Chapter II. 1857. August. Eyre's great triumph, came, in a distorted and BOOK VII. inaccurate shape, the intelligence of Tayler's withdrawal order. The danger was now over; the tears in the council-chamber of Belvedere* were dried up; a feverish exaltation followed. It was necessary that some proof should be given that energy had not died out in Bengal. Mr. Tayler's withdrawal order furnished the opportunity. Forgetting, or choosing not to remember, his transcendent services, the fact that he had never despaired of the safety of his division, that he had baffled the counsels of the mutineers, and had suppressed, unaided, the rising of Patná; that he had been the rock on which every hope in Bihar had rested; that he had cheered the despairing, stimulated the wavering, roused to action even the faint heart of the soldier; forgetting, or choosing not to remember, these great achievements, the Government of Bengal, acting in concert with the Government of India, seized upon his withdrawal order to dismiss Mr. Tayler from his post, to consign the saviour of Bihár, in the very morning dawn of the triumph which he had prepared, to signal and unmerited disgrace. The Government of Bengal added insult to injury. Not content with suppressing the fact that Mr. Tayler had coupled with the order for the withdrawal of the officials from Gayá a direction that they should bring with them the treasure under their charge, unless by so doing their personal safety should be endangered, Mr. Halliday did not scruple to charge with being actuated by * The seat of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Dismisses from his post 118 THE DISMISSAL AS UNGENEROUS Chapter II. 1857. BOOK VII. panic the man whose manly bearing had been throughout an example to the whole of India. It would be difficult to produce, in the annals of official persecution, rife as they are with perversions of truth, a statement more gratuitous.t August. **** * Mr. Halliday wrote on ler learned the defeat of Capthe 5th of August: "It appears tain Dunbar and his detach from a letter just received ment of upwards of 400 men, from Mr. Tayler, that, whilst he received a letter from Mr. apparently under the influence Bax, the magistrate with Major of a panic, he has ordered the Eyre, informing him that Eyre officials at all the stations in at the head of 150 men was his division to abandon their about to attempt the task in posts and fall back on Dina- which Dunbar had failed, and pore. Under these asking his opinion. Mr. Tayler circumstances I have deter- thereupon wrote to Mr. Bax, mined at once to remove Mr. telling him of Dunbar's deTayler from his appointment feat, and expressing his opinion of Commissioner of Patna." that it would be prudent if It was on Mr. Halliday's report Major Eyre were to drop down that Mr. Tayler was subse- in his steamer to Dánápúr, quently described by the Go- take up reinforcements there, vernor-General as "showing a and advance thence on Arah. great want of calmness and Mr. Tayler did not even send firmness"; as "issuing an or- this letter to Mr. Bax. He der quite beyond his compe- sent it open to Major-General tency"; as "interfering with Lloyd, that the General might the military authorities." Mr. forward it with such instrucHalliday subsequently "ex- tions as he might think fit plained" officially, that "panic to give. Who will deny that was apparent on the face of in thus expressing his opinion Mr. Tayler's order, and spe- Mr. Tayler performed only a cially from his urgent and clear and imperative duty? reiterated advice, if not order, to Major Eyre, not to advance to the relief which saved Arah.' With respect to this last charge it may be as well to state, once for all, that Mr. Tayler never addressed Major Eyre on the subject of the advance on Arah. What he did do was simply this. On the evening of the day on which Mr. Tay Sir John Kaye has thus ably summarised the arguments on this point:-"On the whole, it appears to me, on mature consideration, that the orders issued by Mr. Tayler were not of such a character as to merit the condemnation which Government passed upon them. It is not to be questioned that up to the time But the fiat had gone forth. Mr. William Tayler was dismissed from his post. His career of the mutiny of the Dinapore against us, and there seemed regiments, the whole bearing to be no hope left that the of the Patna Commissioner scattered handfuls of Englishwas manly to a point of manli- men at the out-stations could ness not often excelled in those escape utter destruction, he troubled times. He had ex- deemed it his duty to revoke horted all his countrymen to the orders which he had issued cling steadfastly to their posts. in more auspicious times, and He had rebuked those who to call into Patna such of our had betrayed their fears by English establishments as had deserting their stations. His not already been swept away measures had been bold; his by the rebellion or escaped conduct had been courageous; without official recall. In dohis policy had been severely ing this he generously took repressive. If he had erred, upon himself the responsiassuredly his errors had not bility of withdrawal, and ableaned to the side of weakness. solved all the officers under He was one of the last men in him from any blame which the service to strike his colours, might descend upon them for save under the compulsion of deserting their stations witha great necessity. But when out the sanction of superior the Dinapore regiments broke authority. It was not doubted into rebellion-when the Euro- that if there had been any pean troops, on whom he had reasonable ground of hope relied, proved themselves to that these little assemblies of be incapable of repressing Englishmen could hold their mutiny on the spot, or over- own, that they could save their taking it with swift retribu- lives and the property of tion-when it was known that Government by defending thousands of insurgent Sepoys their posts, it would have been were over-running the country, better that the effort should and that the country, in the be made. But their destruclanguage of the day, was "up" tion would have been a greater -that some of the chief mem- calamity to the State than bers of the territorial aristo- their surrender. It was imcracy had risen against the possible to overvalue the worth domination of the English, of European life at that time, and that the predatory classes, and the deaths of so many including swarms of released Englishmen would have been convicts from the gaols, were a greater triumph and a waging deadly war against greater encouragement to the property and life-when he enemy than their flight. It saw that all these things were was the hour of our greatest BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. August. BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. August. in the Indian Civil Service was ruined by one stroke of the pen. And yet this man had accomplished as much as any individual man to save India in her great danger. He had done more than Mr. Halliday, who recalled him; more than the Government which supported Mr. Halliday. With a courage as true and a resolution as undaunted as that which he showed when dealing with the Patná mutineers, Mr. Tayler has struggled since, he is struggling still, for the reversal of the unjust censure which blighted his career. Subsequent events have singularly justified the action which, at the time, was so unpalatable to Mr. Halliday. Mr. Tayler's denunciation of the Wáhábí leaders, treated as a fable by his superiors, has been upheld to the full by the discoveries of recent years. It has darkness and our sorest need. and gorged with plunder, upon We know now how Wake and Gya and other stations, carryBoyle and Colvin and their ing destruction with them comrades in the little house wheresoever they might go. held the enemy in check, and What the Commissioner then how Vincent Eyre taught both did was what had been done and the Sepoy mutineers and the what was being done by other Shahabad insurgents that authorities, civil and military, there was still terrible vitality in other parts of the country; in our English troops. Of it was held to be sound policy this William Tayler knew to draw in our scattered outnothing. But he had palpably posts to some central point of before him the fact of Dun- safety where the enemy might bar's disaster, and he believed be defied. In this I can perthat nothing could save the ceive no appearance of panic. If little garrison at Arrah. The Tayler had not acted thus, and probabilities at the time were evil had befallen the Christian that the Dinapore regiments, people under his charge, he with Kower Singh and his would have been condemned followers, having done their with a far severer condemnawork in that direction, would tion for so fatal an omission." move, flushed with conquest * Vide Appendix A. been abundantly shown that, to his energetic action alone was it due that Patná escaped a terrible disaster. The suppressed words of the withdrawal order have been published to the world, and the charge of panic has been recognized everywhere as untrue. Chapter II. 1857. August. It is a curious and a very remarkable fact that Recantation of Mr. Tayler's of the members of the Council of the Governor- judges. General who supported at the time Mr. Halliday's action, two have, in later years, expressed their regret that they acted hastily and on incorrect information. "Time," wrote, in 1868, one of the most prominent amongst them, Mr. Dorin, "time has shown that he (Mr. Halliday) was wrong and that you were right."* Another, the then Military Member of Council, General Sir John Low, G.C.B., thus, in 1867, recorded his opinion: "I well remember my having, as a Member of Lord Canning's Council, concurred with his Lordship in the censure which he passed upon your conduct. . but it has since been provedincontestably proved-that the data on which that decision was based were quite incorrect! I sincerely believe that your skilful and vigorous management of the disaffected population of Patná was of immense value to the Government of India, "I can, of course, have no acquainted with the subse sort of objection to repeat," quent progress of events, he wrote, in 1868, the gentleman would most likely have changed who was Lord Canning's pri- his opinion as to the treatment vate secretary in 1857," what you have experienced; and if is a very sincere conviction, he had changed his opinion, that if Lord Canning had seen a man of his noble character the papers which you have now would have been forward to say to produce, and been made so, and to do you justice.” |