THE UNREST IN INDIA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."' SIR,—In the Spectator of the Gth inst., in the article " The Unrest in India," it is thus written :—" Even during the Mutiny, when the military class had revolted the people remained quiescent, and accepted the defeat of their armed representatives with a quiet submission which made the con- tinuance of the foreign rule possible, if not easy. Had the peasantry, who are eight-tenths of the population, risen against us, victory would have been impossible." The Spectator is always courteous, and perhaps will permit me to urge that there is a good deal in the above passage which is incorrect. The Mutiny may be said to have been chiefly confined to the Central Provinces, the North-West Provinces, and Oudh, and it may pretty safely be advanced that, from Benares to Delhi, throughout Bundelkund, in the whole of Oudh, and nearly throughout the Central Provinces, the people were in open insurrection. The horrors enacted at. Jhansi, and on those who tried to escape from Cawnpore and Futtygurb, conclusively showed that this was no mere case of a military rising, and possibly, though not certainly, the worst atrocities committed in 1857 were caused by the civil population.—I am, P.S.—I perhaps ought to mention that I passed in 1857 from Nusseerabad to Agra, and by Cawnpore into Oudh, and can vouch for the truth of what I urge,—i.e., that within the tracts referred to the population was for the most part hostile.
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