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CHAPTER XVI.

THE MUTINY OF 1857-58.

O one who was within the range of the hurricane

of 1857, no one who was even on its edge, can ever forget it. When we now look back, we marvel that a single European in that part of India was spared to tell of its fierce struggle, its sad sights, and its fearful perils. The annals of the Mutiny are furnished in volumes filled with ample details. Its causes and consequences have been largely discussed. My narrower and humbler aim is to describe that terrible outbreak so far, and only so far, as it came within my own experience and observation. My narrative will, however, be better understood by stating briefly the causes, which, in my opinion, led to this great rising against us, and by giving an outline of its progress before reaching Benares, where we then resided.

CAUSES OF THE MUTINY.

The history of

Our position in India is very peculiar. the world presents no parallel. A great continent, containing a number of nations, possessed of an ancient civilization, some of them composed of races given to war and noted for their prowess, with a population. amounting at present to 253 millions, has been brought under the dominion of a country of limited extent and

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INDIA CONQUERED BY INDIAN SOLDIERS. limited population like ours, separated from it by many intervening countries, and accessible only by thousands of miles of ocean. That continent has not been subjected to tribute, and then left to its native rulers. Over by far the greater part of India these rulers have been displaced, and British rule has been established. Where native rulers remain, they are bound to administer their affairs in accordance with the views of the Sovereign Power. Over a part of the Indian continent the rule commenced more than a hundred years ago, and from decade to decade it has extended till it now embraces its present vast proportions. It extends beyond India. In the North-West we have entered into what properly belongs to Afghanistan, and from Burma a large extent of territory has been taken; so that the east as well as the west coast of the Bay of Bengal has come under our rule. To all appearance the rule is as firmly established as if it had come down from ancient times.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that India had been conquered for England by its own people. If they had been left to themselves, no part of it would now belong to us. The small European force has always been the backbone of our armies; but in every battle native soldiers have formed the great majority. The French gave us the example of employing native soldiers to place their country under European rule. In the dissolution of the Mogul Empire, thousands of warriors were ready to fight the battles of any one, European or native, who would pay them well. The example of the French was followed by the English, till India, from Cape Comorin to the mountains of the north and the north-west, came under their sway, to an extent and with a completeness and firmness of grasp never reached by

the Muhammadan power in its palmiest days. Each Presidency-Bengal, Madras, and Bombay-has had its own native army, in 1857 amounting altogether to 240,000 men. In the Bengal army, by far the largest of the three, there has never been a single native of Bengal Proper. It has been entirely composed of north countrymen, to a large extent of Brahmans, and Chhatrees the old fighting caste of India, who have entered our service on account of its good pay and good treatment, though alien. from us in everything by which one people can be alien from another. Many of the native soldiers have been Muhammadans, who are intensely averse to us on both religious and political grounds. Under the influence of friendly intercourse and good offices performed to each other, a kindly feeling often sprung up between officers and men; but as a body they were mercenary troops fighting for strangers, and the history of the world furnishes abundant instances of such an army being as formidable to their employers as to those against whom they have been employed. In the course of time our native soldiers were more and more trusted; important places were garrisoned by them, military stores were entrusted to them; and nothing was more natural than that in the more ambitious of their number the thought should spring up that the time had arrived for expelling the stranger, and seizing the power within their grasp. In thus acting they could make themselves sure of the sympathy of their countrymen.

The Sepoys have been treated in the matter of pay, clothing, and food, as they never were under native rulers; but they have been subjected to strict discipline, and they have been cut off from the much-prized privilege of foraging, or rather plundering. They have at

CAUSES OF DISSATISFACTION.

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different times complained loudly of unjust treatment. Alleged breach of promises of pay, and their being sent to fight our battles in foreign countries such as Burmah, China, Persia, and Afghanistan, and to parts of India foreign to them, have been prominent among their causes of complaint. They have not confined themselves to complaint and remonstrance; they have again and again. broken out into mutiny, which has led to some regiments being disbanded, and the mutineer leaders being severely punished. Years before 1857 it was asserted by persons eminently qualified to judge, like Sir Henry Lawrence, that grievous mistakes had been committed in the administration of the native army, and that our safety demanded great changes in its treatment and distribution. When one reads the statements they made, and the warnings they gave, the wonder is the mutiny did not sooner occur. Lord Ellenborough, before leaving India, declared the Sepoys were our one peril in India, and characteristically proposed we should keep them in humour by keeping them always fighting.

All other causes of revolt were light compared with the charge often advanced and believed that we were bent on the destruction of their religion. From the outbreak at Vellore in 1806, on to the great mutiny of 1857, this charge was persistently made. The Sepoys were allowed all the religious liberty compatible with military obedience; they had every facility for following their religious customs; they were fenced off from Christian influences as no other part of the community was; they were solemnly assured again and again their religion would be scrupulously respected; they had full evidence before their eyes that with few exceptions their officers had no Christian zeal. Whence, then, this charge of

tampering with their religion? The explanation is to be found in the character of Hinduism. It is intensely outward. It is a matter of rite and ceremony, of meat and drink, of clothing and posture. It may be filched from a man without any act of his own by the act of another, and he may not be aware till informed that the fatal loss has been incurred. Something may be introduced into his food which will deprive him of his religion, and make him an outcast all his days. What more easy than to introduce a defiling element, such as the blood or fat of the cow or bullock, of which the Brahman or Rajpoot might unaware partake? To this intensely outward religion people of these castes are passionately attached from custom, from superstition, and still more, I think, from the consideration among themselves and others which caste purity secures. Their honour, izzat, as they call it, is their most valuable possession. An attack on it is bitterly resented. This honour is quite consistent with licentiousness, robbery, plunder, and even murder; but to violate caste by drinking from the vessel of a low-caste man, or eating with him, would bring with it indelible disgrace. To partake of the cow, the sacred animal, is the greatest crime which can be committed, and, if done unconsciously, the greatest calamity.

Notwithstanding the fact that the English as a people had little zeal for their religion, the Sepoys thought they saw reasons for our wishing to effect their conversion. If Christians, they would be fitter instruments for carrying out the designs of their English conquerors. They would in that case be no longer hampered by class distinctions, commissariat arrangements could be more easily made, they would have no objection to serving in