Dodd George
The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8
In the earlier weeks of the mutiny, or rather before the mutiny had actually begun, the colonel of a regiment at Barrackpore, as has already been shewn, brought censure upon himself by taking the duties of a missionary or Christian religious teacher among his own troops. Whatever judgment may be passed on this officer, or on those who condemned him, it is at least important to bear in mind that, throughout the whole duration of the mutiny and the battles consequent on it, one class of theorists persisted in asserting that the well-meant exertions of pious Christians had alarmed the prejudices of the native soldiers, and had led to the Revolt. Right or wrong, this theory, and the line of conduct that had led to it, greatly increased the embarrassments of the governor-general, and rendered it impossible for him to pursue a line of conduct that would please all parties.
Much more hostile, however, was the feeling raised against him in relation to an important measure concerning newspapers – turning against him the bitter pens of ready writers who resented any check placed upon their licence of expression. On the 13th of June, the legislative council of Calcutta, on the motion of the governor-general, passed an act whereby the liberty of the press in India was restricted for one year. The effect of this law was to replace the Indian press, for a time, very much in the position it occupied before Sir Charles Metcalfe’s government gave it liberty in 1835. Sir Thomas Munro and other experienced persons had, long before this last-named date, protested against any analogy between England and India, in reference to the freedom of the press. Sir Thomas was connected with the Madras government; but his observations were intended to apply to the whole of British India. In 1822 he said: ‘I cannot view the question of a free press in this country without feeling that the tenure by which we hold our power never has been and never can be the liberties of the people. Were the people all our own countrymen, I would prefer the utmost freedom of the press; but as they are, nothing could be more dangerous than such freedom. In place of spreading useful knowledge among the people and tending to their better government, it would generate insubordination, insurrection, and anarchy… A free press and the dominion of strangers are things which are incompatible, and which cannot long exist together. For what is the first duty of a free press? It is to deliver the country from a foreign yoke, and to sacrifice to this one great object every meaner consideration; and if we make the press really free to the natives as well as to Europeans, it must inevitably lead to this result.’ Munro boldly, whether wisely or not, adopted the theory of India being a conquered country, and of the natives being more likely to write against than for their English rulers, if allowed unfettered freedom of the press. He pointed out that the restrictions on this freedom were really very few; extending only to attacks on the character of government and its officers, and on the religion of the natives. In reply to a suggestion that the native press might be placed under restriction, without affecting the Indo-British newspapers read by Europeans, he said: ‘We cannot have a monopoly of the freedom of the press; we cannot confine it to Europeans only. There is no device or contrivance by which this can be done.’ In fine, he declared his opinion that if the native press were made free, ‘it must in time produce nearly the same consequences here which it does everywhere else; it must spread among the people the principles of liberty, and stimulate them to expel the strangers who rule over them, and to establish a national government.’ When the liberty of the press was made free and full in 1835, the Court of Directors severely censured Sir Charles Metcalfe’s government for having taken that step without permission from London, and directed that the subject should be reconsidered; but Lord Auckland, who succeeded Sir Charles as governor-general, pointed out what appeared to him the difficulty of rescinding the liberty when once granted; and the directors yielded, though very unwillingly. The minute, in which the alteration of the law was made in 1835, was from the pen of Mr (afterwards Lord) Macaulay; but this eminent person at the same time admitted that the governor-general had, and ought to have, a power suddenly to check this liberty of the press in perilous times. The members of the supreme council at Calcutta, in their minutes on this subject, asserted the power and right of the government to use the check in periods of exigency.
Viscount Canning, conceiving that all his predecessors had recognised the possible necessity of curbing the liberty of the press, considered whether the exigency for so doing had arrived. He found that it would be of little use to control the native press unless that of the English were controlled also; because he wished to avoid invidious distinctions; and because some of the newspapers, though printed in the English language, were written, owned, and published by natives, almost exclusively for circulation among native readers. The natives, it was found, were in the habit of procuring English newspapers, not only those published in India, but others published in England, and of causing the political news relating to their own country to be translated and read to them. This might not be amiss if the government were made responsible for such articles only as emanated from it; but the natives were often greatly alarmed at articles and speeches directed against them, or against their usages and religion, in the Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay newspapers – not by the government, but by individual writers. The newspaper press in India, whether English or native, has generally been distinguished by great violence in the mode of opposing the government; this violence, in times of peace, was disregarded by those against whom it was directed; but at a time when a hundred thousand native troops were more or less in mutiny, and when Mohammedan leaders were endeavouring to enlarge this military revolt into a national rebellion, Viscount Canning and his colleagues deemed it right to place a restriction on the liberty of the press, during the disturbed state of India.
Very little has hitherto been known in England concerning the native newspapers of India; for few except the Company’s servants have come in contact with them. Their number is considerable, but the copies printed of each are exceedingly limited. In the Agra government alone, a few years ago, there were thirty-four native papers, of which the aggregate circulation did not reach two thousand, or less than sixty each on an average. Some appeared weekly, some twice a week. Some were printed in Persian, others in Oordoo, others in Hindee. About twenty more were published in various towns in the northwest regions of India. A few were sensible, many more trivial, but nearly all abusive of the government. As estimated by an English standard, the extremely small circulation would have rendered them wholly innocuous; but such was not the case in the actual state of affairs. The miserably written and badly lithographed little sheets of news had, each, its group of men seated round a fluent reader, and listening to the contents; one single copy sufficed for a whole regiment of sepoys; and it was observed, during a year or two before the Revolt, that the sepoys listened with unwonted eagerness to the reading of articles grossly vituperative of the government. The postal reform, effected by the Marquis of Dalhousie, exceeding in liberality even that of England itself, is believed to have led to an unexpected evil connected with the dissemination of seditious intelligence in India. To save expense, he placed natives instead of Europeans in most of the offices connected with this service; and it appears probable, from facts elicited during the mutiny, that Hindoo and Mohammedan postmasters were far too well acquainted with the substance of many of the letters which passed through their hands.
It may be well here to state that Lord Harris, governor of the presidency of Madras, dwelt on the unfair tone of the British press in India, before the actual commencement of the mutiny at Meerut. On the 2d of May he made a minute commencing thus: ‘I have now been three years in India, and during that period have made a point of keeping myself acquainted with the tenor of the larger portion of the British press, throughout the country; and I have no hesitation in asserting my impression to be that it is, more particularly in this presidency, disloyal in tone, un-English in spirit, and wanting in principle – seeking every opportunity, whether rightly or wrongly, of holding up the government to opprobrium.’ He denied that any analogy could be furnished from the harmlessness of such attacks in the home country; because, in England, ‘every man is certain of having an opportunity of bringing his case before the public, either by means of rival newspapers or in parliament.’ This facility is not afforded in India; and thus the newspaper articles are left to work their effects uncompensated. ‘I do not see how it is possible for the natives, in the towns more especially, with the accusations, misrepresentations, and calumnies which are constantly brought before them, to come to any other conclusion than that the government of their country is carried on by imbecile and dishonest men.’
The legislative statute of the 13th of June may be described in a few words. All printing-presses, types, and printing-machinery throughout British India were, by virtue of this act, to be registered, and not used without licence from the government. Magistrates were empowered to order a search of suspected buildings, and a seizure of all unregistered printing-apparatus and printed paper found therein. All applications for a printing-licence were to be made on oath of the proprietor, with full particulars on certain specified matters. The licence might be refused or granted; and, if granted, might be at any time revoked. A copy of every paper, sheet, or book was required to be sent to the authorities, immediately on being printed. The government, by notice in the government gazette, might prohibit the publication of the whole or any part of any book or paper, either in the whole or any part of India; and this was equally applicable whether the book or paper were printed in India or any other country. The penalty – for using unlicensed printing-machinery, or for publishing in defiance of a gazette order – was a fine of 5000 rupees (£500), or two years’ imprisonment, or both. This punishment was so rigorous, that the instances were very few in which the press disobeyed the new law; it produced great exasperation in some quarters; but the proprietors of newspapers generally placed such a check upon editors and writers as to prevent the insertion of such articles as would induce the government to withdraw the printing-licence.
So alien are such restrictions to the genius of the English people, that nothing but dire necessity could have driven the Calcutta government to make them. They must be judged by an Indian, not an English standard. It is well to remark, however, as shewing the connection of events, that this statute was one cause of the violent attacks made against Lord Canning in London; the freedom, checked in India, appeared in stronger form than ever when several of the writers came over to England, or sent for printing in England books or pamphlets written in India. When one of these editors arrived in London, he brought with him a petition or memorial, signed by some of the Europeans at Calcutta not connected with the government, praying for the removal of Viscount Canning from the office held by him.
Having thus passed in review three courses of proceeding adopted by the Indian government consequent on the outbreak – in reference to military operations, to judicial punishments, and to public opinion – we will now notice in a similarly rapid way the line of policy adopted by the home government to stem the mutiny, and by the British nation to succour those who had suffered or were suffering by it.
It was on the 27th of June that the government, the parliament, and the people of England were startled with the news that five or six native regiments had revolted at Meerut and Delhi, and that the ancient seat of the Mogul Empire was in the hands of mutineers and rebels. During some weeks previously, observations had occasionally been made in parliament, relating to the cartridge troubles at Barrackpore and Berhampore; but the ministers always averred that those troubles were slight in character. The Earl of Ellenborough, who had been governor-general from 1842 to 1844, and who possessed extensive knowledge of Indian affairs generally, had also drawn attention occasionally to the state of the Indian armies. While India was in commotion, but six or seven weeks before England was aware of that fact, the earl asked the ministers (on May 19th) what arrangements had been made for reinforcing the British army in India. Lord Panmure, as war-minister, replied that certain regiments intended for India had been diverted from that service and sent to China; but that four other regiments would be ready to depart from England about the middle of June, to relieve regiments long stationed in the East Indies; irrespective of four thousand recruits for the Company’s service. On the 9th of June Lord Ellenborough expressed suspicions that a mutinous feeling was being engendered among the sepoys, by a fear on their part that their religion was about to be tampered with; this expression of opinion led to various counter-views in both Houses of parliament.
Two or three paragraphs may here be usefully given, to shew to how great an extent the number and distribution of European troops in India had been a subject of consideration among the governing authorities, both at Calcutta and in London. Towards the close of 1848 the Marquis of Dalhousie drew attention to the propriety, or even necessity, of increasing the European element in the Indian armies; and, to this end, he suggested that an application should be made to the crown for three additional regiments of the royal army. This was attended to; three regiments being promptly sent. In March 1849, consequent on the operations in the Punjaub, application was made for two more Queen’s regiments; which was in like manner quickly responded to. All these additions, be it observed, were to be fully paid for by the Company. These five regiments, despatched during the early months of 1849, comprised 220 commissioned officers, and 5335 non-commissioned, rank and file. In 1853, after the annexation of Pegu, the marquis wrote home to announce that that newly-acquired province could not be securely held with a less force than three European regiments, eight native regiments, and a proportionate park of artillery; and he asked: ‘Whence is this force to be derived?’ The British empire in India was growing; the European military element, he urged, must grow with it; and he demanded three new regiments from England to occupy Pegu, seeing that those already in India were required in the older provinces and presidencies. There were at that time five regiments of European cavalry in India, all belonging to the Queen’s army; and thirty regiments of European infantry, of which twenty-four were Queen’s, and the remaining six belonging to the Company. As the crown retained the power of drawing away the royal regiments from India at any time of emergency, the marquis deemed it prudent that the three additional regiments required should belong to the Company, one to each presidential army, and not to the royal forces. The Company, by virtue of the act passed that year (1853), obtained permission to increase the number of European troops belonging absolutely to it in India; and, that permission being obtained, three additional regiments were planned in the year, to comprise about 2760 officers and men. Only two out of the three, however, were really organised. When the war with Russia broke out in 1854, a sudden demand was made for the services of several of the Queen’s regiments in India – namely, the 22d, 25th, 96th, and 98th foot, and the 10th Hussars; at the same time, as only the 27th and 35th foot were ordered out to India, the royal troops at the disposal of the governor-general were lessened by three regiments. This step the Marquis of Dalhousie, and his colleagues at Calcutta, most earnestly deprecated. A promise was made that two more regiments, the 82d and 90th foot, should be sent out early in 1855; but the marquis objected to the weakening of the Indian army even by a single English soldier. In a long dispatch, he dwelt upon the insufficiency of this army for the constantly increasing area of the British army in India. The European army in India, the Queen’s and the Company’s together, was in effect only two battalions stronger in September 1854 than it had been in January 1847; although in that interval of nearly eight years the Punjaub, Pegu, and Nagpoor, had been added to British India. The army was so scattered over this immense area, that there was only one European battalion between Calcutta and Agra, a distance of nearly eight hundred miles. The marquis earnestly entreated the imperial government not to lessen his number, already too small, of European troops – not only because the area to be defended had greatly increased; but because many of the princes of India were at that time looking with a strange interest at the war with Russia, as if ready to side with the stronger power, whichever that might be. There were symptoms of this kind in Pegu, in Nepaul, and elsewhere, which he thought ought not to be disregarded. No document penned by the marquis throughout his eight years’ career in India was more energetic, distinct, or positive than this; he protested respectfully but earnestly against any further weakening of the European element in his forces. The home government, however, had engaged in a war with a great power which needed all its resources; the withdrawal of the regiments was insisted on; and the governor-general was forced to yield.
The year 1855 presented nothing worthy of comment in relation to the Indian armies; but in February 1856, just on surrendering the reins of government to Viscount Canning, the Marquis of Dalhousie drew up a minute bearing on this subject. At that time, fifteen months before the commencement of the mutiny at Meerut, there were thirty-three regiments of European infantry in India.33 The marquis sketched a plan for so redistributing the forces as to provide for the principal stations during peace, and also for a field-army in case of outbreak in Cabool, Cashmere, Nepaul, Ava, or other adjacent states; he required two additional regiments to effect this, and shewed how the whole thirty-five might most usefully be apportioned between the three presidencies.34 He suggested that this number of 24 Queen’s regiments of foot should be a minimum, not at any time reducible by the imperial government without consent of the Indian authorities; he remembered the Crimean war, and dreaded the consequence of any possible future war in depriving India of royal troops. These were suggestions, made by the Marquis of Dalhousie when about to leave India; they possessed no other authority than as suggestions, and do not appear to have been taken officially into consideration until the mutiny threw everything into confusion. During the later months of 1856, Viscount Canning, the new governor-general, drew the attention of the Court of Directors to the fact that the English officers in the native regiments had become far too few in number; some were appointed to irregular corps, others to civil duties, until at length the regiments were left very much under-officered. As a means of partially meeting this want, the directors authorised in September that every regular native infantry or cavalry regiment should have two additional officers, one captain and one lieutenant; and that each European regiment in the Company’s service should have double this amount of addition. In the same month it was announced by the military authorities in London that the two royal regiments, 25th and 89th, borrowed from India for the Russian war in 1854, should be replaced by two others early in 1857; and that at the same time two additional regiments of Queen’s foot should be sent out, to relieve the 10th and 29th, which had been in India ever since 1842.
The year of the mutiny, 1857, witnessed the completion of the military arrangement planned in 1856, and the organisation of others arising out of the complicated state of affairs in Persia, China, and India. About the middle of February, the second division of the army intended for the Persian expedition left Bombay, making, with the first division, a force of about 12,000 men under the command of Sir James Outram. About 4000 of that number were European troops.35 Viscount Canning, speculating on the probability that a third division would be needed, pointed out that India could not possibly supply it; and that it would be necessary that the home government should send out, not only the four regiments already agreed on, but three others in addition, and that the 10th and 29th regiments should not return to Europe so early as had been planned. There was another complication, arising out of the Chinese war; the 82d and 90th foot, intended to replace the two regiments withdrawn from India during the Crimean war, were now despatched to the Chinese seas instead of to India; and the directors had to make application for two others. Early in May, before any troubles in India were known to the authorities in London, it was arranged that the plan of 1856 should be renewed – two Queen’s regiments to be sent out to replace those withdrawn for the Crimean war; and two others to relieve the 10th and 29th – bringing the royal infantry in India to the usual number of twenty-four regiments. Of these four regiments, two were to proceed to Calcutta, one to Madras, and one to Kurachee. They were to consist of the 7th Fusiliers, the 88th and 90th foot, and the 3d battalion of the Rifle Brigade. It was also planned that the 2d and 3d Dragoons should go out to India to relieve the 9th Lancers and 14th Dragoons. Furthermore, it was arranged that these six regiments should take their departure from England in June and July, so as to arrive in India at a favourable season of the year; and that with them should go out drafts from Chatham, in number sufficient to complete the regiments already in India up to their regular established strength. So far as concerned Persia, the proposed third division was not necessary; the Shah assented to terms which – fortunately for British India – not only rendered this increased force unnecessary, but set free the two divisions already sent.
Such was the state of the European element in the Indian army at, and some time before, the commencement of the mutiny. It was on the 27th of June, we have said, that the bad news from Meerut reached London. Two days afterwards, the Court of Directors ordered officers at home on furlough or sick-leave to return to their regiments forthwith, so far as health would permit. They also made a requisition to the government for four full regiments of infantry, in addition to those already decided on; to be returned, or replaced by other four, when the mutiny should be ended. On the 1st of July – shewing thereby the importance attached to the subject – the government announced, not only its acquiescence in the demand, but the numbers or designations of the regiments marked out – namely, the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot. It was also agreed to that the four regiments intended to have been relieved – namely, the 10th and 29th foot, and the 9th and 14th Dragoons – should not be relieved at present, but that, on the contrary, drafts should go out to reinforce them. Another mail arrived, making known further disasters; whereupon the directors on the 14th of July made another application to government for six more regiments of infantry, and eight companies of royal artillery – the artillerymen to be sent out from England, the horses from the Cape of Good Hope, and the guns and ammunition to be provided in India itself. Two days afterwards – so urgent did the necessity appear – the government named the six regiments which should be sent out in compliance with this requisition – namely, the 20th, 34th, 42d, 54th, and 97th foot, and the 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade; together with two troops of horse-artillery, and six companies of royal (foot) artillery.
Summing up all these arrangements, therefore, we find the following result: Two regiments of royal infantry – 7th Fusiliers and 88th foot – were to go to India, to replace two borrowed or withdrawn from the Company in 1854; two others – the 90th foot and the 3d battalion of the Rifle Brigade – to relieve the 10th and 29th foot, and two regiments of cavalry – the 2d and 3d Dragoons – to relieve the 9th Lancers and 14th Dragoons, but the four relieved regiments not to return till the mutiny should be quelled; four regiments of infantry – the 19th, 38th, and 79th foot, and the 1st battalion of the 1st foot – to go out in consequence of the bad news received from India at the end of June; six regiments of infantry – the 20th, 34th, 42d, 54th, 97th, and 2d battalion of the Rifle Brigade – together with several troops and companies of artillery, were to go out in consequence of the still more disastrous news received in the middle of July; drafts were to go out to bring up to the full strength the whole of the Queen’s regiments in India; and, lastly, recruits were to go out, to bring up to the full complement the whole of the European regiments belonging to the Company. These various augmentations to the strength of armed Europeans in India amounted to little less than twenty-four thousand men, all placed under orders by the middle of July.
Various discussions bearing on the military arrangements for India, took place in the two houses of parliament. Lord Ellenborough frequently recommended the embodiment of the militia and the calling out of the yeomanry, in order that England might not be left defenceless by sending a very strong royal army to India. The Earl of Hardwicke suggested that all the troops at Aldershott camp, about sixteen thousand in number, should at once be sent off to India. These, and other members of both Houses, insisted on the perilous position of India; whereas the ministers, in their speeches if not in their proceedings, treated the mutiny as of no very serious importance. Differences of opinion existed to a most remarkable extent; but the president of the Board of Control, Mr Vernon Smith, subjected himself at a later period to very severe criticism, on account of the boldness of the assertions made, or the extent of the ignorance displayed, in the earlier stages of the mutiny. When the news from Meerut and Delhi arrived, he said in the House of Commons: ‘I hope that the House will not be carried away by any notion that we exaggerate the danger because we have determined upon sending out these troops. It is a measure of security alone with respect to the danger to be apprehended. I cannot agree with the right honourable gentleman (Mr Disraeli) that our Indian empire is imperiled by the present disaster. I say that our Indian empire is not imperiled; and I hope that in a short time the disaster, dismal as it is, will be effectually suppressed by the force already in that country… Luckily the outrage has taken place at Delhi; because it is notorious that that place may be easily surrounded; so that if we could not reduce it by force, we could by famine… Unfortunately, the mail left on the 28th of May; and I cannot, therefore, apprise the House that the fort of Delhi has been razed to the ground; but I hope that ample retribution has by this time been inflicted on the mutineers.’ That other persons, military as well as civil, felt the mutiny to be a wholly unexpected phenomenon, is true; but this minister obviously erred by his positive assertions; his idea of ‘easily surrounding’ a walled city seven miles in circuit was preposterous; and there was displayed an unpardonable ignorance of the state of the armies in that country in the further assertion that ‘there are troops in India equal to any emergency.’
A question of singular interest and of great importance arose – how should the reinforcements of troops be sent to India? But before entering on this, it will be well to notice the arrangements made for providing a commander for them when they should reach their destination. As soon as it was known in London, early in July, that General Anson was dead, the government appointed Sir Colin Campbell as his successor. The provisional appointment of Sir Patrick Grant as commander of the forces in India was approved as a judicious step on the part of the Calcutta government; but, rightly or wrongly, the permanent appointment to that high office had come to be considered a ministerial privilege in London; and thus Sir Colin was sent out to supersede Sir Patrick. Fortunately, the general selected carried with him the trust and admiration of all parties. For a time, it is true, there was a disposition to foster a Campbell party and a Grant party among newspaper writers. One would contend that Sir Colin, though a brave and good soldier, and without a superior in command of a brigade, had nevertheless been without opportunity of shewing those powers of combination necessary for the suppression of a wide-spread mutiny, perhaps the reconquest of an immense empire; whereas Sir Patrick was just the man for the occasion, possessing the very experience, temper, and other qualities for dealing with the native soldiers. On the other hand, it was contended that Campbell was something more than a mere general of brigade, having successfully commanded masses of troops equal in extent to armies during the Punjaub war; whereas Grant, being by professional education and military sympathies a Bengal officer – although afterwards commander at Madras – had imbibed that general leaning towards the sepoys which rendered such officers unfit to deal sternly with them in time of disaffection. Happily, this controversy soon came to an end; Sir Colin was pronounced by the public verdict to be the right man, without any disparagement to Sir Patrick; and it was judiciously suggested by the Earl of Ellenborough that the last-named general might, with great advantage to the state, be made a military member of the supreme council at Calcutta, to advise the governor-general on army and military subjects. The nation recognised in Sir Colin the soldierly promptness which had distinguished Wellington and Napier, and which he illustrated in the following way: On the morning of Saturday the 11th of July, the news of General Anson’s death reached London; at two o’clock on the same day a cabinet council was held; immediately after the council an interview took place between the minister of war and the commander of the forces; consequent on this interview, Sir Colin Campbell was offered the post of commander-in-chief in India; he accepted it; he was asked how soon he could take his departure; his reply was ‘To-morrow;’ and, true to his word, he left England on the Sunday evening – taking very little with him but the clothes on his back. Men felt that there would be no unnecessary amount of ‘circumlocution’ in the proceedings of such a general – a veteran who had been an officer in the army forty-nine years; and who, during that long period, had served in the Walcheren expedition; then in the Peninsular battles and sieges of Vimieira, Corunna, Barossa, Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bidassoa; then in North America; then in the West Indies; then in the first Chinese war; then in the second Sikh war; and lastly in the Crimea.