THE LATENT FEELING AT PATNA'. 47 BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. June 7. game would be more in his own hands; but in the then destitute state of the Lower Provinces, it seemed to him and to the members of his Council to be sounder policy to temporise.* But these Its weakness. and similar arguments will not bear examination. Nothing that might have been done in the way of disarming could have produced results so disastrous as those which actually followed the inactive policy of the Government of India, and which I am now about to record. It may likewise be added that when Lord Canning had fresh reinforcements at his disposal, he still refused, in the manner hereafter to be described, to order the disarming of the sepoys. To return to Patná. The report brought by Captain Rattray of the reception accorded to his Sikh soldiers by the inhabitants of the city and the districts in its vicinity, was not of a nature to allay the apprehensions which his profound acquaintance with the province had excited in the mind of Mr. Tayler. Those soldiers, he was informed, had been constantly reviled on their march towards Patná, taunted with the part they were taking, accused of being renegades to their faith, and asked whether they intended to fight for the infidel or for their religion. When they entered Patná the high priest of the Sikh temple in the city refused to admit them to the sacred shrine, and wherever they were seen they met the most palpable evidences of the hatred and contempt of the population. * Sir John Kaye, vol. iii. p. 65. Excitement of the people of BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. June 7-11. Alarm in the districts. Splendid conduct of Mr. Tayler. 48 MR. TAYLER SHOWS A BOLD FRONT. Private inquiries which Mr. Tayler instituted at this time soon brought to his mind the conviction that secret mischief was brewing. He learnt, too, that conferences of disaffected men were held at night, though in a manner so secret and so well guarded, that proof of meeting was rendered difficult, the capture of the plotters impossible. The alarm meanwhile was increasing. The judge of Patná, the opium agent, and some others, left their houses with their families and took refuge in the opium godown. It spread likewise to the districts. Mr. Wake, the magistrate of Arah, afterwards so distinguished for his gallantry in the defence of that place, wrote to Mr. Tayler on the 11th, informing him that many of the railway employés and other Europeans had run away from his district in a panic, and had taken refuge in Dánápúr. Under these trying circumstances Mr. Tayler acted with vigour, with judgment, and with decision. He stood out prominently amongst his compeers. He hid nothing from his superiors. The details of the crisis through which his division was passing were, therefore, well known in Calcutta. And when post after post brought to the capital accounts of the risings at Banáras, at A'zamgarh, in Central India and in the NorthWestern Provinces, the question rose naturally and involuntarily to the lips :-"How is it that Patná is quiescent?" Patná was quiescent simply because one man, Mr. William Tayler, the Commissioner of the Division, was a brave and deter mined man, ready to strike when necessary, and incapable, even under the darkest circumstances, of showing hesitation or fear. The metal of which his character was formed was soon to be further tested. The disaffection among the Dánápúr troops, and in the districts, being daily on the increase, Mr. Tayler directed the removal of the moneys in the treasuries of Chapra and Arah into Patná, thus bringing the coin under his own eye. He controlled with a firm hand the movements in his six districts of the officials, some of whom had actually left their stations under the conviction of an impending attack. Every day the post and messengers brought him intelligence of disaffection on the one side, of apprehension on the other; of plots to murder, of plots to burn, of plots to rise in revolt. He was informed, moreover, that Kúnwar Singh, a powerful landowner, whose estates in the vicinity of Arah were peopled by a martial tenantry devoted to their chief, was making secret preparations to seize the first opportunity to revolt. Mr. Tayler did not, at the moment, credit the reports about Kúnwar Singh individually. He was well aware that to all the disaffected nobles and landowners of the districts only two opportunities, or one of two opportunities, would prove sufficiently tempting. These were, the mutiny of the native regiments at Dánápúr, and the rising of the population of Patná. It was clear that a successful mutiny at Dánápúr would be instantaneously followed by the rising of Patná; equally BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. June 7-11. 50 FAILS TO INFLUENCE GENERAL LLOYD. BOOK VII. Chapter II. 1857. so that a successful rising at Patná would precipitate the mutiny of the native troops. Mr. June 12-18. Tayler was, however, confident that if allowed by the Government unfettered action, he could maintain order in Patná so long as the native troops at Dánápúr should remain quiescent. Thus, in his view, all, for the moment, depended on the quiet attitude of the sepoys. Fails to im. press his jor-General Lloyd. So many symptoms, amongst others intercepted views on Ma- correspondence, seeming to show that the native troops were only watching their opportunity, it appeared to Mr. Tayler imperatively necessary that they should be disarmed with as little delay as possible. He endeavoured to impress his views in this respect on Major-General Lloyd. But in this he was unsuccessful. Major-General Lloyd held to the views I have already quoted, and declared repeatedly to Mr. Tayler that he was in direct communication with Lord Canning on the subject, and that he would carry the province through the crisis without resorting to the supreme measure of disarming. The enormous difficulties of his position. Mr. Tayler's position was rendered a thousand times more difficult by the fact that in addition to a disaffected city under his very eyes, to disaffected districts within ranges varying from thirty to a hundred miles, to disaffected landowners controlling large portions of those districts, he had within eight miles of his own door three native regiments, pledged, as their correspondence showed, to mutiny, and only watching their opportunity. It is difficult to realise the enormous responsibility thus thrown upon the shoulders of one man, Other HIS COOL AND MANLY BEARING. 51 1857. June 12-18. positions in India were dangerous, but this was BOOK VII. unique in the opportunities of danger which Chapter II. threatened it, in the number of the lives, in the amount of treasure, in the extent of country, devolving upon one man, almost unaided, to guard. Without a single European soldier, and with only a few Sikhs, at his disposal, Mr. Tayler was responsible for the lives of some hundreds of Europeans scattered over the province, for a treasury in his own city containing more than £300,000, and in the districts of still more, for opium of the value of millions, for his own good name, for the credit and honour of his country. And now all around was surging. Any moment might bring revolt and mutiny to his door. I have said in my description of Mr. Tayler that he possessed great natural talents which he had cultivated. In the course of his reading he had not been slow to observe that in great crises, when two armies, or two political parties, are sitting armed opposite to each other, each watching its opportunity, success almost invariably inclined to the leader who struck the first blow. The time had now arrived for him to consider Resolves to whether he was not himself placed in a position in which he would be justified in dealing at the disaffected chiefs a blow which would paralyze their movements-a blow not accompanied by bloodshed, but one strictly of self-defence. The measure he contemplated may, in one sense, be termed a measure of disarming. He was not strong enough, indeed, to disarm at the moment strike the first blow. |