Dodd George
The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8
We will now cross the Sone, and trace the progress of affairs in the Bundelcund and Saugor provinces.
It will be remembered, from the details given in former chapters, that the native inhabitants of Bundelcund, and other regions south of the Jumna and the Central Ganges, displayed a more turbulent tendency than those of Bengal. They had for ages been more addicted to war, and had among them a greater number of chieftains employing retainers in their pay, than the Bengalese; and they were within easier reach of the temptations thrown out by Nena Sahib, the King of Delhi, Koer Singh, and the agents of the deposed King of Oude. Lieutenant (now Captain) Osborne, the British resident at Rewah, was one who felt the full force of this state of circumstances. As he had been in August, so was he now in September, almost the only Englishman within a wide range of country southwest of Allahabad; the rajah of Rewah was faithful, but his native troops were prone to rebellion; and it was only by wonderful sagacity and firmness that he could protect both the rajah and himself from the vortex.
In a wide region eastward of Rewah, the question arose, every day throughout September, where is Koer Singh? This treacherous chieftain, who headed the Dinapoor mutineers from the day of their entering Arrah, was continually marching about with his rebel army of something like 3000 men, apparently uncertain of his plans – an uncertainty very perplexing to the British officials, who, having a mere handful of troops at their disposal, did not know where that handful might most profitably be employed. On one day Koer Singh, with his brother Ummer Singh, would be reported at Rotas, on another day at Sasseram; sometimes there was a rumour of the rebels being about to march to Rewah and Bundelcund; at others, that they were going to join the Goruckpore insurgents; and at others, again, that the Dinapoor and Ramgurh mutineers would act in concert. Wherever they went, however, plunder and rapine marked their footsteps. At one of the towns, the heirs of a zemindar, whose estates had been forfeited many years before, levied a thousand men to aid in seizing the property from the present proprietors. This was one among many proofs afforded during the mutiny, that chieftains and landowners sought to make the revolt of the native soldiery a means for insuring their own private ends, whether those ends were justifiable or not. The authorities at Patna and elsewhere endeavoured to meet these varied difficulties as best they could with their limited resources. They sent to Calcutta all the ladies and children from disturbed districts, so far as they possessed means of conveyance. They empowered the indigo-planters to raise small bodies of police force in their respective districts. They obtained the aid of two regiments of Goorkhas in the Chumparun district, by which the restoration of tranquillity might reasonably be expected. They seized the estates of Koer Singh and Ummer Singh at Arrah, as traitors. They imposed heavy fines on villages which had sent men to take active part in the disturbances. Lastly, they used all their energies to protect that part of the main trunk-road which passes near the river Sone; seeing that the march of European troops from Calcutta to the upper provinces would be materially affected by any interruption in that quarter. The newly arrived British regiments could not go up as an army, but as small detachments in bullock-wagons, and therefore were not prepared for sudden encounters with large numbers of the enemy.
The 5th irregular cavalry, who had mutinied in this part of India some weeks before, continued a system of plundering, levying contributions, and destroying public property. Every day that transpired, leaving these daring atrocities unchecked, weakened British prestige, and encouraged marauders on all sides to imitate the example so fatally set before them. The authorities felt and acknowledged this; yet, for the reasons already noticed, they could do little to check it. Captain Rattray, at the head of a portion of his Sikh police, encountered the 5th irregulars on the 8th of the month; but, as a cavalry force, they were too strong for him; they beat him in action, out-generalled him in movement, released four hundred prisoners from one of the jails, and then marched west toward the river Sone. The mutinous sowars were subsequently heard of at Tikane, Daoodnuggur, Baroon, and other places; everywhere committing great depredations. Thus was a large and important region, on either side of the main trunk-road, and extending two hundred miles along that road, kept in a state of daily agitation. The 5th irregular cavalry in one quarter, Koer Singh in another, and his brothers Ummer Singh and Nishan Singh in a third, were all busily employed in depredation; patriotism or nationality had little hold on their thoughts just then; for they plundered whomsoever had property to lose, without much regard to race or creed. The government offered large rewards for the capture of these leaders, but without effect: the rebels generally resisted this kind of temptation. Opium-crops to the value of half a million sterling were at that time ripening in the Behar and Arrah districts alone; and it was feared that all these would be devastated unless aid arrived from Calcutta.
Mr Wake, and the other civil servants who had so gallantly defended themselves at Arrah, against an enormous force of the enemy, returned to that station about the middle of September, to resume their duties; but as it was feared that Ummer Singh and the 5th irregulars would effect a junction, and attempt to reoccupy Jugdispore, those officers were authorised to fall back upon Dinapoor or Buxar, in the event of being attacked; although they themselves expressed a wish rather to remain at their posts and fortify themselves against the rebels as they had done before. The necessity of making this choice, however, did not arise. The 5th cavalry, after their victory over Rattray’s Sikhs, and during their visits to the towns and villages near the Sone, committed, as we have just said, every kind of atrocity – plundering houses, levying contributions, breaking open the zenanas of Hindoo houses, abusing the women, and destroying property too bulky to be carried away – all this they did; but for some unexplained reason, they avoided the redoubtable little band at Arrah.
The Saugor and Nerbudda provinces, of which the chief towns and stations were Banda, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Nagode, Dumoh, Nowgong, Mundlah, and Hosungabad, were, as we have seen, in a very precarious state in the month of August. At Saugor, so early as the month of June, Brigadier Sage had brought all the Europeans into a well-armed and amply provisioned fort, guarded by a body of European gunners, and by the still faithful 31st regiment of Bengal infantry; and there the Europeans remained at the close of August, almost cut off from communication with their fellow-countrymen elsewhere. Jubbulpoor had passed through the summer months without actual mutiny; but the revolt of the 42d infantry and the 3d irregular cavalry, at neighbouring stations, and certain suspicious symptoms afforded by the 52d at Jubbulpoor itself, led Major Erskine to fortify the Residency, and provision it for six months. Banda, Jhansi, and Jaloun, had long fallen into the hands of the rebels; Mundlah and Hosungabad were at the mercy of circumstances occurring at other places; Nagode would be reliable only so long as the 50th native infantry remained true; and Dumoh would be scarcely tenable if Jubbulpoor were in danger. Thus, at the end of August, British supremacy in the Saugor and Nerbudda territories hung by a thread. The Calcutta authorities, unable to supply British troops for Bengal or Behar, were equally debarred from rendering assistance to these territories. September opened very gloomily for the officers intrusted with duties in this quarter. The Punjaub and Calcutta could only furnish trustworthy troops for the Jumna and Doab regions, where the war raged with greatest fierceness; it was from Madras and Bombay alone that aid could be expected. Fortunately, the large regions of Nagpoor and Hyderabad were nearly at peace, and thus a passage could be afforded for troops from the south which would not have been practicable had those countries been plunged in anarchy.
Towards the middle of September, Lieutenant Clark, deputy-commissioner of Jubbulpoor, learned a few facts that put him on the track of a conspiracy. It came out, on inquiry, that Rajah Shunker Shah, and many other chieftains and zemindars in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpoor, acting in concert with some of the sepoys of the 52d B. N. I., intended to attack the cantonment on the last day of the Mohurrum, murder all the Europeans, burn the cantonments, and plunder the treasury and city. By a bold and prompt movement, the chief conspirators were seized on the 14th. The lieutenant, writing to the commissioner of Nagpoor, announced the result in brief but significant language. ‘I have been fortunate enough to get conclusive evidence by means of spies, without the conspirators taking alarm; and this morning, with a party of sowars and police, bagged thirty, and two rajahs (ringleaders) among them. Of course they swing. Many of my principal zemindars, and some – I wish I knew how many – of the 52d, are in the plot.’ In Rajah Shunker’s house, among other treasonable papers, was found a sort of prayer, invoking his deity to aid him in the destruction of all Europeans, the overturning of the government, and the re-establishment of his own power. The paper was found in a silk bag in which he kept his fan, and was a scrap torn from a government proclamation issued after the massacre at Meerut. In this instance, therefore, the official expression of horror and wrath at the opening scene of the mutiny, instead of deterring, encouraged others to walk in the same bloody path. The prayer or invocation was afterwards translated from the Hindee into English, and published among the parliamentary papers.96 The execution of the rajah and his son was something more terrible than was implied by the lieutenant’s curt announcement, ‘of course they swing.’ It was one among many examples of that ‘blowing away from guns’ to which the records of the mutiny habituated English newspaper readers. An officer stationed at Jubbulpoor at the time, after noticing the complicity of these two guilty men, describes the execution in a brief but painfully vivid way. ‘At the head of the conspiracy was Shunker Shah, the Ghond rajah, and his son. Their place of abode is about four miles from Jubbulpoor. In former days this family ruled over all this part of the country; they can trace their descent for sixty generations. The family had been deprived of everything by the Mahrattas, and were in great poverty when we took possession. Our government raised them up from this state, and gave them sufficient to support themselves comfortably; and now they shewed their gratitude by conspiring against us in our time of sore trial. The family have neither much property nor power, but the ancient name and prestige was a point on which to rally… On the 18th, at 11 o’clock A.M., our two guns were advanced a few hundred yards in front of the Residency, covered by a company of the 33d and a few troopers, and it became known that the Ghond rajah and his son were about to be blown away from the cannon’s mouth. The old man walked up to the guns with a firm stride; the son appeared more dejected. The old man, with his snow-white hair and firm manner, almost excited compassion; and one had to remember, before such feelings could be checked, how atrociously he intended to deal with us had his conspiracy succeeded; the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. All was over in a few minutes. The scattered remains were pounced upon by kites and vultures, but what could be collected was handed over to the ranee.’
Although Lieutenant Clark was thus enabled, by mingled caution and decision, to frustrate the atrocious plot of which Jubbulpoor was to have been the theatre, he could not prevent the mutiny of the 52d native regiment. That corps revolted, albeit without perpetrating the cruelties and rapine intended. It was on the 18th that this rising took place, the troops at once marching off quietly towards Dumoh. One old subadar they tied on a horse, because he did not wish to join, and because they did not choose to leave him behind. It was supposed that the 52d had gone towards Dumoh, to capture guns there, and then return to plunder Jubbulpoor. Two days before this, namely, on the 16th, the greater part of the 50th regiment Bengal infantry threw off allegiance. Being stationed at Nagode, they suddenly rose, released the prisoners from the jail, burned the bungalows, and rendered the place no longer safe for Europeans. Mr Ellis and the other civilians fled to Paunna, while Colonel Hampton and the other military officers made their escape towards Jokhie – leaving every vestige of their property behind, except the clothes on their backs. Two companies of the regiment, remaining faithful, accompanied their officers safely to Mirzapore, a journey which occupied them twelve days.
The Europeans at Dumoh, a civil station on the road from Saugor to Jubbulpoor, were thrown into much tribulation by news of these mutinies at other places. When both the 50th and 52d regiments had ‘gone’ – a term that acquired much significance in India at that time – Major Erskine, chief-commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, who happened to be at Dumoh, summoned a council of war on the 20th of September, to consider what was best to be done. It was resolved that Dumoh could not long be held against any considerable body of mutineers; and that advantage should be taken of the temporary presence of a column of Madras native troops to employ that column as an escort for the civilians and the Company’s treasure from Dumoh to Jubbulpoor. There was a detachment of the still faithful 31st at Dumoh; and this was sent to join the main body of the regiment at Saugor, to be out of the way of temptation from mutinous sepoys.
This convoy of men and money from Dumoh led to a smart military encounter. The Madras movable column which afforded the required protection numbered about 500 men of all arms, under Colonel Miller. Leaving Dumoh on the 21st, and being much obstructed in passing the river Nowtah, Colonel Miller reached Sigrampore on the 26th; where he heard that the main body of the mutineers were at Konee, on the banks of a river which the column would need to cross on its way to Jubbulpoor. The colonel at once despatched a force of about 100 men, under Lieutenant Watson, to secure the boats on the river; but the enemy baffled this officer, who had much difficulty in preserving his men. Miller then advanced with his whole column, met the enemy, and fought a brief but decisive battle, which ended in the utter rout of the rebel sepoys. If it had been a purely military affair, the colonel was strong enough to defeat a more numerous body of the enemy; but he was hampered by the presence of civilians, treasure, and 120 sepoys of the 52d, who had been disarmed at Dumoh on news of the revolt of the main body, and whom it was necessary to take with the column. It was, indeed, a strange state of things; for the disarmed men were of course eager enough to rush over and join their companions of the same regiment.
It is not matter for censure if men placed in authority at different stations, in time of peril, occasionally differed concerning the relative importance of those stations. Thus, when the 50th and 52d native regiments mutinied, a question arose which principal city, Saugor or Jubbulpoor, should be regarded as a last stronghold in the event of the British being nearly overpowered. Major Erskine, at Jubbulpoor, urged the claims of that city, as having certain facilities for the receipt of reinforcements, should such happily be afforded; and as having many European women and children within the fort, who could not be removed without danger. Brigadier Sage, on the other hand, urged – ‘Whatever you do, let me retain Saugor. It is the key to Central India. It has a good fort and magazine. It is provisioned for six or eight months for three hundred men, and has thirty thousand maunds of grain in addition. It has a siege-train, which will fall into the hands of the enemy if we leave the place. It contains 170 women and children, who could not be withdrawn without danger.’ In such or similar words was the retention of Saugor advocated. The discussion happily ended by both towns being retained. Those officials of the Company, military or civil, who resolutely fortified, instead of abandoning their positions, were in most instances rewarded with success – unless the enemy were in unusually overwhelming force.
Nearly all parts of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories were in wild confusion at the close of September. The Kamptee column of Madras troops had, as we have just seen, broken up the 52d mutineers; but still those rebels lay concealed in jungles, ready for mischief whenever an opportunity might offer; while the Madrasses, distracted by many applications from different quarters, had been unable to prevent the mutinous 50th regiment, at Nagode, from marching off to join the Dinapoor mutineers near Banda. At Saugor, Brigadier Sage and the British were safe, because they were in a strong and well-provisioned fort, and because the 31st native infantry exhibited no signs of disaffection; nevertheless the whole country around was in the hands of rebellious chieftains. On one occasion he sent out the greater part of his force to attack the Rajah of Bankipore at Nurriowlee, ten miles from Saugor; but the attack was unskilfully made – it failed, and greatly lowered British prestige in the neighbourhood.
As in September, so in October, these provinces were held by a very slender tie. Nearly all the chiefs of Bundelcund, on the border, were ready to rise in rebellion at news of any discomfiture of the British. Numerous thakoors had risen, and, with their followers, were plundering the villages in every direction. At Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Nursingpore, Jaloun, Jhansi, Saugor, Mundlah, Dumoh, there was scarcely an English soldier; and the presence of a few hundred Madras troops alone stood between the authorities and frightful anarchy. Indeed, Jaloun, Jhansi, and Dumoh were out of British hands altogether. The commissioner of Nagpoor was unable to send up any more Madrasses from the south; Mr Grant was unable to send any from Benares; the independent and half-distrusted state of Rewah lay on one border; the thoroughly rebellious state of Banda on another – and thus Major Erskine looked with gloomy apprehensions on the fate of the provinces under his charge. As the month drew to a close, his accounts were still more dismal. In one letter he said: ‘The mass of native chiefs disbelieve in the existence of a British army; and nothing but the presence of troops among them will convince them of their error.’ Again find again were such messages and representations sent to Viscount Canning, as chief authority in India; again and again did he announce that he had no British troops to spare. To Major Erskine’s letters he replied that he ‘must say broadly and plainly that he would consider the sacrifice of the garrison in Lucknow as a far greater calamity and reproach to the government than an outbreak of the Rewah or Bundelcund states, even if followed by rebellion and temporary loss of our authority in our own territories on the Nerbudda.’ At the close of the month, Koer Singh and the Dinapoor mutineers were somewhere between Banda and Calpee; while Captain Osborne-one of the most remarkable men whom the Indian Revolt brought into notice – still maintained his extraordinary position at Rewah.
We pass now further to the west – to the cities and towns on the Jumna river, and to the regions of Central India between that river and Bombay. Here, little need detain us until we come to Agra. Futtehpoor, Cawnpore, and Futteghur, though not in Oude, were on its frontier, and were involved in the fortunes of that province. Captain Peel’s movements with his naval brigade, in the Doab, may be left for treatment in connection with the affairs of Lucknow.
Agra experienced a loss early in September, in the death of John Russell Colvin, the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces. He fell from sickness, brought on mainly by the intense anxieties arising out of his position. He was a remarkable man, a true specimen of those civilians developed into usefulness by the unique policy of the East India Company. In England a public man becomes a statesman through a multitude of minor and exceptional causes; in India, under the Company’s ‘raj,’ statesmen were educated professedly and designedly for their work. In England, we have seen the same statesman transferred from the Exchequer to the India Board, and from thence to the Admiralty, as if the same kind of knowledge were required for all three situations; in India, the statesman’s education bore more close relation to the duties of the offices he was likely to fill. No defects in the Company’s government, no evils arising out of ‘traditional policy,’ no favouritism or nepotism – can blot out the fact that the system brought out the best qualities of the men in their service. Well will it be if the imperial government, in future ages, is served so faithfully, skilfully, and energetically in India as the Company’s government, during the last half-century, has been served by the Malcolms, Metcalfes, Munros, Birds, Thomasons, Elphinstones, Montgomerys, Outrams, Lawrences, and Colvins – most of them civilians, whose apprenticeship to Indian statesmanship began almost from boyhood.
Mr Colvin, whose death has suggested the above few remarks, had seen as much political service as almost any man in India. He was born in Calcutta, the son of a merchant engaged in the Calcutta trade. After receiving his education in England, and carrying off high honours at Haileybury, he went to India in the Company’s service in 1826; and for thirty-one years was seldom free from public duties, mostly special and local. The number of offices he served in succession was remarkably large. He was assistant to the registrar of the Sudder Court at Calcutta; assistant to the British resident at Hyderabad; assistant-secretary in the revenue and judicial department at Calcutta; secretary to the Board of Revenue in the Lower Provinces; private secretary to Governor-general Lord Auckland; British resident in Nepaul; commissioner of the Tenasserim provinces; judge of the Sudder Court; and lastly, lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces – ruler over a territory containing as many inhabitants as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. All these offices he filled in succession, and the first eight qualified him for the onerous duties of the ninth and last. Throughout the mutiny, the only point on which Mr Colvin differed from Viscount Canning was in the policy of the proclamation issued on the 25th of May. It was at the time, and will ever remain, a point fairly open to discussion, whether Colvin’s proclamation97 was or was not too lenient towards the rebellious sepoys. If Canning’s decision partook more of that of John Lawrence, it is equally certain that Colvin’s views were pretty nearly shared by Henry Lawrence, in the early stages of the mutiny. Irrespective of this question of the proclamation, Colvin’s position at Agra was one of painful difficulty. He was not so successful as Sir John Lawrence in the Punjaub, and his name has not found a place among the great men whom the mutiny brought into notice; but it would be unfair to leave unnoticed the circumstances which paralysed the ruler of Agra. A distinguished civilian, who knew both Colvin and Lawrence, and who has written under the assumed name of ‘Indophilus,’ thus compares the position of the two men: ‘Colvin, with a higher official position, had less real command over events than his neighbour in the Punjaub. John Lawrence ruled a people who had for generations cherished a religious and political feud with the people of Hindostan Proper; and Delhi was, in Sikh estimation, the accursed city drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs. John Colvin’s government was itself the focus of the insurrection. Lawrence may be said to have been his own commander-in-chief; and after a European force had been detached to Delhi immediately on the outbreak, he still had at his disposal seven European regiments, including the one sent from Bombay to Moultan, besides European artillery and a local Sikh force of about 20,000 first-rate irregulars of all arms. Colvin was merely the civil governor of the Northwest Provinces; and as the posts (dâks) were stopped, he could not even communicate with the commander-in-chief, with whom the entire disposal of the military force rested. Lawrence had three days’ exclusive knowledge by telegraph of what had taken place at Meerut and Delhi, during which interval he made his arrangements for disarming the sepoy regiments stationed in the Punjaub. Colvin had no warning; and the military insurrection had actually broken out within his government, and the mutineers were in possession of Delhi, before he could begin to act; but he promptly and vigorously did what was in his power.’ We have seen in former chapters what course Mr Colvin adopted between May and August.98 He opened communications with the authorities all around him, as soon as he knew that the mutiny had begun; he disarmed the 44th and 67th native infantry on the 1st of June; he raised a corps of volunteer horse for service in the neighbourhood; he organised a foot-militia among the civilians and traders, for the protection of the city; and he kept a close watch on the proceedings of the Gwalior mutineers. In July occurred the mutiny of the troopers of the Kotah Contingent; then the ill-managed battle outside Agra on the 5th; then the shutting up of Mr Colvin and six thousand persons within the fort; and then the passing of two weary months, during which the lieutenant-governor was powerless through his inability to obtain trusty troops from any quarter whatever. His health and spirits failed, and he died on the 9th of September – still hemmed within the walls of the fort at Agra. Mr Reade, the leading civilian, assumed authority until orders could be received from Calcutta; Colonel Frazer afterwards received the appointment – not of lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, for that government had by this time disappeared under the force of the mutiny – but of chief-commissioner at Agra. Viscount Canning, in a government order, gracefully and properly acknowledged the merits of Mr Colvin.99
The Europeans resident in Agra, after Mr Colvin’s decease, were still unable to liberate themselves; for Delhi had not yet fallen, nor had English prestige been yet restored by Havelock’s success at Lucknow. The English officers felt their enforced idleness very irksome. They, like all the other Europeans, were confined within the fort; no daring military exploits could be looked forward to hopefully, because there ware scarcely any troops to command. For three months the Gwalior mutineers had been their bête noir, their object of apprehension, as being powerful and not far distant. They occasionally heard news from Gwalior, but of too uncertain a nature to satisfy their doubts. Early in September one of the officers wrote: ‘A portion of the rebel army of Gwalior has marched; but their intentions are not yet known. They still say they are coming to turn us out of the fort, and perform all sorts of gallant deeds. Had they come at first, they would have given us a good deal of trouble, as we were not prepared for a siege – guns not mounted, magazines not shell-proof, provisions not in sufficient quantity, and (worst of all) two thousand women and children without any protection from the enemy’s fire. All this is now being rapidly remedied, and now we could stand a siege with comfort. One of the greatest wants is that of tobacco; the soldiers have none; and few men know so well as they do the comfort of a pipe after a hard day’s work, whether under a broiling sun or in drenching rain.’ The British officers at Agra were embittered by becoming acquainted with the fact, that many influential natives now in rebellion were among those who made the most fervent demonstrations of loyalty when the mutiny first began.
Of the affairs of Delhi we shall speak presently. Meanwhile, it may be well to describe the movements of a distinct corps, having its origin in the capture of that city. Although General Wilson seized all the gates and buildings of the imperial city one by one, he could not prevent the escape of the mutineers from the southern gate, the opposite to that where the siege-works had been carried on. By the 21st of September, when the conquest was completed, large bodies of the rebels were far away, on their march to other scenes of struggle. The chief body marched down the right bank of the Jumna on the Muttra road, with the intention of crossing over into the Doab. Brigadier Showers was sent with a force to pursue another body of rebels in another direction; but the operations now under notice were those of the column under Colonel E. H. Greathed (of H.M. 8th foot), organised at Delhi on the 23d of September – about 3000 strong.100 Starting on the 24th, Greathed crossed the Jumna, and marched towards Bolundshuhur. Here a body of fugitive mutineers was encountered on the 28th. A sharp action ensued, which ended in the flight of the enemy, leaving behind them two guns and much ammunition. As a consequence of this defeat, a newly set-up rajah, one Waladad Khan, abandoned the fort of Malagurh, and fled. It was in the blowing-up of this fort, by order of the colonel, that Lieutenant Home, who had so distinguished himself at the storming of the Cashmere Gate, was killed. One of his brother-officers said in a letter: ‘The loss of poor Home has thrown a cloud over all our successes. He was brave among brave men, and an honour to our service.’ Greathed advanced day after day, burning villages which were known to have been nests of insurgents. In one of those places, Koorjah, he found the skeleton of a European woman, the head cut off, and the legs hacked and cut. On the 5th of October, the column reached Allygurh, scoured through the town, and cut up a large body of rebels, taking eleven guns from them. Greathed was at Akerabad the next day, where Mungal Singh and his brother had raised the standard of rebellion; but these chieftains were killed, as well as most of their retainers. On the 9th, he reached Hattrass. At this place his movements were suddenly disturbed; he had intended to march down the Doab to aid Havelock, Outram, and Inglis; but now news from Agra reached him that led to a change of plan. To understand this, attention must be turned to the state of affairs in the Mahratta dominions of Scindia, the northern boundary of which approached very near Agra.