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

770

officer of the horse artillery may be believed; for it
states that the richer and influential natives at
Nagpore were at the bottom of a local conspiracy,
which was happily discovered in time:—

Combined Fiel.l Farce Camp, Real lency ComponnJ,
Napore, June 19.

These are stirring times. On Saturday, 13th, at mid-
night, the alarm was sounded at Kamptee, and our troop
was ordered to proceed immediately to Seetabnldee on
field service. accompanied by two squadrons, 4th Madras
Cavalry. We were ready in nest to no time, and were on
the spat before daybreak. It appeared that at 11 p.m. a
trooper of the Napore Irregular Cavalry had been caught
tampering with certain sepoys of the Irregular Infantry
Regiment, and trying to stir up a mutiny, by telling them
" the sutudard of Maltomet " was to be raise .l iu the city of
Nagpore at midnight; that all Mussulinans of the city
were to rise and kill the Feringhee Kitties ( European
infidels); and that on a certain signal (a tire balloon) front
the city, the Irreirilar Cavalry were to murder their officers,
and join in the general revolt. He at the same time
requested the infantry to join ; they refused, and at once
made the traitor a prisoner, and ran to report the state of
affairs to their commanding officer, Captain Holland. All
the ladies and families in Seetahuldee were roused, and
immediately driven into Kamptee. At that very time •
trustworthy native informed Ellis, the Deputy-Commis.
'loner, of what was about to take place. He galloped off
to the Residency, and woke Mr. Plowden, who forthwith
rode into Kamptee, and gave the alarm to the brigadier
and the rest of the force. By some mismanagement the
fire balloon did not go up, and the whole conspiracy has
been nipped in the bud, most providentially for all at
Seetabuldee.

On ow arrival near the Irregular Cavalry lines there, we
learned that at 2 a.m. the whole force had been paraded by
the officer commanding the force ; the cavalry dismounted
and depi ived of their alma ; the battery with guns loaded
with grape brought to bear on them, and the Irregular
Infantry Regiment in support of the guns. 01 what took
place at that parade I am not aware, but it was dismissed
quietly shortly before our arrival. The man who was
caught inciting the sepoys was brought down to the
Residency, and tried at once by drumhead general court•
martial. We sentenced him to be blown from a gun ; the
sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for
life, and he is now imprisoned in the Hilt Fort, Seetabuldee.
Five of the principal native officers are confined in irons in
the fort also, and are awaiting trial. The native officer
who warned the adjutant of danger turns out to be one
of the principal ringleaders, but who, at the last moment,
feared the consequences. The man we tiled was evidently
the tool of influential people in the city, and of men
possessing rank and wealth: the native officers of Irregular
Cavalry are all well•connected native gentlemen. We are
now on the alert lest an attempt be made at a rescue of the
prisoners.