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[1856-1857 A.D.] which has almost always been guided by pacific interests, and rarely engaged in wars, except from necessity and in self-defence - which began its career with five hundred European soldiers, and seldom had so many as fifty thousand collected around its standards! The history of the world may be sought in vain for a parallel to such a prodigy.

The chief cause of this extraordinary and unparalleled phenomenon is to be found in the presence of constitutional energy in Great Britain during the period when the empire in the East was forming, and the absence of parliamentary control in its direction. The mother country furnished an inexhaustible supply of young men, drawn chiefly from the landed gentry of the middle class, to fill every department both in the civil and military service in the East, while the selection of candidates was exempt from the debasing effects of court favour or parliamentary influence. The command of this extraordinary aggregate of military and civil ability was practically vested in the governor-general at Calcutta, distance and the necessity of self-direction on the spot having rendered nearly impotent for evil the division of power between the East India Company and the board of control, which the strange and anomalous constitution of 1784 theoretically established.

It is to the extraordinary combination of circumstances which gave British India the united advantages of democratic vigour in the classes from which its defenders were taken, with aristocratic perseverance in the senate by which its government was directed, and the unity of despotism in the dictator to whom the immediate execution of the mandates of that senate was entrusted, that the extraordinary growth of the British Empire in India during the century between Plassey and the Mutiny is beyond all question to be ascribed. During that period Great Britain had often at home sustained serious reverses, from the ignorance and incapacity of those whom parliamentary influence or court favour had brought to the head of affairs, or the parsimony with which democratic economy had starved down the national establishment, during peace, to a degree which rendered serious reverses inevitable on the first breaking out of hostilities; but in India, though the usual intermixture of good and evil fortune in human affairs was experienced, there were never awanting, after a short period, troops requisite to repair reverses, and generals capable of leading them to victory.

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CHAPTER VI

THE INDIAN MUTINY

[1857-1858 A.D.]

LORD DALHOUSIE AND THE DOCTRINE OF LAPSE

LORD DALHOUSIE's dealings with the feudatory states of India can only be rightly appreciated as part of his general policy. That rulers only exist for the good of the ruled was his supreme axiom of government, of which he gave the most conspicuous example by the practice of his own daily life. That British administration was better for the people than native rule followed from this axiom as a necessary corollary. He was thus led to regard native chiefs from somewhat the same point of view as the Scotch regarded the hereditary jurisdictions after 1745-as mischievous anomalies, to be abolished by every means practicable. Good faith must be kept with rulers on the throne and with their legitimate heirs, but no false sentiment should preserve dynasties that had forfeited all consideration by years of accumulated misrule, or prolong those that had no natural successor.

The "doctrine of lapse" was merely a special application of these principles, though complicated by the theory of adoption. It has never been doubted that, according to Hindu private law, an adopted son entirely fills the place of a natural son, whether to perform the religious obsequies of his father or to inherit his property. In all respects he continues the persona of the deceased. But it was argued that the succession to a throne stood upon a different footing. The paramount power could not recognise such a right which might be used as a fraud to hand over the happiness of millions to a base-born impostor. Here came in the maxim of "the good of the governed.' The material benefits to be conferred through British administration surely

[1857-1858 A.D.] weighed heavier in the scale than a superstitious and frequently fraudulent fiction of inheritance.

The first state to escheat to the British government in accordance with these principles was Satara, which had been reconstituted by Lord Hastings on the downfall of the peshwa in 1818. The last direct representative of Sivaji died without a male heir in 1848, and his deathbed adoption was set aside. In the same year the Rajput state of Karauli was saved by the interposition of the court of directors, who drew a fine distinction between a dependent principality and a protected ally. In 1833 Jhansi suffered the same fate as Satara. But the most conspicuous application of the doctrine of lapse was the case of Nagpur. The last of the Bhonslas, a dynasty older than the British government itself, died without a son, natural or adopted, in 1853. That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars, or the assigned districts which the nizam of Hyderabad was induced to cede as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually kept in arrear. Three more distinguished names likewise passed away in 1853, though without any attendant accretion to British territory. In the extreme south the titular nawab of the Carnatic and the titular rajah of Tanjore both died without heirs. Their rank and their pensions died with them, though compassionate allowances were continued to their families. In the north of India, Baji Rao, the ex-peshwa, who had been dethroned in 1818, lived on till 1853 in the enjoyment of his annual pension of £80,000. His adopted son, Nana Sahib, inherited his accumulated savings, but could obtain no further recognition.

The marquis of Dalhousie resigned office in March, 1856, being then only forty-four years of age; but he carried home with him the seeds of a lingering illness which resulted in his death in 1860. Excepting Cornwallis, he was the first, though by no means the last, of English statesmen who have fallen victims to their devotion to India's needs. He was succeeded by his friend, Lord Canning, who, at the farewell banquet in England given to him by the court of directors, uttered these prophetic words: "I wish for a peaceful term of office. But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, no larger than a man's hand, but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin." In the following year the sepoys of the Bengal army mutinied, and all the valley of the Ganges from Patna to Delhi rose in open rebellion.

MOTIVES FOR THE MUTINY

The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate to the European mind. The truth seems to be that native opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to believe the wildest stories, and to act precipitately upon their fears. The influence of panic in an Oriental population is greater than might be readily believed. In the first place, the policy of Lord Dalhousie, exactly in proportion as it had been dictated by the most honourable considerations, was utterly distasteful to the native mind. Repeated annexations, the spread of education, the appearance of the steam engine and the telegraph wire, all alike revealed a consistent determination to substitute an English for an Indian civilisation.

The Bengal sepoys, especially, thought that they could see into the future farther than the rest of their countrymen. Nearly all men of high caste, and many of them recruited from Oudh, they dreaded tendencies which they deemed to be denationalising, and they knew at first hand what annexation meant. They believed that it was by their prowess that the Punjab had

[1857-1858 A.D.]

been conquered, and all India was held quiet. The numerous dethroned princes, their heirs and their widows, were the first to learn and take advantage of the spirit of disaffection that was abroad. They had heard of the Crimean War, and were told that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. They had money in abundance with which they could buy the assistance of skilful intriguers. They had everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by a revolution.

Writing on the subject of the causes of the Indian Mutiny, Lord Roberts e declares that the "discontent and dissatisfaction were produced by a policy which, in many instances, the rulers of India were powerless to avoid or postpone, forced upon them as it was by the demands of civilisation and the necessity for a more enlightened legislation." He states that intriguers took advantage of this state of affairs to further their own ends; that it was their policy to alienate the native army, engendering feelings of uneasiness and suspicion by calumniating the authorities, whose measures really were intended to promote the welfare of the masses. He vigorously sustains the authorities as to the integrity of their motives, but he admits that their measures were of necessity obnoxious to the Brahman priesthood as well as distasteful to the natives in general. He admits that, in some instances at least, the measures adopted were premature, and that even so they were not always carried out as judiciously as they might have been, or with sufficient regard to native prejudices.a

Sir A. Lyall, writing with full knowledge of the psychology of the peoples involved, declares that "in Asia a triumphant army like the Janisaries of the Mamelukes almost always becomes ungovernable so soon as it becomes stationary." He says that the sepoys of the Bengal army had an exaggerated idea of their own importance; and that the annexation of Oudh in 1856 touched their pride and affected their interests. It was this province from which the army secured most of its high-caste recruits. Men in this excitable condition required only some slight stimulus to bring them into open revolt. This stimulus being found in the use of greased cartridges which roused their caste prejudices, they mutinied."

The nature of Great Britain's hold upon India was so anomalous that the reflective had constantly doubted of its permanence. Her conquests had been chiefly effected by native armies, and continued to be ruled by their instrumentality; but it was unreasonable to think that the mere military allegiance of the sepoy would be always superior to those ties of nationality which connected him with the vanquished.

As if also to teach these men their own strength and resources, the native armies in the British service had now increased to an alarming amount as compared with the European soldiers. Each of the three presidencies, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, had its own army; but while they mustered in all 300,000 men, of these there were only about 43,000 who were British. Of all these armies, the most efficient for useful service, as well as the most prompt for revolt, and the most to be feared in such an event, was the army of Bengal, consisting of 118,600 native, and only 22,600 European soldiers. It was from this army accordingly that most danger had for some time been apprehended. A single random spark would be enough to set its whole religious bigotry in a blaze. And even already a deep cause of offence existed in the Bengal army, on account of the annexation of the kingdom of Oudh.

These and other such causes, which had been gathering and growing for years, had already matured into a deep and widely-extended conspiracy for the overthrow of the British dominion in India; but the particulars of the plan and the persons who devised it are still involved in obscurity. It is

(1857-1858 A.D.] supposed, however, that the court of Persia was the principal focus of the conspiracy, and that the Mohammedans of the north of India were its chief agents and disseminators. Those men, who might be termed the Norman aristocracy of Hindustan, owed an especial grudge to the British by whom they had been supplanted; and they endeavoured to work upon the credulity of the Hindu soldiery, by assuring them that the British intended to overthrow their creed and compel them to become Christians. This was enough to remind them of the conversions of Tipu Sahib, who propagated Islam by fire and sword.

It is supposed that these Mohammedan intriguers intended to replace the old king of Delhi upon the throne of his ancestors, and to rule under his name; and it is known that they were endeavouring to incite Dost Muhammed, the king of Kabul, to prepare for the invasion of the Punjab, as soon as the revolt of the Bengal army, upon which they had calculated, should leave that territory defenceless. Even these representations might have been ineffectual with the Hindu soldiers, had they not been apparently confirmed by an act of the British government itself.

THE GREASED CARTRIDGES AND THE UNLEAVENED CHUPATTIES

This was the affair of greased cartridges, that served originally as a pretext for the outbreak. The Enfield rifle, an improvement upon the Menié, heretofore in use among the troops, had been introduced at the commencement of 1857 into the Bengal army; and as greased cartridges were necessary for its effective use, these were issued to the troops along with the weapon. A report was immediately circulated that the grease used in the preparation of these cartridges was a mixture of the fat of cows and pigs-the first of these animals being the objects of Hindu adoration, and the last of Mohammedan abhorrence.

The first occasion on which the rumour was heard was the following: at Dumdum, where there was a school of practice for the new Enfield rifle, a sepoy soldier, a Brahman, was asked by a man of low caste to be permitted to drink out of his lotah, or vessel of water, to whom he replied, "I have scoured my lotah, and you will pollute it by your touch." "You think much of your caste," said the other angrily, "but wait a little, and the European will make you bite cartridges soaked in cow and pork fat, and then where will your caste be?"

The sepoy reported these words to his comrades, and they quickly reached Barrackpur, at which several native regiments were stationed. It was in vain they were assured by the government that no such grease had been used in the preparation of the paper in question, and that if they had scruples in the matter, they were at liberty to procure their own ingredients at the bazaar. The report still continued to strengthen at Barrackpur among the four native regiments stationed there; and on the 6th of February a sepoy revealed to an officer the plot of his companions, who were alarmed with the fear of being compelled to abandon their caste and become Christians. From his revelation it appeared that these regiments intended to rise against their officers, and after plundering or burning down their bungalows, to march to Calcutta, and there attempt to seize Fort William, or failing in this, to take possession of the treasury.

This state of things was too alarming to be neglected, and measures were taken by the British commanders and their officers to still the apprehensions of the native soldiery. They were publicly addressed on parade with the

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