Dodd George
The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8
The glories of Delhi are the great mosque and the still greater palace. The Jumma Musjid, situated in the centre of the city, is one of those buildings to which Mohammedans point with pride: famous not only in Hindostan, but all over Southern and Central Asia. It presents to the eye an open court on an elevated platform, nearly five hundred feet square; in the middle of which is a marble fountain for the ablutions necessary in the ceremonials of Islamism. On three sides of this court are open arcades and octagonal pavilions; while on the fourth side is the mosque, a structure of great splendour approached by a magnificent flight of marble steps. White marble cornices inlaid in black marble with inscriptions from the Koran; walls, ceilings, and pavements of the same delicate materials; beautiful domes and lofty minarets – all combine to render the Jumma Musjid a truly gorgeous structure. The Emperor Shahjehan built it more than two centuries ago; and the British government gave orders in 1851 that it should be kept in repair.
But, splendid as is the Jumma Musjid, the imperial palace is still more striking – partly for what it is, but principally for what it has been. The palace stands between the two principal streets and the bridge. Some travellers have compared it with Windsor Castle, some with the Kremlin at Moscow, in size and majesty; while others insist that it has no compeer. Bishop Heber was quite enthusiastic in its praise. In the first place, the palatial buildings are surrounded by a wall to which there is certainly no parallel either at Windsor or at Moscow; it is of red granite, three quarters of a mile in circuit, nearly forty feet high, flanked with turrets and domes, and entered by two noble gates with barbicans. This wall is a grand work in itself, irrespective of the structures it encloses. Strictly speaking, the wall is only on three sides, the fourth abutting on a small branch of the Jumna, where occurs the short bridge crossing to the old fort of Selimgurh. The palace itself is entered by a series of beautiful gateways, all of red granite, and all sculptured with flowers and inscriptions from the Koran. The vaulted aisles and the open octagonal courts are spoken of by Heber with great admiration. The Dewani Khas, or private council-chamber, although allowed to become filthy by the visits of crows and kites, is an exquisite structure; it is a pavilion of white marble, supporting four cupolas of the same delicate material, with pillars and arches elaborately inlaid with gilt arabesques, flowers, and inscriptions. The garden around it has numerous white marble fountains of elegant form, and a small octagonal pavilion with bath-rooms, but all dirty and neglected. The Moti Musjid or private mosque for the court, and the Dewani-aum or public hall of audience, are, like the rest of the palace, ornate in marble and in carving, in sculpture and in inscriptions, in gilding and in inlaying; and, also like the rest, disfigured with filth – a combination truly oriental. In the hall of audience is, or was before the Revolt, the dais on which once stood the world-renowned peacock’s throne, formed entirely of gold and jewels; and it was in this same chamber that the victorious Nadir Shah, by exchanging turbans with the defeated Mogul Mohammed Shah, obtained possession of a treasure almost as renowned as the peacock’s throne itself – the koh-i-noor, the ‘mountain of light,’ the glorious diamond which, after various vicissitudes, now occupies a place in the regalia of Queen Victoria.
Passing from a scene of decayed splendour to one of living interest, we find Delhi to be inhabited by almost an exactly equal number of Hindoos and Mohammedans, eighty thousand of each; but it is essentially a Mohammedan city, the centre of their prestige and influence in India; and all the dwellings and public buildings of the Hindoos are indicative of a race locally less powerful. Besides the imperial palace just described, there is, about nine miles from Delhi, near an extraordinary pillar called the Kootub Minar, the country residence of the emperor, or, as it has been more customary in recent years to call him, the King. It is a large but paltry building, in an inferior style of Italian architecture, with a public road running through the very court-yard. Within the city a palace was built for the British resident a few years ago; and around this building a number of elegant houses have since been erected, by the natives as well as by the Europeans. Since the once great Mogul has been a king without a kingdom, a pensioned puppet of the Company, a potentate having nothing to employ his thoughts and his pension but political intrigue and sensual indulgence – the representative of England has been a sort of envoy or resident, ostensibly rendering honour to the Mogul, but really watching that he does no mischief, really insuring that he shall be a king only in name. But more on this point presently. The British civil staff in the city comprises – or did comprise before the Revolt – a resident or commissioner, a revenue collector, a magistrate, and other officials. There have usually been three regiments barracked or stationed in the cantonment; but the military importance of the place has been rather due to the fact that Delhi has been made a depôt for a large park of artillery – valuable enough when in the hands of the British, but a source of dismay and disaster when seized by mutineers.
Although this narrative has little to do with the merits or demerits of Delhi as a place of residence; yet, knowing something of what Englishmen and Englishwomen have had to bear when cooped up within a town or fort menaced by ruthless natives, every compatriot at home would like further to know in what way those trials are likely to have been aggravated by the incidents of climate. A lady-traveller furnishes a vivid picture of Delhi in a hot-wind, such as frequently visits towns in India during certain seasons of the year. ‘Every article of furniture is burning to the touch; the hardest wood, if not well covered with blankets, will split with a report like that of a pistol; and linen taken from the drawers appears as if just removed from a kitchen-fire. The nights are terrible, every apartment being heated to excess. Gentlemen usually have their beds placed in the verandahs, or on the chubootiar or terrace on the top of the house: as they incur little risk in sleeping in the open air, at a season in which no dew falls, and when there is scarcely any variation in the thermometer. Tornadoes are frequent during these hot winds; while they last, the skies, though cloudless, are darkened with dust, the sun is obscured, and a London fog cannot more effectually exclude the prospect. The birds are dreadful sufferers at this season; their wings droop, and their bills are open as if gasping for breath; all animals are more or less affected.’ Then, when this frightful heat is about to depart, ensues a storm, more terrible to look at, though easier to bear. ‘The approaching strife is made known by a cloud, or rather a wall of dust, which appears at the extremity of the horizon, becoming more lofty as it advances. The air is sultry and still; for the wind, which is tearing up the sand as it rushes along, is not felt in front of the billowy masses, whose mighty ramparts gather strength as they spread. At length the plain is surrounded, and the sky becomes as murky as midnight. Then the thunder breaks forth, but its most awful peals are scarcely heard in the deep roar of the tempest; burst succeeds to burst, each more wild and furious than the former; the forked lightnings flash in vain, for the dust, which is as thick as snow, flings an impenetrable veil around them. The wind having spent itself in a final effort, suddenly subsides, and the dust is as speedily dispersed by torrents of rain, which in a very short time flood the whole country.’ This is the last agony of the storm; after which the temperature lowers and nature becomes more tranquil.
Such is Delhi – such the city which, amid all its changes of fortune, has for so many centuries been an object of reverential affection to the natives of Hindostan. When the disorganised regiments from Meerut entered the imperial gates, they found an aged mogul or king, with sons and grandsons, courtiers and retainers, willing to make him a stepping-stone to their own advancement. Who this king was, and how he had come into that position, may soon be told.
Precisely a century ago, when Clive was preparing to revenge the atrocities connected with the Black Hole at Calcutta, the Delhi empire was rapidly losing all its power; the northern and northwestern provinces were seized upon by the Afghans and the Sikhs; the Rajpoots extended their dominions as far as Ajmeer; and the Emperor Alumghir was too weak to protect his capital from the monstrous barbarities of the Afghan insurgents. The next emperor, Shah Alum II., unable either to repel invaders or to control his rebellious nawabs, virtually yielded to the rapidly rising power of the East India Company. He signed a treaty with Clive in 1765, involving mutual obligations; he was to yield to the British certain provinces, and to award to a resident appointed from Calcutta considerable power at the court of Delhi; while the British were to protect him from his numerous assailants, and to secure him a pension of £260,000 per annum, which, with other sources of wealth, brought the degenerate descendant of the Moguls nearly half a million annually. Troubled by the Mahrattas on one side, by the Rohillas on a second, and by the Nawab of Oude on a third, the paralysed emperor became so bewildered that he knew not which way to turn. About 1788 a Rohilla chieftain suddenly entered Delhi, and put out the eyes of the unfortunate emperor with a poniard; then the Mahrattas defeated this chieftain, seized the capital, and reduced Shah Alum himself to a mere puppet. During this anarchy the British in India were so fully occupied in other quarters, that they could not make a resolute demonstration in the centre of the once great Mogul empire; but in the year 1803 all was prepared by Lord Lake for a resolute attempt to break down the Mahratta and Rohilla power in the north, and to insure that the emperor should have no other master than the Company – a kindness, the motives for which will not bear very close scrutiny. The battle of Delhi, fought on the 11th of September 1803, opened the gates of the city to the British, and relieved the emperor from his thraldom. A reverse had very nearly occurred, however. While Lake was reposing after his victory, Holkar, the great Mahratta chief, leaving his cavalry to attract the notice of the British at Muttra, suddenly appeared before Delhi with a force of 20,000 infantry and 100 guns. The garrison comprised only two battalions and four companies of native troops, with a few irregular horse; and as some of these deserted at the first affright, there were left only 800 men and 11 guns to defend a city seven miles in circuit. By unwearied patience and daring intrepidity, however, Colonel Burn, who was military commandant in the city at the time, and who was ably assisted by Colonel Ochterlony and Lieutenant Rose, succeeded in repelling all the attacks of the Mahrattas; and Holkar retired discomfited.
From that day – from the 16th of October 1803, until the 11th of May 1857 – an enemy was never seen before the gates of Delhi; a day had never passed during which the city had been other than the capital of a state governed nominally by a Mogul king, but really by a British resident. Shah Alum, after thirty years of a troubled life, was vouchsafed three years of peace, and died in 1806 – a pensioner of that great abstraction, that inscrutable mystery to the millions of Hindostan, the ‘Coompanee Bahadoor,’ the Most Honourable Company.
The behaviour of the Company’s servants towards the feeble descendant of the Great Moguls was, until about thirty years ago, the most absurd mockery. They took away all his real power, and then offered him a privilege, the least exercise of which, if he had ventured on such a thing, they would at once have resented. Shah Akbar, who succeeded his old, blind, feeble father, Shah Alum, in 1806, became at once a pensioner. He was really king, not over a kingdom, but only over the twelve thousand inmates of the imperial palace at Delhi, his relations and retainers – the whole of whom he supported on a pension of about a hundred thousand pounds per annum, paid by the Company. Hindoo and Mussulman, notwithstanding his fallen state, alike looked up to him as the only representative of the ancient glories of India; numerous princes received their solemn and legal investiture from him; and until 1827, the Company acquired no new province without applying for his nominal sanction and official firman. He was permitted to bestow dresses of honour on native princes at their accession to the musnud, as a token of suzerainty; and the same ceremony was attempted by him occasionally towards the governor-general. At length, under the rule of Earl Amherst in 1827, it was determined to put an end to a system which was either a mockery, or an incentive to disaffection on the part of the Delhians. The pension to the king was increased to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, but the supposed or implied vassalage of the East India Company to the nominal Padishah or Mohammedan ruler of India was brought to an end; Shah Akbar being, from that date, powerless beyond the walls of his palace – except as the representative, the symbol, of something great, still venerated by the natives.
Palace intrigues have not been wanting at Delhi during the twenty years that preceded the Revolt; and these intrigues have borne some relation to the state of disaffection that accompanied that outbreak. Shah Akbar reigned, if reigning it can be called, from 1806 until 1837. He wished to be succeeded by his second son, Shahzadah Jehanghire; but the British authorities insisted that the succession should go, as before, to the eldest son; and consequently Meerza Abu Zuffur became emperor on Shah Akbar’s death in 1837, under the title of Mahomed Suraj-u-deen Shah Ghazee. This monarch, again, exhibited the same distrust of the next heir that is so often displayed in Oriental countries; the British authorities were solicited to set aside the proper heir to the peacock’s throne, in favour of a younger prince who possessed much influence in the zenana. Again was the request refused; and the palace at Delhi was known to have been a focus of discontent and intrigue for some time previous to the Revolt. The mode in which the Marquis of Dalhousie treated these matters, in his minute of 1856, has already been adverted to; but it may be well to repeat his words here, to shew the exact state of Delhi palace-politics at that time. ‘Seven years ago [that is, in 1849], the heir-apparent to the King of Delhi died. He was the last of the race who had been born in the purple. The Court of Directors was accordingly advised to decline to recognise any other heir-apparent, and to permit the kingly title to fall into abeyance upon the death of the present king, who even then was a very aged man. The Honourable Court accordingly conveyed to the government of India authority to terminate the dynasty of Timour, whenever the reigning king should die. But as it was found that, although the Honourable Court had consented to the measure, it had given its consent with great reluctance, I abstained from making use of the authority which had been given to me. The grandson of the king was recognised as heir-apparent; but only on condition that he should quit the palace in Delhi, in order to reside in the palace at the Kootub; and that he should, as king, receive the governor-general of India at all times on terms of perfect equality.’ It was therefore simply a suspension of the absolute extinction of the kingly title at Delhi: a suspension dictated, apparently, by the existence of a little more hesitation in the court of directors, than in the bold governor-general.
The king who occupied the nominal throne of Delhi at the time of the Revolt was neither better nor worse than the average of his predecessors. A pensioned prince with no responsibilities, he was a true Oriental sensualist, and had become an almost imbecile old man between eighty and ninety years of age. Nevertheless, for the reasons already more than once stated, he was invested with a certain greatness in the eyes of the natives of Hindostan; and Delhi was still their great city. Hindoos, Afghans, Patans, Seljuks, Rajpoots, Tatars, Moguls, Persians, Rohillas, Mahrattas, Sikhs – all had left their impress upon the capital; and with one or other of these, the millions of India had sympathies either of race or of creed. Even to the hour of the outbreak, the king was approached with the reverence due to royalty. In the ruined paradise of Oriental sensualism, the great palace of Delhi, ‘the house of Tamerlane still revelled in unchecked vileness. The royal family, consisting of many hundreds – idle, dissolute, shameless, too proud or too effeminate for military service – lived in entire dependence on the king’s allowance. For their amusement were congregated from all India the most marvellous jugglers, the most cunning bird-tamers and snake-charmers, the most fascinating dancing-girls, the most skilled Persian musicians. Though the population was exactly balanced between Mohammedans and Hindoos, it was the Moslem who here reigned supreme.’7
CHAPTER V.
THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI
Remembering that in the month of May 1857 there was a very aged king living in the great palace at Delhi; that the heir-apparent, his grandson, resided in the palace of Kootub Minar, eight or nine miles from the city; that the Moslem natives still looked up to the king with a sort of reverence; and that his enormous family had become dissatisfied with the prospective extinction of the kingly power and name – remembering these facts, the reader will be prepared to follow the fortunes of the Meerut mutineers, and to understand on what grounds the support of the royal family was counted upon.
The distance to be passed over being forty miles, it was not till the day after the outbreak at Meerut – namely, the 11th of May – that the three mutinous regiments reached Delhi. The telegraphic wires were so soon cut, and the dâks so effectually interrupted, that it is doubtful at what hour, and to what extent, the transactions at Meerut became known to Brigadier Graves, who commanded at Delhi. The position of that officer was well calculated to produce uneasiness in his mind at a time of insubordination and distrust; for he had no European regiments with him. The garrison consisted of the 38th, 54th, and 74th native regiments, and a battery of native artillery; the English comprised only a few officers and sergeants of those regiments, the various servants of the Company, and private traders within the city. The 54th and 74th had not up to that time shewn any strong symptoms of disaffection; but the 38th, which had achieved a kind of triumph over the Marquis of Dalhousie in 1852, in reference to the proposed expedition to Pegu, had ever since displayed somewhat of a boastful demeanour, a pride of position and influence. The three regiments and the artillery had their regular quarters in the cantonment, about two miles north of the city: sending into Delhi such companies or drafts as were necessary to man the bastions, towers, magazine, &c. As the river Hindoun, a tributary to the Jumna, crosses the Meerut and Delhi road near Furrucknuggur, about ten miles from Delhi, it might be a fair problem whether the mutineers could have been met and frustrated at the crossing of that river: the solution of this problem, however, would necessarily depend partly on the time available, and partly on the prudence of marching the Delhi force across the Jumna at such a period, placing a broad river between the brigadier and a city likely to be readily affected by notions of disaffection. Whether influenced by want of time, want of due information, or by strategical reasons, no such movement was made by him. The mutineers would obviously cross the Jumna by the bridge of boats, and would then pass southwestward into the city, or northwestward towards the cantonment, or possibly both. A necessity arose, therefore, for adopting defensive measures in two different quarters; and as the non-military portion of the European inhabitants, especially women and children, would be a source of much anxiety at such a time, the brigadier made arrangements to accommodate them, or some of them, in the Flagstaff Tower, a strong circular brick building on the heights near the cantonment, a mile and a half north of the nearest or Cashmere Gate of the city. The military commandant ordered out his regiments, drew forth his guns, and delivered a pithy address, in which he exhorted the sepoys to stand true to their colours, and repel the mutineers as soon as they should appear. His address was received with cheers, the insincerity of which was soon to be made manifest.
So many Europeans were cut and shot down at Delhi on this day of misery, and so precipitate was the escape of others, that not one single person was in a position to give a connected narrative of the dismal work. Startling, indeed, were the sights and the sounds which riveted the attention of the European inhabitants on this morning. A peaceful Sunday had passed over in its ordinary way; for none knew what were the deeds being perpetrated at Meerut. The native troops, it is true, were to some extent cognizant of that movement, for the insurgents had unquestionably arranged the outlines of a plan; and some of the European officers at Delhi had observed, not without uneasiness, a change in the behaviour of the sepoys at that station; nevertheless, to the Europeans generally, this social avalanche was a wholly unexpected visitation. Resistance was needed from those too powerless to resist effectually; and flight was the only resource for many too weak, too young, too sick, to bear up under such a necessity. All the letters, since made public, relating to the sad events of that day, tend to shew how little the European inhabitants of Delhi looked forward to such scenes. One lady, after a hurried retreat, said: ‘We can hardly ourselves believe how we escaped. The way in which poor helpless men, women, and children were slaughtered without a moment’s warning was most dreadful. We were surprised on the morning of the 11th of May (baby’s birthday) by a party of mutineers from Meerut.’ It is evident that ‘baby’s birthday’ had dawned with much happier thoughts in the poor mother’s mind, than were destined to remain there. Another lady, with her husband and child, were just about to leave Delhi for Calcutta; their dâk-passage was paid, and their travelling arrangements nearly completed. Suddenly a messenger hastened to their home to announce that the Meerut mutineers had crossed the bridge, and were within the city walls; and very soon afterwards, fearful sights told them that immediate escape was the only mode of saving their lives. So it was all over the city; terror and blood began the week, instead of peace and commerce.
The train of circumstances, as we have just said, having involved either the death or the hasty flight of nearly all the English within the city and the cantonment, it follows that the narrative of the day’s ruthless work must be constructed from materials derived from various quarters, each supplying some of the links. When Major Abbott of the 74th found himself, on the next day, the senior officer among those who escaped to Meerut, he deemed it his duty to write an account to Major-general Hewett of the proceedings, so far as his sad tale could tell them. With this we begin.
The city, according to Major Abbott’s narrative, was entered first by a small number of the mutinous 3d native cavalry, who crossed by the bridge of boats. While proceeding westward, they were met by a wing of the 54th native infantry, under the command of Colonel Ripley. But here a serious symptom at once presented itself; the 54th excused themselves from firing on the mutineers, on the plea of their muskets not being loaded; the guard of the 38th native infantry likewise refused, on some pretence, to fire; and thus the insurgents were enabled to enter the city by the Cashmere Gate. Captain Wallis, the field-officer of the week, on ordering the men of the mainguard at the gate to wheel up and fire, was met by insulting jeers; and he only desisted from importuning them when he found the work of death going on in other quarters. Six British officers of the 54th speedily fell, either killed or wounded – namely, Colonel Ripley, Captains Smith and Burrowes, Lieutenants Edwardes, Waterfield, and Butler. Major Abbott, willing to hope that his own regiment, the 74th, was still faithful, hastened to the cantonment, got as many of his men together as he could, and explained to them that the time was come to shew their fidelity as true soldiers: he announced his intention to go down to the Cashmere Gate, and called for volunteers to follow him. All for a while went favourably; the men stepped up to the front, loaded promptly, and marched off briskly after the major. On arriving at the Cashmere Gate, the 74th took possession of the mainguard, drawn up in readiness to receive any attack that might be made. Affairs remained quiet near that gate until towards three o’clock, when a heavy firing of guns, followed by a terrific explosion, announced that fighting had been going on near the magazine, and that a vast store of ammunition had been blown into the air. Whether this explosion had been caused by friends or enemies was not at first known; but the news soon spread abroad that a gallant artillery-officer, Lieutenant Willoughby, had adopted this terrible mode of preventing an enormous supply of warlike material from falling into the hands of the insurgents.
Before proceeding with the narrative of events in the city, it will be necessary to describe more particularly the occurrence last adverted to. There were two magazines, one near the cantonment, and a much larger and more important one in the city. It was the last named that became the scene of such desperate work. This magazine was an enclosure of considerable size, about midway between the Selimgurh Fort and the Cashmere Gate, almost close to the British residency. As a storehouse filled with a greater quantity of guns, gunpowder, and ammunition, than any other place in India, a struggle for its possession between the British and the insurgents became inevitable: hence it arose that the destruction of the magazine was an achievement worthy of record, no less for its vast importance in relation to the ultimate fate of the city, than for the cool heroism that marked its planning and execution. The magazine contained no less than three hundred guns and mortars, twenty thousand stand of arms, two hundred thousand shot and shell, and other warlike stores. Lieutenant Willoughby was himself too severely wounded by the explosion to write; but the details of this gallant affair have been very exactly given by Lieutenant G. Forrest, who was assistant-commissary of ordnance in Delhi at the time. Between seven and eight o’clock in the morning of this eventful day, Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, one of the civil servants of the Company, residing between the city and the cantonment, came to the lieutenant, and requested him to go to the magazine for the purpose of planting two guns on the bridge, as a means of barring the passage of the mutineers. Arrived at the magazine, they met Lieutenants Willoughby and Raynor, and several officers and privates of the ordnance establishment. The three principals went to the small bastion on the river-face, commanding a full view of the bridge; there they could distinctly see the mutineers marching in open columns, headed by their cavalry; and they also saw that the Delhi side of the bridge was already in the possession of a smaller body of horse. Any attempt to close or guard the city-gates was found to be too late; for the mutineers were admitted, with great cheering, into the gate of the palace. Lieutenant Willoughby, seeing the critical state of affairs, returned quickly to the magazine, closed and barricaded the gates, and prepared for defence. Conductor Crow and Sergeant Stewart were placed near one of the gates, with lighted matches in their hands, in command of two six-pounders double-charged with grape, which they were ordered to fire if any attempt were made to force the gate from without. The principal gate of the magazine was similarly defended by two guns, with chevaux-de-frise laid down on the inside. There were five other six-pounders, and a twenty-four pounder howitzer, quickly placed at such spots as might render them more readily available for defence – all double-loaded with grape-shot. A more doubtful task was that of arming the native artillerymen or ordnance servants within the magazine; for they were in a state, not only of excitement, but of insubordination, much more inclined to aid the assailants without than the defenders within. This arming being effected so far as was practicable, a train of gunpowder was laid down from the magazine to a distant spot; and it was agreed that, on Lieutenant Willoughby giving the order, Conductor Buckley should raise his hat as a signal to Conductor Scully to fire the train and blow up the magazine with all its contents. Having done all that a cool and circumspect leader could do to prepare for the worst, Lieutenant Willoughby awaited the issue. Very soon, mutinous sepoys – or rather the palace guards, who had not until that hour been mutinous – came and demanded possession of the magazine, in the name of the King of Delhi! No answer being vouchsafed to this demand, scaling-ladders were sent from the palace, and placed against the wall of the magazine. This decided the wavering of the native artillerymen; they all as with one accord deserted, climbed up to the sloping roofs on the inside of the magazine, and descended the ladders to the outside. The insurgents now appearing in great numbers on the top of the walls, the little band of Europeans commenced a brisk fire of grape-shot, which worked much mischief among the enemy; although only nine in number, they kept several hundred men at bay. At last, the stock of grape at hand was exhausted, and the beleaguered garrison was shot at instead of shooting: seeing that none could run to the storehouses for more grape-shot without leaving to the mutineers freedom of entry by leaping from the walls. Two of the small number being wounded, and the impossibility of longer holding out being apparent, Lieutenant Willoughby gave the signal; whereupon Conductor Scully instantly fired the train. An awful explosion followed, amid the din and confusion of which, all who were not too much injured made their way out of the sally-port, to escape in the best manner they could. What was the number of insurgents killed and wounded by the grape-shot discharges and by the explosion, no one knew; some of the English officers estimated it at more than a thousand. It was at the time hoped by the authorities that the whole of the vast store of ammunition had been blown into the air, beyond the reach of the mutineers; but subsequent events shewed that the destruction was not so complete.8