THE ACTORS WORTHY OF THEIR ANCESTORS. 545

that animated their hearts. Rather quest was it the conviction that they were struggling for the right, that they were combating treacherous foes, that England looked to them for the vindication of her honour and for the safety of the trust she had confided to them, that inspired the defenders with dogged resolution-the soldiers who followed Havelock with an élan that was irresistible. The men whose great achievements, reflecting an eternal glory on their country, I have but faintly pourtrayed, all lived but twenty-one years ago. Some of them are with us still. Outram and Havelock and Inglis and Neill have passed away, but there are those who remain who emulated their example, and on whom the inspiration of their great deeds has not been cast away. There survive at least a Napier of Magdála, then the chief of Outram's Staff, and whose name and reputation have since become European; a Vincent Eyre, who carried into

need to conquer; they are the she have opened to our ancesnerves of the army; all the tors the Mæotic marsh closed rest will fall with them. and unknown for so many Think not that your indivi- ages? .... If circumstances dual fate depends on the do not deceive me-hereenemy. No dart can reach here before us-is the field him who is reserved by Mars of which so many exploits to sing the song of victory. have been the promise and No darts can touch him who the forerunners. For myself, has to conquer, whilst he who I will be the first to launch has to die would meet his fate my javelin against the enemy even in inglorious ease. Why let him die who shall refuse should Fortune have given to follow Attila! (Si quis the Huns victory over so potuerit Attila pugnante many nations unless it were otium ferre, sepultus est)." to prepare them for the joys Jornandès, de Rebus Getiof this battle? Why should cis, c. 12.

BOOK IX. Chapter III.

1857.

Sept. 27.

BOOK IX. Chapter III.

1857. Sept. 27.

Oudh the daring and resolution that had saved Bihár; a Wilson who was the right hand of General Inglis at Lakhnao; a Lowe, who commanded the 32nd during the defence, and a Bassano who succeeded him, when wounded, in that command; a Havelock who gained his Victoria Cross at Kánhpúr, and who accompanied his father in all his great exploits; a Gordon, who was the trusted staff-officer of Neill. And there are many others. These men have been tried in the fire. They are representatives of those gallant soldiers from whose minds neither the assaults of an overwhelming enemy, the privations of scanty food, incessant watching, nor the terrible trials of climate, could obliterate the fact that they were Englishmen, and as such were bound to conquer and who did conquer.

I leave them now, and with regret. But I leave them for a field not less noble. For I have to narrate now how it was that the imperial city of Dehli succumbed to the army which had so patiently and so persistently assailed it.

APPENDIX A.

THE entire proceedings of the Bengal Government, in respect of the Wahábí fanatics of Patná in 1857, are so extraordinary that they merit distinct and special notice.

The principal facts are now matters of history, as Dr. Hunter, who had free access to the Government archives, has given a detailed and accurate account of these remarkable men in his work on "Our Indian Mussulmans."

From his pages it may be learned "that some years ago the great Wahábí prophet, Syad Ahmad, organised a regular system of apostolic successors; that two of the khalifs or vice-regents, Inayat and Wilayat Ali, had early established a character for themselves on the frontier as fanatical firebrands; and so far back as 1847 Sir Henry Lawrence sent them as dangerous characters to their homes at Patná, where security was taken from them for their future good conduct."

In 1850 they were again found "preaching sedition in the Rájsháhí district of Lower Bengal, and were twice turned out of the district"; and in 1851 the vice-regents, though bound by bond and security to remain at their homes in Patna, "were found disseminating treason on the Panjáb frontier."

And finally, in 1852, they "had established a regular organisation for passing up men and arms from Bengal to the rebel camp at Sittána."

But the most significant fact connected with this history

is that on the 9th of August 1852, only five years before the mutiny, the magistrate of Patná reported that "the rebel sect was on the increase in that city; sedition was openly preached by the principal inhabitants of this capital of a British Province. The police had leagued themselves with the fanatics, and one of their leaders, "Maulvi Ahmedoola (Ahmad Ullá), assembled 700 men in his house, and declared his resolve to resist any further investigation of the magistrate by force of arms."

Dr. Hunter then proceeds, "The British Government could no longer shut its eyes to the existence of a great treasonable organisation within its territories for supplying money and men to the fanatical camp on the frontier. During the autumn of 1852 Lord Dalhousie recorded two important minutes on the subject, and by the first he directed the internal organisation to be closely watched."

The above brief extracts from Dr. Hunter's able work, written under the most favourable auspices for the accurate ascertainment of the facts, is, I imagine, sufficient to prove to the satisfaction of the most incredulous that a dangerous confederation existed in the country; that the city of Patná was the head-quarters of the sect of Wahábís, and contained not only the two notorious vice-regents or khalifs, but at least one determined and desperate leader, even in the time of peace, sufficiently bold and powerful to defy the power and authority of the British Government.

And if it be inquired who this resolute traitor was, I may reply that he is the identical man whose arrest and precautionary confinement in 1857 by Mr. Tayler I have described at page 52 of this volume.

Such, then, briefly sketched, was the known and recorded state of Patná at the commencement of the mutiny and rebellion.

Lord Canning had only recently arrived, and was necessarily dependent on the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and his own secretaries for all important information.

It is fair, therefore, to assume that he was in ignorance of the character and antecedents of the Wahábí fanatics, their connection with Patná, the intrigues in which they had been detected, and, doubtless, of the open defiance with which Ahmad Ullá had resisted the warnings of the magistrate.

But what can be said to excuse, what can be imagined to explain, the ignorance, or, if not ignorance, the infatuation of the Bengal Government?

Mr. Halliday had been appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal about 1853, but for years prior to his appointment he had been secretary under ex-officio Governors, and, as well is known, exercised all the powers, though not bearing the responsibilities, of Governor. Is it conceivable that he was ignorant of all the strange and important incidents above noticed?

Was not he well aware that the prophet's vice-regents had their homes at Patná, that security for their good conduct had been taken, that Lord Dalhousie, as ex-officio Governor of Bengal, had placed on record a minute regarding them?

There had been, as related in the first volume of this history, an organised attempt at Patná in 1845 to tamper with the British sepoys, which, had the Panjáb campaign ended in failure, would doubtless have been carried out.

And it must have been evident to Mr. Halliday, as it was to all intelligent observers, that Patná was the centre of intrigue and dangers.

In the face of these facts, when Mr. Tayler, from information received, and from his own observation of certain suspicious incidents, quietly arrested and placed under precautionary surveillance the notorious Ahmad Ullá and two other leaders of the Wahábí sect, Mr. Halliday, instead of even then admitting that he had at least directed his precautionary measures towards individuals of suspected character whose names were in the black books of the Government, coldly calls for the "proofs on which the arrest had been made," designating these men as the "Wahábí gentlemen,"