Spread of the Mutiny summer of 1857. Sepoys rose on their officers, usually without warning, sometimes after protestations of fidelity. The Europeans, or persons of Christian faith, were massacred; occasionally, also, the women and children. The jail was broken open, the treasury plundered, and the mutineers marched off to some centre of revolt, to join in what had now become a national war. Only in the Punjab were the Sepoys anticipated by stern measures of represssion and disarmament, carried out by Sir John Lawrence and his lieutenants, among whom Edwardes and Nicholson Loyalty of stand conspicuous. The Sikh population never wavered. Crowds of willing recruits came down from the Afghán hills. And thus the Punjab, instead of being itself a source of danger, was able to furnish a portion of its own garrison for the siege of Delhi. In Lower Bengal most of the Sepoys mutinied, and then dispersed in different directions. The native armies of Madras and Bombay remained true to their colours. In Central India, the contingents of many of the great chiefs sooner or later joined the rebels, but the Muhammadan State of Haidarábád was kept loyal by the authority of its able minister Sir Sálar Jang. the Sikhs. Nána Sahib. The main interest of the Sepoy war gathers round the three Cawnpore. cities of Cawnpore, Lucknow, and Delhi. The cantonment at Cawnpore contained one of the great native garrisons of India. At Bithúr, not far off, was the palace of Dundhu Panth, the heir of the last Peshwá, who had inherited his savings, but failed to procure a continuance of his pension; and whose more familiar name of Nána Sáhib will ever be handed down to infamy. At first the Nána was profuse in his professions of loyalty, but when the Sepoys mutinied on the 6th June, he put himself at their head, and was proclaimed Peshwá of the Marhattás. The Europeans at Cawnpore, numbering more women and children than fighting men, shut themselves up in an ill-chosen hasty entrenchment, where they heroically bore a siege for nineteen days under the sun of a tropical June. Every one had courage and endurance to suffer or to die; but the directing mind was again absent. On the 27th June, trusting to a safe-conduct from the Nána as far as Allahábád, they surrendered, and to the number of 450, embarked Massacre in boats on the Ganges. Forthwith a murderous fire was opened upon them from the river bank. Only a single boat escaped, and but four men, who swam across to the protection of a friendly Rájá, ultimately survived to tell the tale. The rest of the men were massacred on the spot. The women and children, numbering 125, were reserved for the same fate on of Cawn pore. the 15th July, when the avenging army of Havelock was at hand.1 Lawrence. Sir Henry Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of Oudh, had Lucknow. foreseen the storm. He fortified and provisioned the Residency Sir Henry at Lucknow, and thither he retired with all the European inhabitants and a weak British regiment on 2nd July. Two days later, he was mortally wounded by a shell. But the clear head was here in authority. Lawrence had deliberately chosen his position, and the little garrison held out under unparalleled hardships and against enormous odds, until relieved by Havelock and Outram on 25th September. But the relieving force was itself invested by fresh swarms of rebels; and it was not till November that Sir Colin Campbell (afterwards Lord Clyde) cut his way into Lucknow, and effected the final deliverance of the garrison (16th November 1857). 2 Our troops then withdrew to more urgent work, and did not finally reoccupy Lucknow till March 1858. The siege of Delhi began on 8th June, just one month Siege of after the original outbreak at Meerut. Siege in the proper Delhi, June to sense of the word it was not; for the British army, encamped Sept. on the historic 'ridge,' never exceeded 8000 men, while the 1857. rebels within the walls were more than 30,000 strong. In the middle of August, Nicholson arrived with a reinforcement Nicholson. from the Punjab; but his own inspiring presence was even more valuable than the reinforcement he brought. On 14th September the assault was delivered, and after six days' desperate fighting in the streets, Delhi was again won. Nicholson fell at the head of the storming party. Hodson, the intrepid leader of a corps of irregular horse, hunted down next day the old Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Sháh, and his sons. The Emperor was afterwards sent a State prisoner to Rangoon, where he lived till 1862. As the mob pressed in on the guard around the Emperor's sons, near Delhi, Hodson found it necessary to shoot down the princes (who had been captured unconditionally) with his own hand.3 After the fall of Delhi and the final relief of Lucknow, the Oudh war loses its dramatic interest, although fighting went on in reduced. various parts of the country for eighteen months longer. The population of Oudh and Rohilkhand, stimulated by the presence of the Begam of Oudh, the Nawab of Bareilly, and Nána Sahib himself, had joined the mutinous Sepoys en masse. 1 See article CAWNPORE, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. ii. pp. 341-342, 348-349. 2 See article LUCKNOW, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. vi. pp. 90-93. 3 See article DELHI CITY, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. iii. pp. 91, 92. Lord In this quarter of India alone, it was the revolt of a people rather than the mutiny of an army that had to be quelled. Sir Colin Campbell (afterwards Lord Clyde) conducted the campaign in Oudh, which lasted through two cold seasons.1 Valuable assistance was lent by Sir Jang Bahadur of Nepál, at the head of his gallant Gúrkhas. Town after town was occupied, fort after fort was stormed, until the last gun had been recaptured, and the last fugitive had been chased across the Sir Hugh frontier by January 1859. In the meanwhile, Sir Hugh Rose Rose. (afterwards Lord Strathnairn), with another army from Bombay, was conducting an equally brilliant campaign in Central India. His most formidable antagonists were the disinherited Rání or Princess of Jhansi, and Tántia Topí, whose military talent had previously inspired Nána Sahib with all the capacity for resistance that he ever displayed. The Princess died fighting bravely at the head of her troops in June 1858.2 Tantiá Topí, after doubling backwards and forwards through Central India, was at last betrayed and run down in April 1859. Renewals of the Company's Charter, 1813-15. Its privi leges cur tailed. Downfall of the Company, 1858. The Company's charter had been granted from time to time for periods of twenty years, and each renewal formed an opportunity for a national inquest into the management of India. The Parliamentary Inquiry of 1813 abolished the Company's monopoly of Indian trade, and compelled it to direct its energies in India to the good government of the people. The Charter Act of 1833 did away with its remaining Chinese trade, and opened up the Government of India to the natives, irrespective of caste, creed, or race. The Act of 1853 abolished the patronage by which the Company filled up the higher branches of its civil service; laid down the principle that the administration of India was too national a concern to be left to the chances of benevolent nepotism; and that England's representatives in India must be chosen openly, and without favour, from the youth of England. The The Mutiny sealed the fate of the East India Company, after a life of more than two and a half centuries. original Company received its charter of incorporation from Elizabeth in 1600. Its political powers, and the constitution of the Indian Government, were derived from the Regulating Act of 1773, passed by the ministry of Lord North. By that statute the Governor of Bengal was raised to the rank of Governor-General; and, in conjunction with his Council of four other members, he was entrusted with the duty of 1 See article BAREILLY, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. i. p. 434. See article JHANSI, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. v. pp. 85, 86. superintending and controlling the Governments of Madras Its history and Bombay, so far as regarded questions of peace and war: mized, epitoa Supreme Court of Judicature was appointed at Calcutta, to 1600-1858. which the judges were appointed by the Crown: and a power of making rules, ordinances, and regulations was conferred upon the Governor-General and his Council. Next came the India Bill of Pitt (1784), which founded the Board of Control, Act of strengthened the supremacy of Bengal over the other Presi- 1784. dencies, and first authorized the historic phrase, 'GovernorGeneral-in-Council.' The Act which abolished the Company's Chinese trade in 1833, introduced successive reforms into the Act of constitution of the Indian Government, added to the Council 1833. a new (legal) member who might not be chosen from among the Company's servants, and was entitled to be present only at meetings for making Laws and Regulations; it accorded the authority of Acts of Parliament to the Laws and Regulations so made, subject to the disallowance of the Court of Directors; it appointed a Law Commission; and it gave the Governor-General-in-Council a control over the other Presidencies, in all points relating to the civil or military administration. The Charter of the Company was renewed for the last time in 1853, not for a definite period of years, but only for so long as Parliament should see fit. On this occasion the number of Directors was reduced, and, as above stated, their patronage as regards appointments to the civil service was taken away, to make room for the principle of open competition. transferred to the The Act for the better government of India (1858), which India finally transferred the entire administration from the Company to the Crown, was not passed without an eloquent protest from Crown, the Directors, nor without acrimonious party discussion in 1858. Parliament. It enacts that India shall be governed by, and in the name of, the Queen of England through one of her principal Secretaries of State, assisted by a Council of fifteen members. The Governor-General received the new title of 'The Viceroy. The European troops of the Company, numbering Viceroy.' about 24,000 officers and men, were amalgamated with the royal service, and the Indian navy was abolished. By the Indian Councils Act (1861), the Governor-General's Council, and also the Councils at Madras and Bombay, were augmented by the addition of non-official members, either natives or Europeans, for legislative purposes only; and by another Act passed in the same year, High Courts of Judicature were constituted out of the old Supreme Courts at the Presidency towns. India under the Crown, 1858-62. It fell to the lot of Lord Canning both to suppress the Mutiny, and to introduce the peaceful revolution which followed. It suffices to say that he preserved his equanimity unruffled in the darkest hours of peril, and that the strict impartiality of his conduct incurred alternate praise and blame from partisans of both sides. The epithet then scornfully applied to him of 'Clemency' Canning, is now remembered only to his honour. On 1st November 1858, at a grand darbár held at Allahábád, Queen's he sent forth the Royal Proclamation, which announced that proclama- the Queen had assumed the government of India. This tion, Ist Nov. 1858. document, which is, in the truest and noblest sense, the Magna Charta of the Indian people, proclaimed in eloquent words, the policy of justice and religious toleration; and granted an amnesty to all except those who had directly taken part in the murder of British subjects. Peace was proclaimed throughout India on the 8th July 1859. In the following cold weather, Lord Canning made a viceregal progress through the northern Provinces, to receive the homage of loyal princes and chiefs, and to guarantee to them the right of adoption. The suppression of the Mutiny increased the debt of India by about 40 millions sterling, and the military changes which ensued augmented the annual expenditure by about 10 millions. To grapple with this deficit, a distinguished Financial political economist and parliamentary financier, Mr. James reforms. Wilson, was sent out from England as financial member of Council. He reorganized the customs system, imposed an income tax and a licence duty, and created a State paper currency. He died in the midst of his splendid task; but his name still lives as that of the first and greatest finance minister of India. The Penal Code, originally drawn up by Macaulay in 1837, passed into law in 1860; together with Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure in 1861.' Legal reforms. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. Lord Lord Canning left India in March 1862, and died before he had been a month in England. His successor, Lord Elgin, only lived till November 1863. He expired at the Himalayan station of Dharmsálá, and there he lies buried. He was succeeded by Sir John Lawrence, the saviour of the Lawrence, Punjab. The chief incidents of his rule were the Bhután war, followed by the annexation of the Dwárs in 1864, and the terrible Orissa famine of 1866. In a later famine in Bundelkhand and Upper Hindustán in 1868-69, Lord Lawrence laid down the principle, for the first time in Indian history, that the officers of the Government would be held personally responsible 1864-69. 'On the subject of Anglo-Indian Codification, see ante, pp. 124, 125. |