BOOK VII. Chapter II.

1857. August.

Justice still denied him.

and that in the last few months of your Commissionership, commencing with the arrest of the three Wáhábí conspirators, and the disarming of the greater portion of the inhabitants of Patná city, your services were of more vital importance to the public interests than those of many officers, both civil and military, during the whole period of their Indian career, in less critical times, who have been rewarded-and justly rewarded-by honours from the Queen; while your services, by an extraordinary combination of unlucky circumstances, have hitherto been overlooked." It is not less remarkable that three ex-Governors and two ex-Lieutenant Governors of the presidencies and provinces of India have recorded similar opinions, whilst one gentleman, decorated for his distinguished conduct in the province of which Mr. Tayler was the pro-consul, has not hesitated to inform him that until Mr. Tayler should be rewarded for the conduct which saved the province, it would be too painful for him "to wear in your presence the decoration which I have so gratefully received from Her Majesty."

His comrades in India, then, and the public generally, have rendered to Mr. William Tayler the justice which is still denied him by the Government which he served so truly and with such signal success. The ban of official displeasure still blights his declining years. Whilst his rival, decorated by the Crown, has been awarded a seat in the Council of India, he "who was right when that rival was wrong," still remains in the cold shade of official neglect. Although with a

THE DENIAL A SCANDAL TO ENGLAND. 123

pertinacity which is the result of conscious rectitude Mr. Tayler has pressed upon each succeeding Secretary of State his claims for redress, that redress has still been, up to the latest date, denied him. It seems to be considered that the lapse of years sanctions a wrong, should that wrong in the interval remain unatoned for. We English not only boast of our justice, but, in the haughtiness of our insular natures, we are apt to reproach the French for the manner in which they treated the great men of their nation who strove unsuccessfully to build up a French empire in India. We taunt them with having sent Lally to the block, and allowed Dupleix to die in misery and in want. But, looking at our treatment of Mr. William Tayler, can we say that, even with the advantages which a century of civilization has given us, our hands are more clean? This man saved a province. In saving that province it is possible that he saved with it districts outside his own. Yet is he not, I ask, looking at the treatment he received, is he not entitled to use, if not the very words, yet the sense of the very words employed by Dupleix in 1764: "I have sacrificed," wrote three months before he died that greatest of Indo-French administrators, "I have sacrificed my youth, my fortune, my life, to enrich my nation in Asia

My services are treated as fables; my demand is denounced as ridiculous. I am treated as the vilest of mankind." To this day the treatment of Dupleix is a lasting stain on French administration. I most fervently hope, for the credit of my country, that our children and our children's

BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. August.

Can the lapse tion a wrong?

of time sanc

BOOK VII. Chapter II.

1857.

August.

children may not be forced to blush for a similar stain resting on the annals of England; that the French may never have it in their power to return the reproach which our historians have not been slow to cast at them. In the history of the mutiny there is no story which appeals more to the admiration than the story of this man guiding, almost unaided, a province through the storm, training his crew and keeping down the foe, whilst yet both hands were at the wheel, and in the end steering his tossed vessel into the harbour of safety. Character, courage, tact, clearness of vision, firmness of brain, were in him alike conspicuous. May it never descend to posterity that in the councils of England services so distinguished were powerless in the presence of intrigue!

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER III.

WE left Major Eyre enjoying, on the early morn Arah after of the 3rd of August, the triumph of his decisive the relief. victory. It is difficult even to imagine a position more gratifying to a high-minded soldier than that which he then occupied. Of the dangers he had incurred in attempting the relief of Arah that to his life had been the least. He had risked his reputation as a soldier, his very commission as an officer; for he had turned aside without authority from his course. And now, he could scarcely exaggerate to himself the importance of the results of his daring. To have saved his fellowcountrymen was a great thing; but, for the interests of India it was greater still to have dealt a staggering blow at victorious rebellion, to have saved all Bihár from the fate which, but for him, would have overtaken Arah.

But even in that hour of triumph Eyre must have felt, and Eyre did feel, that his task was but half accomplished. A "staggering blow" may

BOOK VII. Chapter III.

* 1857. August 3.

baffle a murderous onslaught, but unless the recipient of it be thoroughly disabled a renewal of the attack is always possible. So reasoned Eyre. The rebels whom he had baulked of their prey were still strong enough to return. His very Eyre resolves departure would invite them. He felt, then, that he must follow up his victory and pursue the sepoys to the stronghold of the great landowner whom they had recognised as their leader.

to follow up the blow.

The task was not easy. The roads were reported to be almost impassable; the country surrounding the stronghold of Kúnwar Singh was described as inaccessible. But the events of the previous eight-and-forty hours had told their tale. The mental courage which had dared, the skill and gallantry which had carried to success, the march on Arah, had been marked and appreciated by the Englishmen who had followed Eyre. No men are more quick to discern noble qualities in a leader than the private soldier. It was a striking testimony to the hold which Eyre's conduct and character had taken on the minds of the men of the 5th Fusiliers, that when they heard that he was about to lead them across those impassable roads to an inaccessible stronghold, they were loud in their expressions of the confidence with which they would hail the order to move onwards.*

*In his report to Army Head-quarters, Captain L'Estrange, commanding the detachment of the 5th Fusiliers, after describing the reported difficulties of the march, added: "Under all the circum

stances, a feeling of doubt, if not of apprehension, as to the success of our expedition might easily have pervaded troops less confident than ours were in the judgment, talent, and courage of our leader."