LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 702.-7 NOVEMBER, 1857. From Blackwood's Magazine for September. vailed among the troops, in consequence of a prevalent notion that a compulsory converTHE British public is notoriously slow to sion of the natives was intended." He realize a great disaster. The national self-added, that "it was not his wish to alarm reliance seems impenetrable to the voice of the House or the public-the agitation, he warning: at the first note of evil tidings, trusted was limited to a few of the troops, the money-market-our only sensitive organ and would speedily be repressed!" The -is kept quiet by assurances that the ac- President of the Board of Control was at counts are exaggerated, and the worst is this time in possession of despatches anover. In Parliament, a Government which nouncing the disappearance of six regiments has no secrets from the enemy either evades from the strength of the Bengal army, the inquiry, or answers with a misplaced vaunt. commission of horrible atrocities by the It is only by degrees that the truth creeps Sepoys on their officers, and the seizure of out. Private information appears in the Delhi with the proclamation of a Mussulman papers; admissions are gradually extorted emperor! To Lord Ellenborough's suggesof all the red-tapists, denied before; and as tion that a proclamation should be issued to the different statements get pieced together, tranquilize the angry suspicions of the native the public wakes up with a roar, and incon- soldiery, Lord Granville replied-for there tinently plunges into a panic. Then a min- must always be a reply that the Indian ister or a cabinet must be sacrificed; commit- Government had acted judiciously in not taktees and commissions are voted to inquire ing any such step. Yet, if his lordship had whom we shall hang; millions are flung read his despatches, he would have found about in frantic profusion; reforms long talked of are adopted with bewildering precipitation-till, having put itself through all its paces, and beginning to suspect that its indignation is hardly more creditable than the original impassibility, the magnanimous public subsides into a calm, and finishes with the indiscriminate decoration of accusers and accused. that a similar suggestion had proceeded from the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-western Provinces; and the proclamation was actually issued by the Governor-General on the 16th May! So unequal, too, was the action of the home authorities to the emergency reported, that, notwithstanding the loud cry from India for the immediate despatch of every Such is the routine: it has been faithfully English soldier that could be spared, it was followed, up to the time we write, in the mat- thought enough, as late as the end, of June, ter of the Bengal mutiny; it may have com- to have placed four regiments under orders pleted its circle before what we write can to embark for India. Happily 10,000 men appear in print. The disaffection which, had returned to Bombay from the Persian long smouldering in the Bengal army, began expedition, and the force despatched from to show itself in action as early as January this country for China will have been diverted last, attained to a crisis in the second week to a duty more consonant with justice and of May. An official narrative of its rise and the security of the British Empire. For progress was despatched from Calcutta on these reinforcements, however, the Indian the 18th of that month. Lord Ellenbor- Government is no way indebted to the foreough, with his usual vigilance, adverted to sight or judgment of the Cabinet at home. the subject in the House of Lords on the 9th Their mouthpiece in the House of Lords June, and was answered by Lord Granville, again assured us, on the 29th June, that the that he hoped the accounts were exagger-disaffection in India was "exaggerated by ated! Two days after, Mr. Vernon Smith in the noble earl. There was no occasion for opposing the petition of some missionaries alarm, and it was quite unnecessary to call in Bengal, told the House "it could not be out the militia." On the same evening the disguised that considerable disaffection pre- President of the Board of Control told the LIVING AGE. VOL. XIX. 21 DCCII. other House that the additional forces were not a national revolt, we had to deal with. sent out simply as a measure of security, not Admitting the delicacy and importance of at all as believing the empire of India to be in peril. the religious question, he coolly observed it was nothing new, having been agitated so long ago as the mutiny of Vellore! and to remove all remaining uneasiness, his Grace the Duke of Argyll was good enough to promise in. the House of Lords that "Government would put down the insurrection with a high hand, and spare no exertion to maintain our Indian empire!" Very different, and much more sagacious, was the language. held by the leader of the Conservative Opposition. "No one," said Mr. Disraeli, "could shut his eyes to the extreme peril to which, at this moment, our authority is subject in that country; but I cannot say little as my confidence has ever been in the Government of India-that I August comes, and with it the assurance take those despairing or desperate views that the troops to be despatched to India with respect to our position which, in mo- amount to 30,000. Now, too, Lord Ellenments of danger or calamity, are too often borough's suggestion-ridiculed by Lord prevalent. I would express my opinion, Granville two months before-to embody the that the tenure by which we hold India is militia, is adopted with the entire approval not a frail tenure; but when we consider that of H.R.H. the Commander-in-chief. Still, that great country is inhabited by twenty- at late as the 11th, General Evans denounced five nations, different in race, different in re- with reason, the tardy despatch of the troops, ligion, and different in language, I think it is while many leading military members joined not easy-perhaps it is not possible-for such in his complaint that Government was not. heterogeneous elements to fuse into perfect sufficiently alive to the danger. combination. EVERYTHING, HOWEVER, IS POSSIBLE EVERY DISASTER IS PRACTICABLE IF THERE BE AN INEFFICIENT OR NEGLIGENT GOVERNMENT." -Three months have now elapsed since the despatch of that mail, which Mr. Vernon Smith so pleasantly told us, came away a day or two too soon to bring the intelligence of the recapture of Delhi and the entire sup-. pression of the revolt. Each succeeding mail has brought tidings only of its extension. The armies of the other Presidencies are happily still stanch; but it would be rashness, rather than wisdom, to predict for one week the fidelity of any native troops, while insurrection maintains itself in Bengal. We are far enough from despair, but we are more than ever impressed with the correctness of Mr. Disraeli's remark, that "any disaster is practicable if there be a negligent or inefficient government." These are the sentiments which actuate, to a man, the persons now in England best acquainted with the condition of India. Of all dangers or disasters, there is none which more quickly sends the blood out of an old Anglo-Indian's face than the prospect of mutiny among the native troops on the ground of caste or religion. Yet this is the very danger of which the Home Government and the public generally were apprised with so little emotion. Anglo-Indians, however, are in sufficient numbers at home to impart their apprehensions to a large portion of society. By the middle of July, Ministers We agree at once with the Government and had roused themselves to the determina- the journals, that it is a military mutiny, not tion of sending 20,000 troops to India. a national revolt, which threatens us: but The President of the India Board-of whom we are unable to share the consolation which Lord Ellenborough, with more candor than they derive from the distinction, when we politeness, declared that " in his constant and remember that it is exclusively on the miliextensive communications with gentlemen tary arm that the possession of India deconnected with India, he never met a man pends. From the Himalayas to Cape Comowho had not the most thorough distrust of rin, the use of the term "national" is in the right hon. gentleman,"-promised to lay India a "mockery, a delusion, and a snare." 'papers" on the table of Parliament; and on The great continent to which we assign that the 27th, the question attained the dignity appellation, contains (exclusively of its Ma-of a field-day in the House of Commons. homedan invaders) a good score of native Mr. Vernon Smith was then content to main- populations, far more distinct from each other tain that it was a "mere military mutiny," in language, customs, and religion than the 66 military power. So that to be told this is no national insurrection-this is only a military mutiny-is, in other words, to be assured that we are not experiencing that whica never was, or can be, experienced in Hindustan; we are only threatened with the defection of that organization upon which the possession of the country is entirely and exclusively dependent! nations of Europe. We lump them to- the marbles in his bag. The means by which gether in common parlance under the term each successive change of government has "Hindu," just as, with much nearer approxi- been effected and perpetuated, was invariably mation to correctness, the native accepts "European" for the distinctive appellation of his pale-faced rulers. But the populations of India not only never formed a nation, nor even a confederacy, but they have nothing "national " within themselves. The ancient peculiar polity of the land has been called without much forcing of the term, municipal; every village has a government and a society strongly compacted within itself; but In endeavoring to estimate more correctly its connection with the neighboring commu- the nature and progress of the danger before nities is feeble, and its relations to the Su- us, we would glance back for a moment to preme Government are simply those of a the origin of the force from which it has tributary. The native cultivator, mechanic, arisen. The Bengal Native Army dates its or merchant, has little further concern with birth from exactly one hundred years ago. the ruling power, whether Hindu, Mahome- It was in January 1757, when Calcutta had dan, or British, but to contribute his share of been recaptured from Surajah Dowla, and the rent or taxes levied from the community the British Government re-established by to which he belongs. All that he desires in Clive after the disaster of the Black Hole, return, and usually desires in vain,-is the protection of an efficient police, with the administration of justice in matters above the reach of the village conclave. For the rest, he only asks to be let alone to tread the little round that his parents trod before him; to scratch the fields with the same crooked stick that served his father for a plough; to shave with the same razor the children of those whom his father shaved of old; to beat upon the same great stone, with the identical jerk and groan wherewith his father made the river's bank resound, the scant apparel by a havildar), in the centre of which the of his dusty clan; to tell the same stories, subadar was allowed to bear his own device eat the same food, share the same ceremo- or badge, such as a sabre, dagger, crescent, nies, lead the same stolid life, and die the &c.* same apathetical death, which millions have done, are doing, and will continue to do, before, around, and after himself, in most supreme indifference whether Prospero or Stephano be king of the island. To talk of national insurrection, national discontent, national education, or national any thing, among a population of this description, is to talk ignorantly. The utmost extent of their political cohesion is that of marbles in a bag; the sole questions open to debate are the color and texture of the bag, or whether a marble more or less shall rattle in its interior. It is this condition which has made India, from the most ancient times, the easy, almost willing prey of every adventurer, native or foreign, who had a mind to put that the first battalion of Bengal Sepoys was raised and officered from a detachment which accompanied Clive from Madras. Its estab, lishment was one European captain, lieutenant, and ensign, who acted as field-officers; a native commandant and adjutant, with one subadar (captain), and three jemadars (subalterns), to each of the ten companies. The company consisted of five havildars (sergeants), four naiks (corporals), two tomtoms (drummers), one trumpeter, and seventy Sepoys: each company had a color (carried Such was the rude organization-such the feeble establishment of European officerswith which Clive was satisfied to lead his Sepoys against the native armies of Hindustan, fighting under their own chiefs, and in possession of a dominion which they deemed insuperable. The total force with which the great founder of this army undertook the subversion of the kingdom of Bengal consisted of 3100 men, of whom only 900 were Europeans! The army he encountered at Plassey numbered 50,000 foot, 18,000 horse, and a strong train of artillery. Such was the unequal match played on the 23d June 1757, directly for the fair provinces of Ben *WILLIAM'S Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Native Infantry. gal, Bahar, and Orissa, but ultimately for the ments were broken in 1782 for mutiny originimperial sceptre of India. Clive was aided, ating in a mistaken suspicion that they were it is true, at Plassey, by treachery and defec- to be sent to sea. Seven years later, Lord tion within the ranks of the enemy. The Cornwallis called for volunteers from the nabob himself, no less cowardly than cruel, regiments at the Presidency to proceed to fled with a numerous army as soon as he Sumatra; and after some opposition from the learned the desertion of Jaffier. Many a native officers, this experiment was effected bloodier field has since been fought in India, by a bounty of ten rupees to every Sepoy but it was Plassey that first witnessed that before embarkation, with a gratuity of a simple policy which established, and which month's pay, and full batta on their return. alone can perpetuate, the British ascendancy Expeditions by sea have since been effected -the unhesitating advance of the English without difficulty; yet it was thought ansoldier on every enemy that presents himself, other triumph over the prejudices of caste, be the disproportion in numbers or materiel what it may. when in our own time the Bengal Sepoys were led without a murmur across the Indus, which forms the opposite boundary of their sacred soil. Brahminism in truth as much When Lord Clive returned to the supreme command in 1765, the Bengal army was but little increased in numerical strength. Yet an invader in India as Mahomedanism, but the Great Mogul and his principal feudatory having, like all other invasions, entered from the Nabob of Oude, were soon after prisoners the northwest, and settled in the fertile plains at one time in the British camp; while of the which are watered by Ganges, it had the wistwo pretenders to the kingdom of Bengal, dom to invest that mighty river with a one was a puppet appointed and governed by religious character, and consecrate its newthe Council at Calcutta, the other a hopeless found home as the land of the gods. The fugitive on the banks of the Indus. Even at provinces on either side of the sacred stream that early period, however, mutiny frequently thus became the headquarters of Brahminagitated an army which was almost a stranger ism, as for similar reasons the strength of the to defeat. Sometimes German or French Mussulman religion is still found in the upper adventurers in the service of the Company, proposed to carve out an independent career for themselves. Occasionally the more vulgar deficiency of pay and provisions was the exciting cause; hut the most frequent and formidable ground of discontent was that which now meets us again, a century later the suspicion of encroachment on the native caste. The fear was then chiefly of being ordered to sea, which, though in itself no violation of caste, entails so many difficulties in the observance of the prescribed diet and ablutions as to be readily regarded in that light. It was not, indeed, till after the shipwreck of part of the third battalion en route from Madras to Bengal in the year 1769, that the sea became a prominent difficulty. The native, it may be remarked, habitually extends his "custom". beyond the strict requisites of caste, and some craft has been shown both in advancing the plea of religion against a disagreeable duty, and in modifying it to suit a secular convenience.* Four regi Ex. gr. The natives have managed to except their European superiors from the pariah caste, with whom they could hold no communication without pollution. Infanticide and the rite of suttee were "custom," but not caste. portions of the same territory, where the Mogul invader established his throne. Neither religion ever pervaded the whole of India. In the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, the older worships of various aboriginal or immigrant populations subsist to this day.† Hence the native armies of those Presidencies are comparatively little affected by religious questions; while that of Bengal, recruited for the most part in the heart of Brahminism, and largely composed of its two superior castes, has demanded and obtained a consideration for religious scruples, which has at once impaired its own discipline, and largely excited the jealousy of the sister Presidencies. Sprung from a class which regards the profession of a soldier as only second in honor to that of a priest; infinitely superior in pay and material comforts to the native cultivator or the mechanic; treated both in cantonments and in the field not simply on a par with, but in many points with more solicitous consideration than, the European soldier; indulged with regular furloughs to visit † General Briggs estimates the Aboriginal sects still remaining in India at 16,000,000 in number. the home of his youth, his family, or the | Nagpore-nearly equalling in extent, and shrines of his religion; rising to commissions considerably exceeding in population, the by seniority; decorated with an Order of united possessions of France, Austria, and Merit; and finally assured of a handsome Prussia, in Europe.t pension on retirement,-no private soldier We have now to relate the occurrences which in the world enjoys the advantages of his in a few weeks have dissipated this army like profession to the same extent, or with so few a summer cloud, and perhaps destroyed for of its burdens, as the Bengal Sepoy. His ever the confidence so long reposed in Sepoy position was declared by Lord Dalhousie to fidelity. An uneasy feeling, at times apbe incapable of improvement. All his tempt-proaching to insubordination, had been visiation, in short, arises from having his own ble among the Bengal native troops for some way too much and too often; and of this the years past. Lord Hardinge is said to have Government have latterly become so sensible, been afraid to assemble them in force; and that orders have been issued to abstain from passages are quoted from Sir Charles Napithe old practice of recruiting exclusively or er's writings which abundantly establish the chiefly in the same districts, and to promote dissatisfaction of that gallant, but not uncoma due admixture of castes in the ranks. plaining, general with their discipline, though Every regiment ought to contain at least two we confess we search them in vain for any hundred Sikhs-men who, maintaining a distinct apprehension of a general mutiny. sufficient amount of amour propre on other In January last, a classie (or workman) atgrounds, regard the Brahminical pretensions tached to the magazine at Dum Dum (the with contempt. The Brahmin, however, is artillery station near Calcutta), being refused tall and well-formed, docile, polite, and gen- a draught of water by a Sepoy of the 2nd tlemanly in his demeanor. Six feet in height, Native Infantry on the ground of caste, and forty inches round the chest, are attrac- replied, "You will soon lose your caste, as tions irresistible to recruiting officers and you will have to bite cartridges covered with commandants; and in spite of the orders, the fat of pigs and cows." At this place the two higher castes have continued to main- there is a depot of musketry, where the tain their preponderance in the Bengal in-native soldiers are instructed in the use of fantry. the Enfield rifle. The cartridge for this At the opening of the present year the weapon is made of a thinner and tougher native army of Bengal consisted of 11 regi- paper than the old one, and requires to be ments of light cavalry, and 74 of regular greased on the ball. The above remark infantry, with 4 troops of horse-artillery and having reached the ears of the commandant, 2 battalions, of six companies each, of foot- he inquired, and found the new cartridge was artillery. Augmented by irregular troops to regarded with general suspicion. The native the extent of 23 regiments of cavalry, 7 bat- commissioned officers stated, but in a manner talions of Sikh infantry, and upwards of perfectly respectful, that the mixture used in twenty other corps, it was further supported greasing the ball was open to objection, and by the contingents of various native states, suggested the employment of wax and oil. disciplined and commanded by officers from They were assured the grease was composed the regular regiments. The Company's Eu- of mutton-fat and wax; but they replied, ropean forces were 3 brigades of horse, and that a report to the contrary had spread 6 battalions of foot, artillery, with 3 regiments throughout India, and that if they touched of infantry. The Queen's troops were 2 reg-it, their friends would not believe the explaiments of cavalry and 13 of foot. This mag-nation, and would refuse to eat with them. nificent force was distributed, in nearly a hundred military stations, over a country stretching from the mouths of the Ganges to Affghanistan, and from the Himalayas to † Bengal, Square miles. 412,627 North-Western Provinces, 100,889 Population. 59,445,299 83,742,766 513,016 93,188,065 France, 201,961 85,788,170 364,470 52,081,808 566,481 87,864,978 The following was the distribution of castes in the 34th regiment at the time of its recent mutiny and disbandment:-Brahmins 385, Rajpoots 237, Hindus of inferior caste 231, Mussulmans 200, Sikhs 74, Christians (drummers, &c.), 12; total, 1089. The 19th contained 409 Brahmins and 150 book just published by General Briggs. Rajpoots. These figures are taken from a valuable little |