A. R. Hope Moncrieff

“ In less than a month, we could throw into India as many English soldiers as, in 1857, arrived only in time to stamp out the embers of an almost ruinous conflagration.
In any case, the conscience of England has set up a new standard to judge its achievements—by the good we can do to this great people, and not by the gain we can wring from them, the honour of our mastery must stand or fall.
The work of education may well be longer and harder than that of conquest. The conduct of our countrymen here causes yet too much shame and doubt in thoughtful minds. ”

“ After a succession of arduous combats, toiling through deep slush and sweltering air, Havelock had come within a few miles of Cawnpore, to find Nana Sahib waiting to dispute the passage with more than thrice his own numbers drawn up across the road. Very early in the morning, the British soldiers had been roused from their hungry bivouac in the open air. What their chief had to tell them was how he had heard of women and children still alive in Cawnpore; his clear voice broke into a sob as he cried, "With God's help, men, we shall save them, or every man of us die in the attempt!" ”

“ Within such slight defences were huddled some thousand Christian souls, four hundred of them fighting men. They had plenty of muskets and rifles, but sorely needed every other means of defence.
For now broke over these poor people a storm of cannon-balls and bullets, pouring upon them all day like the slaughtering rays of the sun overhead, and hardly ceasing by night, when they must steal forth in wary silence to hide away their dead. At first every crashing shot called forth shrieks of alarm from the women and children; but soon they grew too well accustomed to the deadly din. ”

“ Not a few of the mutineers were spared in battle to die by inches in some unwholesome jungle, or slunk home, when they durst, only to meet the curses of the friends upon whom they had brought so much misery, and to be at a loss how to earn their bread, pay and pension having been scattered to the winds of rebellion. The sufferings of the civil population, even where they had not risen in arms, were also pitiable; and if hundreds of homes in England had been bereaved, there would be thousands of dusky heathen to mourn their dear ones. ”

“ For our soldiers, that Sunday afternoon might at length be a time of rest, their hard and bloody week's work done when the British flag flew once more over the palace of the Grand Mogul, and the Queen's health was triumphantly drunk upon his deserted throne. A wild riot of pillage and destruction ran through the famous halls, on which is inscribed what must have now read such a mockery: "If on earth there be a Paradise, it is here!" To this monument of Oriental splendour, the last monarch of his race was soon brought a humble captive. ”

“ The scene then ensuing has been often described—the garrison pressing forward with cheers of welcome and triumph—the rough Highlanders suddenly appearing through the darkness among the ruins they had fought so many battles to save—their begrimed faces running with tears in the torchlight, as they caught up in their arms the pale children, and kissed their country-women, too, in that spasm of glad emotion; even the ladies ready to hug them for hysteric joy—the gaunt, crippled figures tottering out to join in the general rejoicing, now that for a moment all believed their trials at an end. ”

“ From Allighur, from Muttra, from Bareilly, from Moradabad, from Jhansi, from other points, one after another, came sickening tales of revolt and massacre, which would not lose in the telling. The only news of other places was an ominous silence. The great stations of Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow were presently cut off by a raging sea of rebellion. Rohilcund, old nursery of warriors, was overflowed, and the Doab, that fertile region between the Jumna and the Ganges, down whose thickly peopled valleys poured the irresistible flood of disorder. ”

“ Men had to show, then, of what stuff they were made. While some of our countrymen gave way before the danger, or even precipitated it through panic or indecision, others stood fast at their posts, and by proud audacity were able to hold the wavering natives to allegiance, and still to keep hundreds of thousands overawed before the name of English rule. Not seldom was it seen how mere boldness proved the best policy in dealing with a race tamed by centuries of bondage; yet, in too many cases, gallantry, honour, devotion to duty, fell sacrificed under the rage of maddened rebels. ”

“ Beneath the sweltering sky of Hindostan, spiritual life remains a day-dream or a nightmare; reformers are ever silenced by fanatics; virtues are frittered down into foolish scruples; harmful customs cumber the ground, hindering the growth of progressive institutions.
The great encumbrance of Indian life is the system of caste, doubly fostered by religion and pride of race. ”

“ To many it must have been a relief when the outbreak came, and they saw clearly how to deal with false friends and open foes. Then, at a season of the Indian year when activity and exposure are hurtful to the health of Europeans, for whom life, through that sweltering heat, seems made only tolerable by elaborate contrivances and the services of obsequious attendants, these sorely-tried people had to fight for their lives, pent-up in some improvised stronghold, wanting perhaps ammunition, or food, or, worst torment in such a climate, water, till relief came, often only in the form of death. ”

“ In its vast palace still lived the descendant of the Great Moguls, a feeble old man, who, under the shadowy title of king, was allowed, among thousands of poverty-stricken kinsmen and retainers, to retain in part the pomp, if not the power, of his haughty ancestors. To keep up the show of his sovereignty, the English refrained from occupying the city with their troops, who lay quartered outside, beyond a ridge overlooking it from the north; and even here there were no English soldiers. Such was the prize about to fall easily into the hands of the rebels. ”

“ So little did we know of the minds of our native soldiers, that it is still a matter of debate how far the Mutiny had been the work of deliberate design. But, at the time, it was widely believed by men too excited to be calm judges, that the outbreak at Meerut came a mercy in disguise, as it brought about the premature and incomplete explosion of a deep-laid plot for the whole Bengal army to rise on the same day, when thousands of Europeans, taken without warning and defence at a hundred different points, might have perished in a general massacre. ”

“ Our soldiers fell back to their own quarters, where were gathered for defence the whole Christian community, many of whom, bereaved and destitute, after barely escaping with their lives, saw the sky glowing from the conflagration of their ruined houses, and might be thankful if they had not to shudder for the unknown fate of husband or child. Eager officers vainly begged the General to spare them some small force with which the mob of mutineers could have been pursued and dispersed; at least to let them gallop through the night to Delhi, and give warning there of what was at hand. ”

“ The General in command here, Sir Hugh Wheeler, was an Indian veteran of the older school, who could speak to the Sepoys in their own language, and, like some other officers of his generation, had become so much one of themselves as to marry a native woman. Such a man would naturally be slow to believe his "children"—babalogue the affectionate word was, that came now to be used rather in scornful irony—capable of being untrue to their salt. ”

“ Russell, the Times Correspondent, who was an eye-witness—walls broken down, blazing or ball-pitted; statues and fountains reddened with blood; dead or dying Sepoys in the orange-groves and summer-houses; at every door a crowd of powder-grimed soldiers blowing open the locks, or smashing the panels with the butt ends of their muskets; their officers in vain trying to recall them to discipline ”

“ The very pride of our superiority seems against us: other conquerors, more willing to let themselves down to the level of the conquered, have proved less unsuccessful in winning their good-will. Still, these natives cannot but come to see the advantage of having rulers whose word may be trusted. For long, honest efforts have been made to exercise among all sects and classes an even-handed justice, hitherto little known in India, the chief hindrance to which lies in the corruption of the native subordinates, on whom our magistrates have largely to rely for the details of their administration. ”

“ But by this time the conscience of the English people was being roused, and it began to be understood how India, for all its princely treasures, was the home of a poor and much-enduring population, which our duty should be to protect rather than to spoil. ”

“ On one side will be the barracks of the European troops, the scattered bungalows of officers and civilians, each in its roomy "compound," the church, the treasury, and other public places. On the other lie the "lines," long rows of huts in which the Sepoys live after their own fashion with their wives and families, overlooked only by their staff of native officers, who bear fine titles and perform important duties, but with whom the youngest English subaltern scorns familiar comradeship. ”

“ Among the natives themselves, the excesses of the Mutiny were hardly less calamitous. Many, if not most, were hurried into it by panic or excitement, or the persuasion of the more designing, and their hearts soon misgave them when they saw the fruit of their wild deeds, still more when they considered the punishment likely to follow. Anarchy, as usual, sprang up behind rebellion. Debtors fell upon their creditors; neighbours fought with neighbours; old feuds were revived; fanaticism and crime ran rampant over the ruins of British justice. ”

“ The more thoughtful part of the population might well hesitate on which side to declare; some prudently did their best to stand well with both, in case of any event; but those who had much to lose must soon have regretted the firm rule of our Government. On the whole, it may be said that the princes and nobles, where not carried away by ambition or religious zeal, remained more or less loyal to our cause, having better means than the ignorant mob of judging that our power would yet right itself, though crippled by such a sudden storm and staggering like to founder in so troubled waters. ”

“ Death was busy everywhere in various forms. Men were more than once buried beneath the ruins of houses crushed by the storm of shot. Delicate women panted for air in crowded cellars, and sickened amid the pestilential stenches that beset every corner of the entrenchment, or despairingly saw their children pine away for want of proper nourishment. The poor sufferers in hospital would sometimes be wounded afresh or killed outright by balls crashing among them. ”

“ The newspapers and other irresponsible critics attacked our general for what seemed strange inaction. Indeed, he was judged over-cautious by officers who with a few hundreds of English soldiers had seen exploits accomplished such as he delayed to undertake with thousands. He at least justified himself by final success, and none have a right to blame him who do not know the difficulty of assembling and providing for the movements of an army where every European soldier needs the services of natives and beasts of burden, and every animal, too, must have at least one attendant. ”

“ The focus of the insurrection was now at Lucknow, where ever since the end of June the Residency defences had been besieged by the rebels of Oudh, and thus most serviceably kept engaged a host of fighters, who might else have marched to turn the wavering scale at Delhi. Apart from its practical result, the gallantry displayed, both by the much-tried garrison and by two armies which successfully broke through to their aid, has marked this defence as one of the principal scenes of the Indian Mutiny and one of the most stirring episodes in modern history. ”

“ The crafty foe, knowing our men's besetting sin, would appear to have purposely strewn the emptied streets with bottles of wine, beer, and spirits, the most effectual weapons they could have used, for on them the parched Saxons fell with such greedy thirst that by next morning a large part of the army was, in plain English, helplessly drunk, and it seemed hopeless to attempt any progress that day. Our Sikh and Goorkha auxiliaries, for their part, thought less of fighting than of securing the long-expected loot of a city so famed for riches. ”

“ All the troops available in Bengal were needed to guard the disarmed Sepoys here, and to keep clear the six hundred miles of road to Allahabad, infested as it was by flying bands of mutineers and robbers. But if he had no English soldiers to command, there was a brigade of sailors, five hundred strong, who under their daring leader, Captain William Peel, steamed up the Ganges, ahead of the army, to which more than once they were to show the way on an unfamiliar element. ”

“ Havelock, worn out through care and disease, died before he could know of the honours bestowed upon him by his grateful countrymen, yet happy in being able to say truly: "I have for forty years so ruled my life that, when death came, I might face it without fear." Under a tree, marked only with a rudely scrawled initial, he was left buried at the Alum Bagh, till a prouder monument should signalize his grave as one of the many holy spots "where England's patriot soldiers lie." ”

“ The almost complete conquest of India had been chiefly carried out through troops raised among its own natives, drilled and led by European officers. Here and there, in the course of a century, their commanders had been forced to repress attempts at mutiny, such as might take place in any army; but on the whole this Sepoy force had proved remarkably faithful to the Company in whose service haughty Rajpoot and warlike Moslem were proud to enlist, and counted for wealth its hire of a few pence a day. ”

“ This was the garrison's one supply of water, and the ruthless enemy trained guns upon it, firing even by night as soon as they heard the creaking of the tackle. When the Hindoo water-carriers had all been killed, or scared away, soldiers were paid several rupees for every pail they drew at the risk of their lives. A brave civilian named Mackillop, declaring himself no fighting man, undertook this post of honour, held only for a few days. In the heat of June, on that dusty plain, no fainting woman or crying child could have a drink of water, but at the price of blood. ”