Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny 1857-59 Part 1

Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny 1857-59.

by William Forbes-Mitch.e.l.l.

INTRODUCTION

These Reminiscences are submitted to the public in the trust that they will be welcomed alike by soldier and civilian. They are recorded by one who was himself an actor in the scenes which he describes, and who viewed them from a novel and most unusual position for a military historian--the ranks.

They have been carefully perused by an officer who was present at many of the operations mentioned; and considerable pains have been taken to verify, wherever possible, those incidents of which he was not personally cognisant.

The interest of Mr. Forbes-Mitch.e.l.l's straightforward and soldierlike story is enhanced by the coincidence that he takes up the pen where Lady Inglis laid it down; and it is hoped that this volume may prove an acceptable continuation of her touching narrative of the Defence of Lucknow, and that, as a record of the Great Mutiny, it may furnish another thrilling chapter in that unparalleled story of suffering and of heroism,--of man's bravery and of woman's devotion.

CHAPTER I

THE NINETY-THIRD--SAIL FOR CHINA--COUNTER-ORDERED TO CALCUTTA--ARRIVAL IN INDIA

I cannot truthfully commence these reminiscences with the usual formula of the amateur author,--namely, by stating that, "At the solicitation of numerous friends, the writer was most reluctantly prevailed upon to publish his narrative," and so forth. No one has asked me to write my recollections of the past and my impressions of the present. I do so to please myself, because on revisiting the scenes of the Mutiny I have been forcibly impressed with the fact that, like so many memories, the soldiers and civilians who were personal actors in the great uprising are fast pa.s.sing away.

They live but in time-stricken men, Or else lie hushed in clay.

Having served in the old Ninety-Third Sutherland Highlanders, and been present at every action in which that famous regiment played a part from the actual relief of Lucknow in November, 1857, till the final operations in Oude ended in November, 1859, and being blessed with a fairly retentive memory, I feel tempted to put on record the recollections of the past and the impressions which my recent return to those scenes has revived.

In writing of the past I shall be careful to discriminate between what I saw myself and what I heard from other eye-witnesses, whether native or European; but when I come to write of the present I may be permitted to make my own comparisons and to draw my own conclusions from present facts, or appearances, as they have been impressed on my own observation; and when recording my recollections of the many engagements in which the Ninety-Third played a prominent part, I intend to skip much that has already been recorded in the pages of history, and to more particularly notice the action of individual soldiers, and other incidents which came under my own notice, which have not, to my knowledge, been recorded by any historian or author of the numerous narratives, personal or other, which have been written about the Indian Mutiny.

Before entering on my reminiscences I may mention that I never previously had an opportunity of revisiting any of the scenes of which I am about to write since I had been an actor in them. My readers will, therefore, understand that it was with strongly mixed feelings both of pleasure and sorrow, not unmingled with grat.i.tude, that I started by the mail train from Howrah in August, 1892, to revisit Cawnpore and Lucknow for the first time, with the terrible scenes of 1857 and 1858 still vividly photographed, as it were, on my memory. In the course of thirty-five years of the life of even the most commonplace individual there are events which are never forgotten, and certain friends are lost who are never replaced; so much so, that in thinking of the past one is almost compelled to exclaim with Solomon,--"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! One generation pa.s.seth away and another generation cometh," and the end of all is "vanity and vexation of spirit." But to the Christian, in grand contrast to the vanity and changeableness of this life, stands out like a rock the promise of the Eternal, the Self-existing, and Unchangeable Jehovah. "The Eternal G.o.d is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!" But I am no _padre_, and must not commence to moralise or preach. What tempts me do so is the fact that there is a cla.s.s of writers in the present day who not only deny the truth of many of the fondly-treasured recollections of the past, which have become part of our national history, but who would, if it were possible, refine even G.o.d Himself out of creation, and hand us all over to blind chance for our existence! But enough; I must hark back to 1857.

On the return of the Ninety-Third from the Crimea they were quartered at Dover, and in April, 1857, the regiment was detailed for the expedition forming for China under Lord Elgin, and all time-expired men and those unfit for foreign service were carefully weeded from the service companies and formed into a depot. The ten service companies were recruited by volunteers from the other Highland regiments, the Forty-Second, Seventy-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Second, each giving a certain number of men, bringing the Ninety-Third up to a corps of eleven hundred bayonets. About the 20th of May the Ninety-Third left Dover for Portsmouth, where we were reviewed by the Queen accompanied by Sir Colin Campbell, who took final leave, as he then supposed, of the regiment which had stood with him in the "thin red line" of Balaklava against the terrible Cossacks. On the first of June three companies, of which mine formed one, embarked in a coasting steamer for Plymouth, where we joined the _Belleisle_, an old 84-gun two-decker, which had been converted into a transport for the China expedition. This detachment of the Ninety-Third was under the command of Colonel the Honourable Adrian Hope, and the captains of the three companies were Cornwall, Dawson, and Williams--my company being that of Captain E. S.

F. G. Dawson, an officer of great experience, who had served in another regiment (I forget which) throughout the Kaffir war in the Cape, and was adjutant of the Ninety-Third at the Alma, where he had his horse shot under him. The remaining seven companies, forming headquarters under Colonel A. S. Leith-Hay, sailed from Portsmouth in the steam transport _Mauritius_ about ten days after us.

Although an old wooden ship, the _Belleisle_ was a very comfortable transport and a good sailer, and we sighted land at the Cape on the morning of the 9th of August, having called and posted mails at both Madeira and the Cape de Verde Islands on our way. We were at anchor in Simon's Bay by the afternoon of the 9th of August, where we heard the first news of the Indian Mutiny, and that our destination was changed from China to Calcutta; and during the 10th and 11th all was bustle, tightening up rigging, taking in fuel for cooking, and refilling our empty water-tanks. On the evening of the 11th, just as it was becoming dark, a steamer came up the bay, and anch.o.r.ed quite close to the _Belleisle_; and on our bugler's sounding the regimental call, it turned out to be the _Mauritius_ with headquarters on board. Most of our officers immediately went on board, and many of the men in the three companies were gratified by receiving letters from parents, sweethearts, and friends, which had reached Portsmouth after our detachment had left.

On the forenoon of the 12th of August the _Belleisle_ left Simon's Bay, making all sail day and night for Calcutta. The ship's crew numbered nine hundred men, being made up of drafts for the ships of the China squadron. Every yard of canvas that the masts or spars could carry was crowded on day and night; and we reached the pilot station at the Sandheads on the 19th of September, thirty-eight days from the Cape, where we learned that the _Mauritius_, with our headquarters, had just proceeded up the river.

Early on the 20th, the anniversary of the Alma, we got tug steamers and proceeded up the Hooghly, anchoring off the steps at Prinsep's _ghat_[1]

on the afternoon of the 21st of September. Our progress up the river was all excitement. We had two tug steamers, the _Belleisle_ being considered too large for a single tug of the horsepower of those days; and the pilot and tug commanders all sent bundles of the latest Calcutta papers on board, from which we learned the first news of the sieges of Delhi and Lucknow, of the horrible ma.s.sacre at Cawnpore, and of the gallant advance of the small force under Generals Havelock, Neill, and Outram for the relief of Lucknow. When pa.s.sing Garden Reach, every balcony, verandah, and housetop was crowded with ladies and gentlemen waving their handkerchiefs and cheering us, all our men being in full Highland dress and the pipers playing on the p.o.o.p. In pa.s.sing the present No. 46 Garden Reach the flood-tide was still running up too strong for the _Belleisle_ to come into harbour, and we anch.o.r.ed for about an hour just opposite No. 46. The house and steps of the _ghat_ were crowded with ladies and gentlemen cheering us; and one of my comrades, a young man named Frank Henderson, said to me, "Forbes Mitch.e.l.l, how would you like to be owner of a palace like that?" when I, on the spur of the moment, without any thought, replied, "I'll be master of that house and garden yet before I leave India." Poor Henderson replied: "I firmly believe you will, if you make up your mind for it; but as for myself, I feel that I shall either die or be killed in this war. I am convinced I shall never see the end of it. I have dreamed of my dead father every night since we sighted the pilot-brig, and I know my days are numbered. But as for you,--I have also dreamed of you, and I am sure you will go safely through the war, and live for many years, and become a prosperous man in India. Mark my words; I am convinced of it." We had a Church of England chaplain on the _Belleisle_, and service every morning, and Henderson and myself, with many others, formed part of the chaplain's Sunday and Wednesday evening prayer-meeting cla.s.s.

"Since ever we sighted the pilot-brig," Henderson went on to say, "and my dead father has commenced to appear to me in my dreams, I have felt every day at morning prayers that the words, 'That we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance of Thy mercies, to praise and glorify Thy holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord,' had no reference to me, and I cannot join in them. But when the chaplain read the prayers this morning he looked straight at you when he p.r.o.nounced that part of the prayer, and I felt that the blessing prayed for rests on you. Mark my words, and remember them when I am dead and buried." Strange to say, on the 16th of November Henderson was severely wounded at the taking of the Shah Nujeef, died in the retreat from Lucknow on the evening of the 20th of November, and was buried on the banks of the Ganges, just opposite the bridge of boats at Cawnpore. The Rev. Mr. Henderson of St.

Andrew's Church, Calcutta, who had accompanied the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders to Lucknow, attended as chaplain to our wounded after we relieved the Residency, and being of the same name, he took a particular interest in poor Henderson. However, to return to Garden Reach.

Stranger still as it may appear, just thirty-two years after, I took possession of the house No. 46, where I have established the Bon Accord Rope Works. But enough of this; I am not writing my autobiography.

The arrival of the Ninety-Third caused quite a sensation in Calcutta, where but few Highland regiments had ever been seen before. To quote the words of an eye-witness writing from Calcutta to friends at home, and published in the Aberdeen _Herald_, describing a party of the Ninety-Third which was sent ash.o.r.e to store the heavy baggage which had to be left in Calcutta, he stated:--"On hearing the Ninety-Third in the streets, Scotchmen who had long been exiled from home rose from their desks, rushed out, and stood at the doors of their offices, looking with feelings of pride at their stalwart countrymen, and listening with smiles of pleasure to the sounds of their own northern tongue, long unfamiliar to their ears. Many brought out tankards of cool beer, and invited the men as they pa.s.sed along to drink, and the Highlanders required but little pressing, for the sun was hot, and, to use their own vernacular, the exercise made them _gey an drauthy_."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A landing-place.

CHAPTER II

MARCH UP COUNTRY--FUTTEHPORE--CAWNPORE

By the 25th of September the whole of the Ninety-Third were once more together in Chinsurah, and on the 28th the first company, the grenadiers under Captain Middleton, started by rail for Raneegunge _en route_ for Lucknow, and a company followed daily in regular rotation till the light company left Chinsurah on the 7th of October. From Raneegunge to Benares the old bullock-train was arranged with relays of bullocks from eight to ten miles apart, according to the nature of the road, and six men were told off to each cart to ride and march by relief. Thus we proceeded, making an average advance of from twenty-five to thirty miles daily, halting every day about ten o'clock for cooking, resuming our march about four o'clock, and so on through the night for coolness; the bullocks did not average more than two and a half miles per hour, and there was always considerable delay at the different stations, changing teams. In this way my company reached Benares on the 17th of October.

From Benares we proceeded by detachments of two or three companies to Allahabad; the country between Benares and Allahabad, being overrun by different bands of mutineers, was too dangerous for small detachments of one company. My company reached Allahabad on the 19th of October. There we were supplied with the usual Indian field equipment of tents, etc. By this time the railway had been pushed on in the direction of Cawnpore to a place called Lohunga, about forty-eight miles from Allahabad, but no stations were built. On the 22nd of October my company, with three others, left Allahabad, packed into open trucks or waggons used by the railway contractors for the construction of the line. From Lohunga we commenced our daily marches on foot, with our tents on elephants, _en route_ for Cawnpore.

By this time a considerable force had a.s.sembled at Allahabad, consisting of artillery from the Cape, Peel's Naval Brigade, detachments of the Fifth Fusiliers, the Fifty-Third, and Ninetieth Light Infantry. But the only complete regiment was the Ninety-Third Highlanders, over a thousand men, in splendid condition, armed with the Enfield rifle, and, what was of more importance, well drilled to the use of it.

After leaving Lohunga, the first place of note which we reached was Futtehpore, seventy-two miles from Allahabad. At Futtehpore I met some native Christians whom I had first seen in Allahabad, and who were, or had been, connected with mission work, and could speak English. They had returned from Allahabad to look after property which they had been obliged to abandon when they fled from Futtehpore on the outbreak of the Mutiny. These men all knew Dr. Duff, or had heard of him, and were most anxious to talk to Dr. Duff's countrymen, as they called the Highlanders. From one of them I heard of the brave defence made by a solitary Englishman who refused to leave his post, and as I have never seen this alluded to in any of the histories of the Mutiny, I shall relate it.

When the insurrection broke out, Mr. Robert Tucker was the judge of Futtehpore, and like his namesake of Salvation Army fame, he combined the missionary with the civil-servant, and used to preach to the natives, who listened to him with seeming respect, but with concealed hatred in their hearts. One of the most regular attendants at these Christian meetings in the judge's house was a Mahommedan named Hikmut Oollah Khan, the native head of the police in Futtehpore, and Mr. Tucker had unbounded confidence in the friendship of this man and in the loyalty of the police. On the first certain signs of disturbance in the station Mr. Tucker despatched all the Christians, native and European, to Allahabad, but refused to move himself. My informant told me that he had stayed with the brave judge till the last, and had made his escape to Allahabad after Mr. Tucker was killed; but I had no means of testing the truth of that statement. He further stated that Mr. Tucker had sent away all the Christians to Allahabad during the night, and next day about noon he sent for Hikmut Oollah Khan, who had neglected to make his usual morning report, with an intimation that the judge wished to see him and his loyal police to make arrangements for the protection of the Treasury and other Government property. The "loyal and friendly" Hikmut Oollah Khan sent back a reply that it was then too hot for him to come out, and that the judge _sahib_ need not trouble himself about the Treasury. Considering that the Government of the English was at an end, the police would take care of the Treasury for the Badshah of Delhi, to whom it rightly belonged, and till the cool of the evening the judge _sahib_ might repeat his Kaffir prayers, when the "loyal and friendly"

Hikmut Oollah Khan, with a detachment of his loyal police, would come and give his Kaffir soul a quick despatch to Jehunnum. Such was the loyalty of Mr. Tucker's trusted and pampered friend!

The message of Hikmut Oollah Khan opened the eyes of the too confiding judge, but he did not flinch from his duty. Mr. Tucker had been a mighty hunter in his day, and possessed a good a.s.sortment of offensive and defensive arms, such as rifles, fowling-pieces, and hog-spears. He carefully arranged his ammunition and loaded every rifle and fowling-piece which he had, strongly barricaded the doors and windows of his house, and then sat quietly down to read his Bible. At sunset he saw a large body of the police, with the green banner of Islam and Hikmut Oollah Khan at their head, entering his compound. They advanced, and called on Mr. Tucker to surrender in the name of the Badshah of Delhi, and if he wished his life to be spared, he could have it on condition that he accepted the religion of Mahommed. This he resolutely refused to do, and tried to reason with the police, to which they replied by a volley. Mr. Tucker returned the fire, and before the doors of his house could be forced he had killed sixteen and wounded many more, when he fell pierced by both spears and bullets. So died the brave and G.o.d-fearing Robert Tucker, the glory of the Bengal Civil Service, and thus ended the defence of Futtehpore by one solitary Englishman against hundreds of rebels.

When the detachment of which my company formed part, marched through Futtehpore, it was rumoured that the Banda and Dinapore mutineers, joined by large bodies of _budmashes_,[2] numbering over ten thousand men, with three batteries of regular artillery, mustering eighteen guns, had crossed the Jumna, and were threatening our communications with Allahabad. Owing to this report, No. 2, or Captain Cornwallis's company of the Ninety-Third, was left in the fort at Futtehpore to guard provisions, etc., as that post had been greatly strengthened by a party of sappers and was formed into a depot for commissariat stores and ammunition, which were being pushed on by every available mode of conveyance from Allahabad. We left Futtehpore on the 25th of October, and arrived at Cawnpore on the morning of the 27th, having marched the forty-six miles in two days.

When we reached Cawnpore we found everything quiet, and Brigadier Wilson, of the Sixty-Fourth Regiment, in command. Wheeler's immortal entrenchment was deserted, but a much stronger one had lately been built, or rather was still under construction on the right (the Cawnpore) bank of the Ganges, to protect the bridge of boats crossing into Oude. This place was constructed of strong and well-planned earthworks, and every available coolie in Cawnpore was at work, from daylight till dark, strengthening the place. Bastions and ramparts were being constructed of every conceivable material, besides the usual gabions and fascines. Bales of cotton were built into the ramparts, bags of every size and shape, soldiers' knapsacks, etc., were filled with earth; in brief, everything that could possibly hold a few spadefuls of earth, and could thereby a.s.sist in raising a defensive breast-work, had been appropriated for building the parapet-walls, and a ditch of considerable depth and width was being excavated. On my recent visit to Cawnpore I looked for this fort in vain. Eventually I learned from Colonel Baddeley that it was some time ago dismantled and converted into the Government Harness and Saddlery Factory, the ramparts having been levelled and the ditch filled in with earth.

The day before we reached Cawnpore, a strong column from Delhi had arrived under command of Sir Hope Grant, and was encamped on the plain near the spot where the railway station now stands. The detachment of the Ninety-Third did not pitch tents, but was accommodated in some buildings, on which the roofs were still left, near General Wheeler's entrenchment. My company occupied the _dak_ bungalow, which, on my revisit to Cawnpore, appeared to me to have given place to the present Victoria Hotel.

After a few hours' rest, we were allowed to go out in parties of ten or twelve to visit the horrid scene of the recent treachery and ma.s.sacre.

The first place my party reached was General Wheeler's so-called entrenchment, the ramparts of which at the highest places did not exceed four feet, and were so thin that at the top they could never have been bullet-proof! The entrenchment and the barracks inside of it were complete ruins, and the only wonder about it was how the small force could have held out so long. In the rooms of the building were still lying strewn about the remains of articles of women's and children's clothing, broken toys, torn pictures, books, pieces of music, etc. Among the books, I picked up a New Testament in Gaelic, but without any name on it. All the blank leaves had been torn out, and at the time I formed the opinion that they had been used for gun-waddings, because, close beside the Testament, there was a broken single-barrelled duck gun, which had evidently been smashed by a 9-pounder shot lying near. I annexed the Testament as a relic, and still have it. The Psalms and Paraphrases in Gaelic verses are complete, but the first chapter of Matthew and up to the middle of the seventh verse of the second chapter are wanting. The Testament must have belonged to some Scotch Highlander in the garrison. I have more than once thought of sending it home to the Highland Society as a relic of the Mutiny.

From the entrenchment we went to the Suttee Chowrah _ghat_, where the doomed garrison were permitted to embark in the boats in which they were murdered, and traces of the treachery were still very plain, many skeletons, etc., lying about unburied among the bushes.

We then went to see the slaughter-house in which the unfortunate women and children had been barbarously murdered, and the well into which their mangled bodies were afterwards flung. Our guide was a native of the ordinary camp-follower cla.s.s, who could speak intelligible barrack-room English. He told us that he had been born in a battery of European artillery, in which his forefathers had been s...o...b..acks for unknown generations, and his name, he stated, was "Peshawarie," because he had been born in Peshawur, when the English occupied it during the first advance to Caubul. His apparent age coincided with this statement.

He claimed to have been in Sir Hugh Wheeler's entrenchment with the artillery all the time of the siege, and to have had a narrow escape of his life at the last. He told us a story which I have never seen mentioned elsewhere, that the Nana Sahib, through a spy, tried to bribe the commissariat bakers who had remained with the English to put a.r.s.enic into the bread, which they refused to do, and that after the ma.s.sacre of the English at the _ghat_ the Nana had these bakers taken and put alive into their own ovens, and there cooked and thrown to the pigs. These bakers were Mahommedans. Of course, I had no means of testing the truth of this statement.[3] Our guide showed no desire to minimise the horrors of the ma.s.sacre and the murders to which he said he had been an eye-witness. However, from the traces, still too apparent, the bare facts, without exaggeration, must have been horrible enough. But with reference to the women and children, from the cross-questions I put to our guide, I then formed the opinion, which I have never since altered, that most of the European women had been most barbarously murdered, but not dishonoured, with the exception of a few of the young and good-looking ones, who, our guide stated, were forcibly carried off to become Mahommedans. But I need not dwell on these points. These are the opinions I formed in October, 1857, three months after the ma.s.sacre, and nothing which I have since learnt during my thirty-five years' residence in India has led me to alter them.

Most of the men of my company visited the slaughter-house and well, and what we there saw was enough to fill our hearts with feelings which I need not here dwell on; it was long before those feelings could be controlled. On the date of my visit a great part of the house had not been cleaned out; the floors of the rooms were still covered with congealed blood, littered with trampled, torn dresses of women and children, shoes, slippers, and locks of long hair, many of which had evidently been severed from the living scalps by sword-cuts. But among the traces of barbarous torture and cruelty which excited horror and a desire for revenge, one stood out prominently beyond all others. It was an iron hook fixed into the wall of one of the rooms in the house, about six feet from the floor. I could not possibly say for what purpose this hook had originally been fixed in the wall. I examined it carefully, and it appeared to have been an old fixture, which had been seized on as a diabolic and convenient instrument of torture by the inhuman wretches engaged in murdering the women and children. This hook was covered with dried blood, and from the marks on the whitewashed wall, it was evident that a little child had been hung on to it by the neck with its face to the wall, where the poor thing must have struggled for long, perhaps in the sight of its helpless mother, because the wall all round the hook on a level with it was covered with the hand-prints, and below the hook with the foot-prints, in blood, of a little child.

At the time of my visit the well was only about half-filled in, and the bodies of the victims only partially covered with earth. A gallows, with three or four ropes ready attached, stood facing the slaughter-house, half-way between it and the well; and during my stay three wretches were hanged, after having been flogged, and each made to clean about a square foot of the blood from the floor of the house. Our guide told us that these men had only been captured the day before, tried that morning, and found guilty as having a.s.sisted at the ma.s.sacre.

During our visit a party of officers came to the slaughter-house, among whom was Dr. Munro, Surgeon of the Ninety-Third, now Surgeon-General Sir William Munro. When I saw him he was examining the hook covered with dried blood and the hand and foot-prints of the child on the wall, with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He was a most kind-hearted man, and I remember, when he came out of the house, that he cast a look of pity on the three wretches about to be hanged, and I overheard him say to another officer who was with him: "This is horrible and unchristian to look at; but I do hope those are the same wretches who tortured the little child on the hook inside that room." At this time there was no writing either in pencil or charcoal on the walls of the slaughter-house. I am positive on this point, because I looked for any writing. There was writing on the walls of the barracks inside General Wheeler's entrenchment, but not on the walls of the slaughter-house, though they were much splashed with blood and slashed with sword-cuts, where blows aimed at the victims had evidently been dodged and the swords had struck the walls. Such marks were most numerous in the corners of the rooms. The number of victims butchered in the house, counted and buried in the well by General Havelock's force, was one hundred and eighteen women and ninety-two children.

Up to the date of my visit, a brigade-order, issued by Brigadier-General J. G. S. Neill, First Madras Fusiliers, was still in force. This order bears date the 25th of July, 1857. I have not now an exact copy of it, but its purport was to this effect:--That, after trial and condemnation, all prisoners found guilty of having taken part in the murder of the European women and children, were to be taken into the slaughter-house by Major Brace's _mehter_[4] police, and there made to crouch down, and with their mouths lick clean a square foot of the blood-soaked floor before being taken to the gallows and hanged. This order was carried out in my presence as regards the three wretches who were hanged that morning. The dried blood on the floor was first moistened with water, and the lash of the warder was applied till the wretches kneeled down and cleaned their square foot of flooring. This order remained in force till the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell in Cawnpore on the 3rd of November, 1857, when he promptly put a stop to it as unworthy of the English name and a Christian Government. General Neill has been much blamed for this order; but in condemning the action we must not overlook the provocation. The general saw more of the horrors of Cawnpore than I did; but what I saw, and the stories which were told by natives who claimed to have been eye-witnesses of the horrible scenes which they described, were enough to make the words _mercy_ and _pardon_ appear a mockery; and in pa.s.sing judgment on him we must not forget the proclamations of the Nana Sahib. These have often been published, and I will only give one extract bearing on the murder of the women and children. The extract is as follows, and was part of a proclamation placarded all over Cawnpore: "To extinguish a fire and leave a spark, to kill a snake and preserve its young, is not the wisdom of men of sense."

However, let General Neill speak for himself. The following is a copy of one of his own letters, taken from Colonel White's _Reminiscences_. On page 135 he writes: "_The Well and Slaughter-house, Cawnpore_.--My object was to inflict a fearful punishment for a revolting, cowardly, and barbarous deed, and to strike terror into the rebels. The first I caught was a _subadar_ or native officer, a high-caste Brahmin, who tried to resist my order of the 25th of July 1857, to clean the very blood which he had helped to shed; but I made the provost-marshall do his duty, and a few lashes compelled the miscreant to accomplish his work. When done he was taken out and immediately hanged, and buried in a ditch by the roadside. No one who has witnessed the scenes of murder, mutilation, and ma.s.sacre can ever listen to the word 'mercy' as applicable to these fiends."

As already said, before condemning General Neill's order we must give due weight to the terrible provocation, the horrible scenes he saw, and the still more horrible stories he heard related by natives who either had or pretended to have been eye-witnesses of the facts they described.

Even after the lapse of thirty-five years such horrors cannot be calmly contemplated; they can only be hinted at here. Such stories were common in camp, and believed not only by the soldiers in the ranks, but by officers of position; and in judging General Neill's order we must give due weight to the pa.s.sionate nature of the man, and recollect that General Havelock, his senior, must have approved of the order, or he would have cancelled it.

But enough of ma.s.sacre and revenge for the present; I shall return to General Neill's order when I describe my revisit to Cawnpore. In the meantime I should much like to know whether the late Major A. H. S.

Neill, who commanded the Central India Horse, and was shot on parade by Sowar Mazar Ali, at Augur, Central India, on the 14th of March, 1887, was a son of General Neill of Mutiny fame. Mazar Ali was sentenced to death by Sir Lepel Griffin, as Governor-General's agent; but I did not see a full account of the trial, and I ask for the above information to corroborate a statement made to me, on my late visit to the scenes of the Mutiny, by a native who admitted that he had been an armourer in the rebel force at Cawnpore, but had joined the English after the defeat of the Gwalior Contingent in December, 1857.[5]