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 about six miles, firing from both sides [of the river] ceased; and soon after we were hailed by some natives, on the Oude side, who asked us to come on shore, and said they would take us to their rajah, who was friendly to the English.’ This proved to be the case; for Lieutenant Delafosse, Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, and one or two companions, remained in security and comparative comfort throughout the month of July, until an opportunity occurred for joining an English force.

      Although the boat-adventure just narrated was full of painful excitement, ending in the death of nearly all the persons by shooting or drowning – yet there is one still to be noticed more saddening in its character, for the sufferers were reserved for a worse death. The name of Sir Hugh Wheeler is connected with this adventure in a way not easily to be accounted for; Mr Shepherd and Lieutenant Delafosse were not witnesses of it, and no reliable personal narrative is obtainable from any one who was actually present when it occurred. The probability is, that Sir Hugh, although wounded in the intrenchment, did not die until the boat-expedition had commenced, and that the same boat contained his daughter and his (living or dead) body. At anyrate, this was the last the world could hear of a brave old soldier, who went to India fifty-four years before; who fought with Lord Lake before Delhi in 1804; who took an active part in the Punjaub war; and who had been military commander of the Cawnpore district from 1850 to 1857. It was also the last to be heard of Brigadier Jack, who commanded the Cawnpore cantonment; and of many brave English officers, from colonels down to ensigns, of both the English and the native regiments.

      Whether the general was alive or dead, and by whomsoever accompanied, it appears certain that a large party rowed many miles down the Ganges. One account states that Baboo Rambuksh, a zemindar of Dowreea Kheyra near Futtehpoor, stopped the boats, captured the persons who were in them, and sent them in carts as prisoners back to Cawnpore. The names of Mr Reid, Mr Thomas Greenway, Mr Kirkpatrick, Mr Mackenzie, Captain Mackenzie, and Dr Harris, were mentioned in connection with this band of unfortunates; but accuracy in this particular is not to be insured. The narrative given by Nujoor Jewarree, the native afterwards examined by English officers at Cawnpore, was different in many points, and much more detailed. He stated that the boat in question, after proceeding some distance, got upon a sand-bank, where there was a severe encounter; the sepoys not only ran along the shore, but followed in boats shooting at the victims as soon as they got within musket-range, and receiving many fatal shots in return. A freshet in the river released the boat, and the voyage recommenced. Meanwhile, the probable escape of this party being reported to Nena Sahib, he ordered three companies of the 3d Oude infantry to pursue the boat, and effect a complete capture. The boat was soon after taken, and all the occupants seized as prisoners. ‘There came out of that boat,’ said Nujoor Jewarree, ‘sixty sahibs (gentlemen), twenty-five memsahibs (ladies), and four children – one boy and three half-grown girls.’ His story then proceeded to details which, if correct, shew that Sir Hugh Wheeler was in the boat, and still alive; for a contest ensued between Nena and some of the soldiers whether or not the old general should be put to death: many of the sepoys wishing to preserve his life.

      It will become apparent to the reader, from the nature of the above details, that the true story of the boat-catastrophe at Cawnpore will probably never be fully told. All that we positively know is, that one portion of the wretched victims met their death in the river, by muskets, swords, and drowning; and that two other portions were carried back to a captivity worse even than that of the intrenchment.

      The proceedings of Nena Sahib, after the iniquitous treachery of the 27th of June, bore evident relation to his own advancement as an independent chieftain. At sunset on that day he held a review of all the rebel troops around Cawnpore on a plain between the now deserted intrenchment and the Ganges. They appear to have consisted of five regiments of Bengal native infantry, two of Oude native infantry, one of Bengal cavalry, two of Oude cavalry, two of irregular cavalry, a battery of field-guns, besides sundry detachments of regiments, and marauders who became temporary soldiers in the hope of sharing pillage. Guns were fired in honour of the Nena as sovereign, of his brother as governor-general, and of an ambitious Brahmin as commander-in-chief, of the newly restored Mahratta kingdom. From day to day more troops joined his standard, after mutinying at various stations on all sides of Cawnpore. Twenty thousand armed men are said to have been in that city by the 10th of July; and as the Nena was very slow in awarding to them any of his ill-gotten wealth, they recompensed themselves by plundering the inhabitants, under pretext of searching for concealed Europeans. Cawnpore was thus plunged into great misery, and speedily had cause to lament the absence of its former masters. Nena created new offices, for bestowal upon those who had served him; and he ordered the neighbouring zemindars to pay to him the revenue that had wont to be paid to the Company. He caused to be proclaimed by beat of tom-tom, throughout Cawnpore and the surrounding district, that he had entirely conquered the British; and that, their period of reign in India having been completed, he was preparing to drive them out foot by foot. During this heyday of self-assumed power, he issued many remarkable proclamations, worthy of note as indications of his ambitious views, of his hopes as dependent on the mass of the native people, and of the stigma which he sought to throw on the British government. Some of these proclamations are given in full at the end of the present chapter. There are many facts which lend support to the supposition that this grasp at power and wealth was suggested to him by the gradual development of events. He probably entertained crafty designs and suppressed vindictiveness from the outset; but these did not shew themselves openly until the native troops at the cantonment had rebelled. Seeing a door opened by others, which might possibly lead him to power and to vengeance, he seized the occasion and entered.

      The last acts of the Cawnpore tragedy now await our attention.

      What horrors the poor women suffered during their eighteen days of captivity under this detestable miscreant, none will ever fully know; partial glimpses only of the truth will ever come to light. According to the ayah’s narrative, already noticed, the women and children who were conveyed from the boats into captivity were a hundred and fifteen in number. The poor creatures (the women and elder girls) were sought to be tempted by an emissary of the Nena to enter quietly into his harem; but they one and all expressed a determination to die where they were, and with each other, rather than yield to dishonour. They were then destined to be given up to the sensual licence of the sepoys and sowars who had aided in their capture; but the heroic conduct of Sir Hugh Wheeler’s daughter is said to have deterred the ruffians. What this ‘Judith of Cawnpore’ really did, is differently reported. Her heroism was manifested, in one version of the story, by an undaunted and indignant reproach against the native troops for their treachery to the English who had fed and clothed them, and for their cowardice in molesting defenceless women; in another version, she shot down five sepoys in succession with a revolver, and then threw herself into a well to escape outrage; in a third, given by Mr Shepherd, this English lady, being taken away by a trooper of the 2d native cavalry to his own hut, rose in the night, secured the trooper’s sword, killed him and three other men, and then threw herself into a well; while a fourth version, on the authority of the ayah, represents the general’s daughter as cutting off the heads of no less than five men in the trooper’s hut. These accounts, incompatible one with another, nevertheless reveal to us a true soldier’s daughter, an English gentlewoman, resolved to proceed to any extremity in defence of her own purity.

      The victims were detained three days at Nena’s camp, with only a little parched grain to eat, dirty water to drink, and the hard ground to lie upon, without matting or beds of any kind. The ayah states that the Nena, after the events of the 27th of June, sent to ask the temporarily successful King of Delhi what he should do with the women and children; to which a reply was received, that they were not to be killed. Whether this statement be right or wrong, the captives were taken from the camp to Cawnpore, and there incarcerated in a house near the Assembly Rooms, consisting of outbuildings of the medical depôt, shortly before occupied by Sir George Parker. Here they were joined by more than thirty other European women and children, the unhappy relics of the boat-expedition that had been recaptured near Futtehpoor in the vain attempt to escape. Without venturing to decide whether the ayah, Nujoor Jewarree, Mr Shepherd, or Lieutenant Delafosse was most nearly correct in regard of numbers; or whether Sir Hugh Wheeler was at that time alive or dead – it appears tolerably certain СКАЧАТЬ