Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-23 00:00:00

THE MUTINIES IN INDIA.

We continue to receive interesting details re-
specting the state of affairs in India.
The following is a translation of a proclamation
posted up by Nena Sahib at Cawnpore :
" A traveller jest a-rived in Cawnpore from Calcutta
states that in the fist instance a council was held to take
into consideration the means to be adopted to do away
with the religion of the Mahomedans and Hindoos by
the distribution of cartridges. The council came to this
resolution, that, as this matter was one of religion, the
services of seven or eight thousand , European soldiers
would be necessary, as 50,000 Hindostnaets would
*have to be destroyed, and then the whole of the
people of Hindostan would become Christians. A
petition with the substance of this resolution was sent
to the Queen Victoria, and it was approved. .A council
was then held a second time, in which English merchants
took a pert, and it was decided that, in order that no
evil should arise from mutiny, large reinforcements should
be sett for. When the despatch was received and read in
England, thousands of European soldiers were embarked
on ships as speedily as possible, and sent off to Hindostan.
The news of their being despatched reached Calcutta.
The English authorities there, ordered the issue of the
cartridges, for the 'real intention was to Christianise' the
army first, and this beiug effected the conversion of the
people would speedily tallow. Pig.' and cows' fat was
mixed up with the cartridges; this became known through
one of the Bengalese, who was employed in the cartridge.
making establishment. Of those through whose n e ns this
was divulged, one was killed and, the rest imprisoned
While in this country these counsels were being adop-ed,
in England the Vakeel of the sultan of Boum sent news
to the Sultan that- thousands of European soldiers ware
being sent for the purpose of making Christians of all the
people of Hindostan Upon this the Sultan issued a
firman to the' King .of Egypt to this effect Yon must
deceive the Queen Victoria, fur this is not a time for
friendship, for my Vakeel writes that thousands of
European soldiers have been despatched for tl e purpose of
making Chr stians the army and people of Hindostan In
this manner, then, this mutt be checks J. If I should be
remiss, then how can I show my face to G d ; and one day
this may come upon me alt.°, for if the. English make
Christians of all in Hindostan they will then fix their de-
signs upon my country.' When the firman reached the
King of Egypt he prepared and arranged his troops, before
the arrival of the English army at Alexendria, fur this is
the rouse to India. The instant the English army arrived
the King of Egypt opened guns upon them from all sides,
and destroyed and sunk their ships, and not a soldier
Esc:Ted. The English in Calcutta, after the issue of tt,e
order for the cartridges, and when the mutiny had become
great, were in expectation of the arrival of she army from
London ; but the Great God in his omnipotence had before
hand put an end to this. When the news of the destruc
ion of the arieY of London became knowb, then the
.Governor-General was plunged in grief and sorrow and
bent his head.
"Printed by order of the Peishwae Bahadour."

THE DISASTER AT ARRAS.

'•Patna, July 31.

I thank God that I am alive and well and able to
write to you once more. I have been in geieat danger, and
never expected to reach this place alive again., but Ged
has been most merciful to me...• As I dare say you would
like to hear the whole story I will begin at the beginning.
About a week ago, as we have long anticipated, the three
native regiments at Dianapore mutinied. The General,
man old man in his second childhood, managed. the whole
affair very badly, or rather did nothing at all. No one
knew who was in command of the Europeans, no one
k sew whom to lock to for orders, the General was not to
be found, and the consequence was that the
three regiments managed to get clear off wi-h
their arms and ammunition, and almost without
losieg a single man ! The General was advised
and asked to 'tend men after them, but this he al-
together declined to do, and determined to keep every
Europaan in Dinapore, to take good care of himself.
A day or so after the mutineers left we heard that
they had gone to Arrah, where they were attacking poor
Wake and party, consisting of 12 or .13 Europeans and
Sikhs Wake had strongly fortified a puekha house,
and laid in lots of ammunition and food. Directly we
heard of this, and that they were holding out well, Me.
wrote to the General to send out aid to them. At first he
refused, but sher receiving a strong letter from Mr.
1i;-deinsented, and sent oft' 200 Enropeans in a steamer.
The next day we heard that the steamer had suck in the
rivet and th it the General had sent orders to recall them.
Of course, as Englishmen, we were in a great rage at this,
' leaving a number of poor fellows to their fate; so pff
and I started at 12 o'cloek at night on. Tuesday last to pitch
into the cid muff. Whet we got to Dinapore we found
that he had been made to change his mind, and had con •
rented to send another steamer off, which luckily :hap-
pened just to have come in In this ;started 150
Europeans and 50 Sikhs ; we al.ogether made up
a force of 44)0 men. As Wake ia one of the
greatest friends I have got, I determined to give him a hand
if I could, and so volunteered with seven other fellows,
five of whom are dead. Well, I was up all that Tuesday.
night, and at daylight on Wednesday off we started. We
'reached the nearest point to Arrah, on the banks of the
Oangea, at about 2 o'clock, and were beginning to get
dinner -early (so as to start whh a good feed, as we could
not expect to get anything on the road) when we heard our
advanced guard firing. We immediately all fell in, and
went off to the place, about two miles off, where we found
h 'drawn up before a laege nullah. (river) about 200
yards wide. firing away at some Sepoys on the other Fide.
The Sepoys, when they saw us coming, an away; and then,
as we had git so far, we thought we might as well go on
After a delatacf two or three hours in getting boas and
crossing over, it was nearly 7 o'clock before we got well
off. From the villagers we he ird that Wake was still ad
right and holding out, which was confirmed by the tiring
we heard in the direction of Arrah of big guns. it.
was a beautiful 'moonlight night, the road a very bad
one (a ktecha one in the rains), and wooded country on
both sides of us. - We did not see a soul on the road,
though we passed through several villages, until we came
to within fret miles of Arrah, where we saw a party of
horsemen ahead of us, who galloped cif bef ire we g )t within
shot. About 11 o'clock the moon went down'; however,
as we did not expect that the mutineers would face us,
we still went -on till we came within about a mile of the
fo:tified house. We _were . passing a thick black mango
roie to our right, when all' of a au !den, without any
warning, the -whole pace was lighted up by a tremendous
volley poured into us at about_ thirty or forty yards
distance. It is impossible to say how many men
fired into us.—cone Fay 500,-some 1,500. The next
thing I remember was finding myself alone, lying in the
middle of the road, with a crack on the hea I, and my hat
gone. I suppose I must have been stunned f r a minute
Wnen I recovered there were several men lying by me,
but not a living soul could I see. There were lots to
hear, though, for the bullets from right to left were
whistling over my head. I was just thiuking where our
men could be, and which way I should run, when I saw
the melons advancing out of the grove with their bayonets
within a dozen yards of me. I fired my double barrel
right and left into them, and then ran towards our men,
whom I could hear shouting on the left, under a tremen-
dous fire fern both rattles. Everything now was'in a
most dreadful confusion ; the men were all scattered in
groups of fif.ies and twenties, firing in every direction, and,
I fear, killing each other. At last a,Oaptain Jonea;a very
fine fellow—our commander was never seen again of er the
first volley— g of hold t f a bugler, and got the men togs. her
in a sort of hell w place, a half filled pond. There we all
lay down in a square I was in the midd'e, with the
doctor, helping hits to Ce up the wounds of the poor fe'-
lows, and bring ng them water. The firing was all this
time going on. The enemy could Fee us, as we were all
dressed in white, whils they were nearly naked, and b.-hind
trees and walls. However, the men fired about at ran-
dom. At last the poor doctor was knocked over, badly
wounded. It was dreadful to hear the poor wounded
fellows asking for help.
" I shall never forget that night as long as I live. We
held a consultation, and determined to reneat, as the enemy
was at least 3,000 or 4,0)0 strong, and had, besides, several
cannon. Direct y morning dawned we formed order, and
.began our retreat. The whole distance, 10 miles, we walked
under a most tremendous fire : the ditches, the jungles, the
houses', and, in fact, every place of cover along the road was
lined with Sepoys. We kept up a fire as we went along,
but what could we do ? We could see no enemy, only
puffs of smoke. We tried to charge, but there was nobody to
charge; on all sides they fired into us, and were scattered
all over the country in groups of ten, and twenties. Dozens
of poor fellows were knocked over within a yard of me on
my right a- d, left, but, thank God, I escaped in the most
miraculous Way. The last five miles of the road I carried
a poor wounded fellow, who bagged me not to leave him,
and though W 3 had nothing to eat for more than
twenty-four hours, and I had had no sleep for tso
nights; I never felt so strong in my life, and
I stepped out with the man as if he had been a
feather, thorrgh he was as big as myself. Poor fellow !
the men, most of them more or less wounded, were leaving
him behind, and the cowardly Sepoys, who never came
within 200 yards of ne, were runnit gup to murder him. I
got the poor fellow safe over the nullab • I swam out and
got a boat, put him in, and went over with a lot of others.
The poor fellow thanked me with tears in his eyes. At the
creFeleg of the nullah wi lost a gee t Pat/ men ; they