Oude, and their respective fami-
lies, are deeply interested—implicated, I should rather
say. The instigators of this rebellion knew that Lord
Canning had about as much intention of coercing them
into Christianity as I have of preaching Brahmioism
in Glasgow Cathedral ; and, whatever may be said to the
contrary, I assure you that perfect neutrality has ever
been the attitude of the Indian Government on this
question. When the notion was once got into the
minds of the sepoys and people it spread like wildfire ;
and so deep was the impression, and is, that we were
determined on forcible conversion, that even the well-
disposed zemindars in Oude, who humanely gave protec-
tion to our poor fugitives, were afraid to cross the Ganges
for fear of being made Christians, and even wretches and
murderers on the gallows, when about to pay the forfeit of
their crimes, of their good-for-nothing lives, have shouted
out that, if spared, they would be glad to become Chris-
tians. ‘Ve hope that the tide has begun to turn, or, at
least, that it is now high water in this torrent of disaster.
It is difficult, it is impossible, to exaggerate the magni-
tude of this misfortune—of this terrible crisis. The whole
of the Bengal native army, with an insignificant exceptiont
is gone—exists only in the Army List. In two months i
has melted away ; its officers basely slain under their own
colours; their wives—how shall I write it ?—dishonoured
first, in many cases, and then murdered, the children being
often cast into the flames of the burning houses before the
eyes of the still living parents, or hewn in pieces. The
details are too revolting, and such things may not be
printed ; even now it is with suppressed breath and grind-
ing teeth that we speak of them. It is little of an exag-
geration to say that we hunger and thirst for the day of
retribution—already it is at hand; for every European
murdered at least a hundred of these dogs have died, and
that has yet to be multiplied by ten. Nothing could exceed
the confusion. The country from ten miles out of Calcutta
up the great trunk road to the Sutlej was lost ; nothing
remained but what was within range of the muskets
of the European soldiers. We had the ground on
which they stood no more. For upwards of a month
the Governor-General knew nothing that was going
on above Benares ; not a line reached him ; all was
uncertainty. At last the Government, rather than
publish nothing, were driven to publish scraps out of
letters of native hankers. In this way they published in
general orders the fall of Delhi when it had not fallen;
and, when I now write (July 17), we do nut know,
although we hope that it has at last fallen; and Lord
Canning was no better informed so late as the 10th and
llth inst. Benares was saved by the firmness of Colonel
Neill and the Ist Madras Fusiliers. Allahabad, a name
that will long be remembered with sorrow and with shame
in our annals, was recovered by the same officer. Cawn-
pore, we hope, but are not sure, has been relieved,
although two days ago it was believed that brave old Sir
Hugh Wheeler had been killed, and the small garrison,
with all the hapless women and children, put to the
sword. Lucknow, up to last dates, was held, or rather the
Residency, by that fine fellow Sir Henry Lawrence, whose
praise is in all our mouths, and a small but gallant band.
Agra the mutineers never had ; and the Punjaub, in the
iron grasp of John Lawrence and noble Chamberlain, a
splendid pair, was kept quiet. Indore is gone—the
Resident a fugitive ; so is M how ; so is Saugor. But we
hope that the force that relieved Cawnpore, with ail front
Agra, will push on to relieve Lucknow, and with Delhi in
ashes, the mock king slain or a prisoner on his way to
Calcutta, things will begin to settle down ; soon troops
will come to Calcutta that were destined for China—at
least a part of them—and with these we can tide over until
aid arrives from England, and all will go well at the last—
that is, always provided Southern and Western India keep
qu.iet. The want of European troops with ua in this

presidency is almost ludicrous. Before the mutiny wo had
only four regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, or rather
half a regiment of cavalry ; and now that we have sent one
to Bengal, we have only three, and these hundreds of
miles apart.
The conclusion of this letter is not of much impor-
tance, though it shows the opinion in India that the
mutiny arose from gross neglect, and that the Home
Government bad ample notice of it. The writer is in
error as to Lord Dalhousie's views. Besides, the
blame of annexation does not lay only at the indi-
vidual door of Mr. Vernon Smith ; it lays at the
door of the collective Cabinet which supported the
policy of unscrupulous annexation :
If Government at home do not call the Board of Control
to account, you deserve that we should every one of us be
cut to pieces, and that India should pass from you. The
Government at home accepted what I may call half of Lord
Dalhousie's policy; they accepted his annexation of Oude
without the troops. The European troops he declared to
be necessary to hold it; and, more than this, they took
away four of the already inadequate number of regiments,
and they left Government here without the means of
keeping one regiment at Nagpore—a newly-annexed ter-
ritory. It has been held—no thanks to them—by our
Madras troops. For this folly—for this flagrant military
and political blunder—surely you will call them to account.
Is Mr. Vernon Smith the man to whom to intrust India ?
At his door the mischief lies. Everybody in authority
here, from Lord Dalhousie downwards, can prove that.
He was warned of the consequences. The whole Govern-
ment has to be reconstructed ; its whole machinery is
destroyed. The destruction of property, private and
public, is complete; and, for the future, the Government
of India carried on not on the rose•water principle. But
ah, me! who will give us back our dead ? who will wipe
out this terrible disaster ? In the stillness of the night we
fancy we hear the innocent blood, spilt on the ground like
water, cryint; net, " How long! how long, oh Lord!"
Many a delicate woman, flying to the jungle w►th her little
one, trusting rather to the tiger, who could but kill, must
have thought, in her agony, of the words of our Lord—l
read them this day—•` Blessed (just now) are the barren
and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never
gave suck."