The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8. Dodd George

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СКАЧАТЬ districts of Rohilcund in its modern or limited sense are Bareilly, Boodayoun or Budaon, Shahjehanpoor, Mooradabad, and Bijnour, each named after a chief town; and not only were the whole of these towns more or less disturbed, but throughout the intervening country the military cantonments were set into a flame – figuratively and often literally. In some instances the civil servants of the Company, chiefly magistrates and revenue collectors, made their escape with their wives and children, leaving the mutineers to occupy the stations and pillage the treasuries; in others the civil servants, led by one of their number possessing tact and resolution, held the marauders at bay until assistance could be procured; while in many cases the English officers of native regiments, as well as the civilians, yielded – by flight or by death – only after a determined resistance.

      Two of the towns above named, Bareilly and Boodayoun, will suffice at present to illustrate the state of affairs in Rohilcund. Sunday, as we have often had occasion to observe, was a favourite day for the native outbreaks; and it was on Sunday the 31st of May that the miseries at Bareilly began. The 18th and 68th regiments N. I. were cantoned there. The bungalow of Colonel Troup was suddenly surrounded by two companies of his own regiment, the 68th: and it was only by a hasty exit through a side-door that he escaped death. During many previous days and nights the troops had been in a rebellious state; the English, civilians and military, had slept in their clothes, with pistols ready loaded, and horses kept ready saddled. The ladies had all been sent up for safety to Nynee Tal; and thus, when the struggle arose, the officers had only themselves to protect. This word ‘ladies,’ however, is to be interpreted in its conventional sense; for many women in a humbler grade of life, together with their children, remained in the town; and among these some deplorable scenes occurred. The members of one family were brought before a ruthless fellow who assumed some kind of authority; and in a very few minutes their heads were severed from their bodies. At the same time, Mr Robertson the judge, two medical men, the professors of the college, and others, were subjected to a mock trial and publicly hanged. The mutinous sepoys took aim in the most deliberate way at their officers, while the latter were fleeing; Mr Alexander, commissioner of Bareilly, though ill at the time, was forced to mount his horse and gallop off as the only means of saving his life, amid a shower of bullets and grape-shot – for the treacherous villains not only used muskets and rifles, but fired grape from the cannon. Many of the gentlemen rode off in haste without any head-coverings, the rays of an Indian sun pouring down upon them in full force. When the English were driven out, the Mohammedans and Hindoos began to fight fiercely against each other for possession of the treasure – one among many indications that plunder was at least as strong a desire as revenge in impelling the natives to deeds of violence.

      The name of Nynee Tal is mentioned in the above paragraph; and it may be well to understand on what ground that town was so often named with earnest solicitude by officers engaged in arduous struggles in various parts of the north of India. Nynee Tal is a healthy spot on the banks of a beautiful lake, a few miles from Almora in Kumaon, and not far from the Nepaulese border: indeed it belonged to the Goorkhas of Nepaul until recent times, when it was conquered from them by the British; since which occurrences the late owners have been friendly neighbours within their own territory of Nepaul. Nynee Tal became a second Simla during the disturbances. Women and children, if their lives were spared at the scenes of tumult, were hurried off to the places just named, and to one or two other towns among the hills – there to remain till days of peace returned, or till means of safe conveyance to Calcutta or Bombay could be procured. When the troubles in Rohilcund commenced; when Bareilly and Boodayoun, Mooradabad and Shahjehanpoor, fell into the hands of the rebels – all fled to Nynee Tal who could. Captain Ramsey, commanding at that town, at once made arrangements for protecting the poor fugitives; he formed the gentlemen of the station into a militia, who took it in turn to fulfil the duties of an armed patrol, to keep in order the dacoits and other ruffians in the neighbourhood; he laid in a store of three months’ provisions for all the mouths in the place; and he armed the station and the roads with companies of a Goorkha regiment. These Goorkhas, it may be well here to explain, are of Mongol origin, but smaller and darker than the real Chinese. They belong to Nepaul, and first became familiar to the British by their resolute soldierly qualities during the Nepaulese war. Although Hindoos by religion, they have little or nothing of caste prejudice, and sympathise but slightly with the Hindoos of the plains. Being natives of a somewhat poor country, they have shewn a readiness in recent years to accept Company’s pay as auxiliary troops; and it was a very important fact to those concerned in quelling the revolt, that the Goorkhas manifested a disposition rather to remain faithful to their British paymasters, than to join the standard of rapine and murder.

      Bareilly, we have just seen, was one of the towns from which fugitive ladies were sent for safety to Nynee Tal; and now the town of Boodayoun, on the road from Agra to Bareilly, comes for notice under similar conditions. Considering that the course of public events often receives illustration of a remarkable kind from the experience of single individuals, we shall treat the affairs of Boodayoun in connection with the strange adventures of one of the Company’s civil servants – adventures not so deeply distressing as those of the fugitives from Delhi, but continued during a much longer period, and bringing to light a much larger number of facts connected with the feelings and position of the natives in the disturbed districts. The wanderer, Mr Edwards, collector of the Boodayoun district, was more than three months in reaching Cawnpore from Boodayoun – a distance scarcely over a hundred miles by road. About the middle of May, the districts on both sides of the Ganges becoming very disturbed, Mr Edwards sent his wife and child for refuge to Nynee Tal. He was the sole European officer in charge of the Boodayoun district, and felt his anxieties deepen as rumours reached him of disturbances in other quarters. At the end of the month, news of the revolt at Bareilly added to his difficulties; for the mutineers and a band of liberated prisoners were on their way from that place to Boodayoun. Mr Edwards expresses his opinion that the mutiny was aggravated by the laws, or the course adopted by the civil courts, concerning landed property. Landed rights and interests were sold by order of the courts for petty debts; they were bought by strangers, who had no particular sympathy with the people; and the old landowners, regarded with something like affection by the peasantry, were thrown into a discontented state. Evidence was soon afforded that these dispossessed landowners joined the mutineers, not from a political motive, but to seize hold of their old estates during a time of turmoil and violence. ‘The danger now is, that they can never wish to see the same government restored to power; fearing, as they naturally must, that they will have again to give up possession of their estates.’ This subject, of landed tenure in India, will call for further illustration in future pages, in relation to the condition of the people.

      Narrowly escaping peril himself, Mr Edwards, on the 1st of June, saw that flight was his only chance. There were two English indigo-planters in the neighbourhood, together with another European, who determined to accompany him wherever he went, thinking their safety would be thereby increased. This embarrassed him, for friendly natives who might shelter one person, would probably hesitate to receive four; and so it proved, on several occasions. He started off on horseback, accompanied by the other three, and by a faithful Sikh servant, Wuzeer Singh, who never deserted him through all his trials. The worldly wealth of Mr Edwards at this moment consisted of the clothes on his back, a revolver, a watch, a purse, and a New Testament. During the first few days they galloped from village to village, just as they found the natives favourable or hostile; often forced to flee when most in need of food and rest. They crossed the Ganges two or three times, tracing out a strange zigzag in the hope of avoiding dangers. The wanderers then made an attempt to reach Futteghur. They suffered much, and one life was lost, in this attempt; the rest, after many days, reached Futteghur, where Mr Probyn was the Company’s collector. Native troops were mutinying, or consulting whether to mutiny; Europeans were departing; and it soon became evident that Futteghur would no longer be a place of safety either for Probyn or for Edwards. Flight again became necessary, and under more anxious circumstances, for a lady and four children were to be protected; but how to flee, and whither, became anxious questions. Day after day passed, before a friendly native could safely plan an escape for them by boat; enemies and marauders were on every side; and at last the danger became so imminent that it was resolved to cross the Ganges, and seek an asylum in a very desolate spot, out of the way of the mutineers. Here was presented СКАЧАТЬ