The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-29 00:00:00

AZIMGHUR.

The following are f,xtracs from .private letters
from Mr. Edward Frederick Venables, Deputy
Magistrate at Azimghur

1‘ July 25.

" Since 'last wrote 1. have held Azimghur in
spite of all the rebels. - We have bad . three fights.
The last -was the best. It came off on the 18th of
July. 'The rebels had been collecting for 15 days,
and for the lest 3 or 4 days had been coming nearer
and nearer wi h the avowed object of plundering
Azimghur. On the morning of the 18th they were
not a mile off,-so at noon we marched through the
city to meet' them. Oar force consisted of 160 Se-
poys and 100 irregular cavalry or sowars, one six-
pounder and eight men to work it. Thiagun was an
old one that had been put up to fire every day
at noon. I rigged it out with a new carriage, made
shot and grape, and got it all .in order. With my -
gun I kept the fellows' in front in check, but there
wure too many of them. There: were from 2,500 to
3,000 fighting men, armed with matchlocks and
swords, and thousands who had tonne to plunder.
They outflanked us on both sides, and the balls came
in pretty fast. Men and hOrses were killed by my
&le, but thank Godl I escaped unhurt. We retired
Through.the city to our in!rencl ' unents followed by
the enemy. They made several attacks; corning up
every time within 100, yards, but they could not
stand the grape. ;At 5 p.m. they matte their last at-
tempt, but a lucky.sbot made with the gun sent them
to the rightabout. They lost heart and were seen
no more. We killed from •150 to 200 of them, our
!own lossbeinglB killed and wounded, and 8 hoses.
'All their -wounded and a lot of others were cut up
during their relreat by the rascally villarrbers, who
would have done the same to us had-theday gone
!against u 4. Our v:cOry was complete. Not a house
iin Azimghur was plundered, and the robelshave since
dikeised. •- Please God, as soon as I hear of Luck-
now being relieved I'll, be after them. They have
paid me the compliment of offering 500 rs. for my
head. People give me more credit than I deserve. To
hold Azimghur it only-required nerve and common
sew. However, I have letters from all quarters
congratulating me ; and Tucker, the commissioner,
has recomm:nded me4or 0, magiitracy at. 1;000
rupees peemon,h. Tniii offer, which 1-am &Maul'
about accepting, is against all rules and regulations,
as lam not a servant of the Company. I would
much rather have the command of a regiment of
Irregular Cavalry, but this I fear is too much to
expect.
. " I enclose you a copy of a General Order of the
Governor-General in Council, and I am glad to say
that this morning I had the honour of a private
letter from Llrd Canning, thanking me in person,
and saying he would never forget me :--
' " ' EXTRACT FROM GENERAL ORDER NO. 1,125.-30iff

27TH, 1857.
" • Mr. Venableg, the Deputy Magistrate of Azimghnr,
has earned the best thanks of the Government for the
energy and good judgment he has displayed in his proceed-
ings in that district, and you are requested to convoy to
him the souse the Governor-General in Council entertains
of his exertions and ability, and of the excellent service
he is rendering to the State.
" (True Extract. )
" C. Tumult.'"

" Ghazeepore, Aug. 2.
" Since I wrote to you we heard. at Azimghur
that the head-quarters of the 12th Irregulars had
Inutinind and murdered their commanding officer,
Major Holmes, his wife, and sister-in-law, and the
doctor and his wife. Vire had 160 man of that re-
giment whom we expected to mutiny as soon as
they heard the news, so we determined to fallback
on this place. Our Sowars left us on the road, but
I will say this for them, if they had liked to polish
off Havelock and myself, who remained behind
with them, they might easily have done so. We
came in here on the evening of the 30th of July.
. • . . lam in hopes of getting 80 or 100 Euro-
peans to go and retake Azimghur."

FYZABAD.
The following extracts are from the letter of an
officer holding civil charge of the district of Fyzabad,
in the province of Oude, dated Allahabad, Aug. 4 :
"Long ore this reaches you you will have heard
all about this terrible emeute. It has been indeed
an awful outbreak, and it is not improbable that
things will get wo so before they get better.
" I arrived at Fyzabad on the 9th of May, and
hoped I had got steadily settled for a long time. On
the morning of the lth June, Orr, Thurburn, and
I had to ride for it.
" We went on from bad to worse, getting more
and more unsettled, and before long it became pain-
fully evident that there must be a grand smash
For days before the mutiny all but a few, who would
not see, knew what was coming, and I asked Rajah
Man Singh to tike charge of the women and chil-
dren ; which he at once agreed to do.
" Soon after the beginning of our troubles an
order came trona Lucknow to arrest Man Singh
G— was at FyzAbad, and he carried out the or-
der in spite of my urgent remonstrance and written
protest. I got permission to release him just in
time, and started the ladies off to Shahgunj. Mri.
L 'nnox and her daughter, Mrs. Moan and Mrs.
Mill remained at Fyzabad. The very next night I
think the tro)ps mutinied. The irregulars (15th
Irregular Cavalry, one troop), were very bad—
wanted to murder every officer. The Artillery and
Gth Oude Irregulars were also bad ; the 22d Bengal
Native Infantry the least bad of all. After a long
altercation it was determined that the officq-s
should be allowed to go. They went off in boats ;
but just opposite Beguingunj they were seen by the
17th N 1., mutineers from Azimghur, who gave
chase, and here pcor Goldney, Bright, and a ser-
geant kpear to have been shot, Mill, Currie, and
Parsons drowned, baying left the boats and at-
tempted to escape inland. The rest of the party
got to the Tebsildarre of Kuptamgunj, where they
were well treated, and received 50 rupees to prose-
cute their journey to Goruckpore. At a large
bazaar called Mahadewa, a large body of armed
men s tilled forth, and, without the slightest provo-
cation, cut the unfortunate fellows t
pieces. Hen
English, Lindesly, Cautley, Thomas, and Ritch;p,
with two sergeaot4, fell. One artillery sergeant
(Busher) alone escaped. Another party—O'Brien,
Gordon, Colli son, Anderson, and Percival—changed
their boat and got a covered one at Ajoodhia ; they
lay perdu, and were not observed by the 17th N.I.
Hiding in daytime and travelling at night, they ma-
naged to reach Gopalpore in the Goruckpore dis-
trict, where a powerful Rajah took them under his
protection and forwarded them to Dinapore. A
third patty consisted of Morgan and his wife,
Fowle, Ouieley, and Daniell. They were robbed,
imprisoned, and sufGrad great hardship, alcaos,
starvation, but they, too, eventually escaped. I
must now return to my own party. The troop.
mutinied on the night of the Bth, but did not come
down to the city till the morning of the 9,h of
June. Orr and. Thurburn slept at my gateway—
Bradford, being obstinate, slept at the Dilkoosha.
We had about 100 armed invalids. We tried ,to
tai leviosi and, with Man -Singh's co-operation,