The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-08-11
Progress u ths War q Inaspsndsnes In
India

~1SOse~ - - 49, - e~sssSESuo~ssoS -
Intl1as a
The news from India strikes us as very alarm
ing for Briti.h interests. II Is, a. the reader
may be aware, the teIegsphic summary of the
overland mail, sent on from Trieste; and the
dates are from Calcutta to 2lst, from Madras
to 2ssh June, and from Bombay to LIST July. The
outbreak at Meerut having taken place on 18th
May. we may say in round numbers that we
Rave before us come account of months work.
though from the destruction Of the telegraph
wires, and the almost universal pillage of the
mails in The Bengal Presidency and the north.
western provinces, that account is necessarily
very imperfect.
And first, as to the spread of the mutiny. We
beer that no outbreak has yet taken place at
Madras or Bombay The assurance of the tele-
gagh that in these Presidencies "there is not the
slightest sign Of disafection," reminds one of the
remark made by the Bombay correspondent of
the London Times. to the effect that such asser-
tons merely meant that the soldiers and the
populace had not yet begun to burn, STAY, and
destroy. Whatever motives existed for mutiny
in one Presidency, existed in ali; and it stands to
reason that news of a successful mutiny in the
north must rouse the eepoys of the south
to action likewise. Their participation in
the affair is merely matter Of time. As
to the Bengal Presidency, we hear that "the
mutiny is spreading among the troops" in that
quarter. Then it must be supposed that more
regiments have Joined the twenty-nine which the
last mail announced as having mutinied; leaving
If allowance be made for the regiments which
have Just been dsbanded at Calcutta and Bar
rackpoor- hardly any soldiers at all on the side
of the government, except the handful which
have been borrowed from Madras Bombay and
Ceylon, and recalled from China. 1t really
seems as though the cole hope Of British power
in Bengal was the few Europeans who are scat
tered throughout the Presidency, and most of
whom are in the civil service.
Then, as to the operations at Delhi. General
Barnard, with all the troops he could rally in
the northwestern provinces, marched down and
occupied certain heights adjoining the suburbs:
pulsed various sorties" from the insurgents;
and then wisely resolved to await reinforcements
before resumipg the offensive. This is the sum of
our news from thence, and we must say that it
looks i'll for Gen. Barnard and the English.
Delhi not being walled town, or military en-
closure, but a great struggling mass of ruins
palaces, and old dwellings, it is absurd to
talk of ''sorties" from thence the "sorties" must
be mere attacks upon Gen. Barnard's position
by the insurgents; and the appearance is that he
is actually besieged by them, and attacked with
extraordinary vigor from time to time. 1t is
said that he is awaiting achievements. But
every person at all acquainted with the climate
of India knows that it would be madness to at
tempt to march British troops 10 Delhi in the
present season. or for ten weeks to come at least.
They would die on the road, of the heat and
the still more terrible clouds of dust, before they
rough showed this very plainly in his speech.
And supposng that there were still in the Ben
gal Presidency native troops who could be relied
upon TO serve as achievements to Gen. Barnard,
they would have to fight battle upon battle in
the present condition Of affairs before they conld
effect junction with him
We have now the authority of that General
himself for asserting that the fall of Delhi must
not be expected. He does not intend to assault
it. And from all the facts, read by the light Of
a careful study Of the map and the best accounts
of northwestern India, il really does appear
much more likely that the next news will relate
some desperate effort Of Gen. Barnard to make
his way to the Ganges and escape to Calcutta
than that we shall hear Of the mutineers being
checked.
which we publish elsewhere, while it throws some
light the folly of the governing class in India,
repeats the frequently mentioned hypothesis
that the originators Of the t,pe1re were Mahome-
tans, not Hindoos Our contemporary overlooks
the possibility that these Mahometans may have
a lurking fancy for freedom; he ascribes their
disapprobation 10 their wish to regain their long
lost supremacy over the Hindoos. This, Of
course, may be so; though il must be very diff
cult 10 discriminate among the legion Of good
causes which the Hindoos have for rebelling.
Certainly. the arrest Of the King of Dude by
the British authorities would appear to favor the
hypothesis The King OF Dude, the head of an
old Mahometan family, and lately the ruler of
three millions Of Hindoo subjects, is the last vic
tim of the rapaciiy Of the East India Company;
it is natural for the company to suspect him OF
completely in the rebellion, and indeed equaHy
natural for him to have share in it, But it is
very difficult to copciliate the arrest Of the King
Of Dude with the theory that this il a mere mu
tiny of the spoys, growing out Of a new militia
ry rule about bullocks' fat Surely, the King
did not care about creased cartridges; nor could
he, being a Mahometan, care much about the re-
ligious prejudices Of the Hindoos. The truth is
leaking out
The article from the Calcutta EngiishD'aH,
which the reader will find elsewhere, is