BOOK VII. Chapter I.

1857. June 6.

ing almost

complete.

12

FURTHER AWAKENING OF THE GOVERNMENT.

the same weakness of political vision, and the same distrust of their own countrymen.

On the night of the 6th of June the native The awaken regiment at Alláhábád which, the previous day, had been thanked by the Government for its professions of unswerving loyalty, mutinied and murdered nearly all its officers, including some young boys just arrived from England. The fortress of Alláhábád, occupying a most commanding position on the Jamná, and considered the gateway to the North-West, escaped by a miracle. The telegraphic lines were cut or destroyed, and communication with the army before Dehlí became impossible except by way of Láhor or Bombay. The troops in Rájpútáná and in Central India were likewise reported to have risen. There had been a mutiny at Banáras, but thanks to the wise and statesmanlike conduct of Mr. Frederic Gubbins of the Civil Service, and the bold measures adopted by Colonel Neill and his Madras Fusiliers, the mutiny had been suppressed, and the disaffected of the great Hindú city had been overawed.

Lord Canning's anxiety

From the 7th of June, indeed, it may be truly affirmed that the outlook to the Government of India had become darkness intensified. Mr. Beadon's intact line of six hundred miles had been attempted in many places. Beyond it all was impenetrable.

In this extremity the Government still clung regarding his to the army before Dehlí. On the 10th of June Lord Canning drafted to the Major-General commanding that army a letter in which he urged

line.

*

MR. GRANT'S PRACTICAL ADVICE.

13

him to send southwards, with the least possible delay, an European force as large as he could spare. He kept the letter by him for eleven days, and only despatched it when the chances of relieving the central line from Calcutta seemed almost desperate.

BOOK VII. Chapter I.

1857. June 10.

Mr. Grant's

practical

Two days after that letter had been penned Lord Canning yielding to the solicitations of the advice. ablest of his councillors, Mr. J. P. Grant, resolved to avail himself of the aid which had been proffered him, three weeks earlier, by the citizens of Calcutta. But in order to induce the Governor-General to agree to this tardy concession, it was necessary for Mr. Grant to lay aside all gloss, to sacrifice the false confidence on which Mr. Beadon had laid so much stress three weeks. previously, and to describe facts as they really

66

The letter, in a more com- pean force immediately. When plete form, runs as follows:- it reaches the Cawnpore diviBenares has been made safe. sion, it will, according to the So has Allahabad, I hope, but instructions which have been only just in time. Hencefor- sent to you, pass under Sir ward, the reinforcements will Hugh Wheeler's command. be pushed up still further- And with him will rest the to Cawnpore; but the dis- responsibility of relieving organised state of the country Lucknow, and pacifying the between Allahabad and Cawn- country from Cawnpore downpore may interpose delay; and wards. It will be for you to both telegraph and dawk from judge what your own moveany place north of Allahabad ments should be. All that I is now cut off from Calcutta. require is, that an European I cannot, therefore, speak so force as large an one as you confidently of the time when can spare, should be sent help will reach Sir Hugh southwards with the least posWheeler. It may not be for sible delay, and that it should four or five days, or even more. not be detained an hour for This makes it all the more the purpose of finishing off urgently necessary that you affairs at Dehli after once the should push down an Euro- great blow has been struck."

BOOK VII. Chapter I.

1857. June 12.

14

were.

MR. GRANT'S REASONS FOR THE ADVICE.

"In reality," wrote Mr. Grant early in June, "in reality as well as in appearance we are very weak here, where we ought to be-and if we can't be should at least appear to be-as strong as possible. We have as enemies three Native Infantry regiments and a half, of which one and a half are the very worst type we know; one, two, three (for no one knows) thousand armed men at Garden Reach, or available there at a moment; some hundred armed men of the Scinde Ameers at Dum-Dum; half the Mahomedan population; and all the blackguards of all sorts of a town of six hundred thousand people. Against these we have one and a half weak regiments, most of whom dare not leave the Fort. There is no reason to expect real help in real danger from the Native Police. The insurrection is regularly spreading down to us. Is this an emergency or not? My conviction is that even a street row at the capital would give us an awful shake-not only in Bengal, but in Bombay and Madras-at this moment."

This remonstrance, vivid, true, and out-spoken, expressed in nervous, even in passionate language, the thoughts of the much maligned citizens of Calcutta. The daily newspapers had for a fortnight been pressing the same arguments on the Governor-General. These had failed to shake the reluctance of Lord Canning to take his own countrymen into his confidence, to admit that he had the smallest occasion for their aid. But now one of his colleagues, and incomparably the ablest of his colleagues, pressed upon him, in language more

LORD CANNING ACTS ON MR. GRANT'S ADVICE. 15

clear and more forcible than any used by the Press, the dangers of persistence in the same policy of distrust. That even the weighty utterances of Mr. Grant would, in any case, have met the fate of the expressed opinions of the European community is scarcely probable. But he did

BOOK VII. Chapter I.

1857. Juue 12.

not stand quite alone in his view. It happened that an examination of the records of the Home Office showed that the question of raising volunteers in India had been thoroughly discussed in the time of Lord Dalhousie; that a decision in favour of the measure had been recorded; and that that decision had received the endorsement of the Court of Directors. This discovery added force to Mr. Grant's argument. He clenched it further by recording his opinion that it was probable that, if a Volunteer Corps were not raised in the crisis then before them, the Home Government would ask the reason why. These arguments proved successful. Lord Lord Canning Canning, still retaining his opinion as to the prac- enrolment of tical uselessness of the measure, sanctioned, on the volunteers. 12th of June, the enrolment of the citizens of Calcutta as volunteers.

The Calcutta citizens nobly responded to the call of the Government. In a very few days the three arms, Horse, Foot, and Artillery, sprang into vigorous life. Men of all classes and of all positions pressed forward to enrol themselves, and in less than three weeks a brigade was formed sufficiently strong to guard Calcutta, and to enable the Government, had they deemed it necessary, to send all the regular troops into the field.

sanctions the

BOOK VII. Chapter I.

1837. June 13.

The European and Native

press.

The day following that on which the Government had thus announced their intention to solicit the aid which three weeks previously they had rejected, they introduced and passed through the Legislative Council a measure calculated, above all others, to rouse the indignation of the community and to deaden the loyalty to which they had but just at the moment appealed.

It can well be imagined that the events occurring all over the country had not been unnoticed by the public press. In India the fourth estate was represented by two distinct bodies of men. There was the English press advocating English interests, generally owned and entirely contributed to by Englishmen. Running parallel with this was the native press, the organ of native interests. and owned and contributed to by natives. The two divisions were subject to the same laws and amenable to the same jurisdiction. So blended had become the interests of the native and the European that, as a rule, the two sections referred to advocated identical measures. It did happen indeed occasionally, though rarely, that they espoused opposite sides. Such had been the case when the legislature brought in a measure to introduce a native magistracy with power to try Europeans. Against this measure the European press had protested, whilst it was eagerly supported by the organs of native public opinion. But such occasions were not common. As traders, the interests of the European and of the native merchants were identical. The land question, which was to assume so great a prominence in