HISTORY OF T.tIE SIEGE OF DELHI.* IN the History of
the Siege of Delhi we have a new contribution to the literature of the Great Indian Rebellion of 1857. Written from his own manuscript notes, by one who professes to have been an eye- witness of almost every battle described, to have conversed with European and native soldiers, to have sifted accounts on the spot, and to have employed all his spare time in realizing and recording the great events which came under his observation, this history de- mands a respectful and thoughtful perusal. On merely literary grounds, too, it is entitled to commendation. The diction is forcible but never line, the construction is easy, though once or twice awkward or ungrammatical, and the narrative flowing, spirited, and, so far as we can judge, accurate. The descriptive portions are sometimes strikingly good, and the statements in it are conveyed in clear, and energetic language. In addition to his own independent sources the author has gained some facts from the published letters of Mr. Greathed and Major Hodson ; Ile sometimes refers us also to the narrative of the Rev. Mr. Rotton, which, "though containing many valuable details, does not attempt to leave the stand-point he occupied as chaplain of the force." The official returns contained in the ap- pendix are taken from the pamphlet published by Colonel Norman, late adjutant-general of the Indian army. It is to be regretted that the volume before us is issuedanonymously, and that we can only identify its author as an occasional' contributor of letters to the Times: lhough once or twice indicating something like dissent from the judgment pro- nounced by others on approved or popular men, the writer's estimate of the chief actors during the Indian crisis appears to us to be so generally fair and impartial that we can hardly see any sufficient reason for the preference of anonymous authorship.
That our "Officer" is not one of those who paint without shade must, however, befrankly acknowledged. He refuses teedraw Eng- lishmen int chalk with a halo round their heads, and Hindostanis in charcoal. He tries to- "paint people in their natural hues, Europeans an ordinary flesh tint," natives "a copper colour." Thus forewarned, we are not taken by surprise when we meet with some decisive cen- sure of British government or British officials. The view, for ex- ample, taken by the author of. the origin of the mutiny is not favour- able to us nationally; or to our rulers individually. Allowing the great administrative ability and energy of Lord Dalhousie, he main- tains that the Governor-General was not sufficiently prescient of the danger. which was the consequence of his own policy. "Everything he &d," says our Officer, "seems to have drifted the native army to mutiny." The King of Oude had long been our truest ally; the people of Oade preferred the rule of their native princes to ours ; a great part of the Sepoys in our service came from Oude, where they retired after having gained their pension, and where they en- joyed, 'under native rule, privileges which were lost to them under that of the British. Hence, even the Hindoo soldiers were disgusted with the seizure of Oude. The conversion of a five into a four per cent, loan by Lord Dalhousie, without any warning:, was especially displeasing to those Indian. princes who had placed money in our funds, and seriously damaged our credit in the market The discon- tent of the Sepoys again, according. to our author, was notorious. That a mutiny of the native army would be the probable result of the annexation of Oude had been predicted to Lord Dalhousie by Colonel 8Ieemar, the Itesident at Lucknow. As far back, too, as 1849, Sir Charles Napier had sought to dispel a dangerous discontent among the Sepoys by rendering inoperative a pay regulation of the Governor- General, then absent, but was rebuked by his superior, resigned his command and left India. On another occasion a native regiment successfully resisted an order to go to Burmah. The series of in tripes commenced against British power by some of the leading men of Oude was undertaken with a view to compel us to abandon the country. The King of Delhi, who nearly two years before had sent an envoy to the Shah of Persia to ask assistance against the English, with whom he had lore; been discontented, joined in the plot. Efforts were now made to corrupt the native army ; but the con- spirators would perhaps have failed, entirely in their object "had it not been for a mistake of our own, which gave them the opportunity t,..? gain over, the Ilindoos, by far the preponderating element in the !epoy ranks, standing in relation to the Mahomedans as five to one." in the "Officer's" view, the mutiny was immediately "caused 1.37 a combination among the Sepoys to defend themselves from the th re a ten e d deprivation of caste taking afterwards a wider aim."
themetikry of the Siege of Delhi. By an Officer who served' there. With a Sketch of le ading Events in the Punjaub connected with the Great RebelliOn of 1857. Edhi- burgh : Adam and Chwries Slack.
There is not a particle of proof, says our author in a foot-note, that any mutiny would have occurred in 1857 had it not been for the greased cartridges, and he supports this opinion by a reference to the mutiny at Venom,. occasioned by an attempt to interfere with the dress and religious customs of the Madras Sepoys. The direct cause of the outbreak thus appears to be the resentment consequent on the violation of a powerful religious sentiment and usage, and of the de- termination of the Ilindoos to defend the sanctity of caste. But while this outrage may have been the direct cause of the Sepoy in- surrection the general discontent produced by the annexation of Oude, and other offensive transactions on the part of the governing powers, or growing out of native patriotic ambition, must not be overlooked in our general estimate of the nature of that terrific ex, plosion, in which a military revolt was matured and expanded into a vast national rebellion. Nor must the conditions of its partial sue cess be omitted in our review—the deficiency of European troops,„ the want of reinforcements, and, as a disastrous result of the annexa- tion of Oude, the non-availability of the forces of that kingdom, which,, but for the annexation, we should have had oa our side.
But, according to our author, not only are we responsible for the results of commission and omission, but in our suppression of this fearful rebellion we were unreasonably and even cruelly vindictive. He tells us, for instance, how, after the 3rd of June, 1857, the spirit of revenge exhibited itself in the British camp; how officers went to- courts-martial, declaring they would hang the prisoners whether guilty or innocent ; how these prisoners, in the interval during trial' and. execution, were unceasingly tormented by the. soldiers, who. pulled their hair, pricked them with bayonets, and forced them to eat cow's-flesh ; how, somewhat later, an officer at picket caused seven harmless villagers to be shot as spies ; how two men were hanged because they said our rule was over ; how, again, after the siege of' Delhi, death was almost the only punishment inflicted on offenders,, and condemnation almost the only issue of a trial, so that between two and three hundred people were hanged.; and how (following M. Montzdembert), the executions en mane of the defeated sepoys were systematically continued, till an indelible stain was fixed on the his- tory of British rule in India. Yet, in justice to England, our author reminds us, still following the distinguished French writer already mentioned, that the punishment which fell upon the guilty city con- trasts favourably with the conduct of the most civilized nations under circumstances much less exasperating; and in another passage of his book lie expresses his belief that no people in the world would have shown more moderation under the provocation endured. In the charity so ungrudgingly given, since the failure of the rains of 1860, he sees an indication of the moral worthiness of Europeans to bear rule in India. "Nineteen hundred starving wretches were fedi at once by the European magistrate beside the Delhi gate ; and the. world saw the noble spectacle of a community feeding those who hated and had deeply injured it. In a similar spirit, speaking we believe more particularly, of the Doab, he asserts that when it was thought that the rule of the Company had for ever passed away,. many regretted it, adding, the general voice declared, that a better government they never had had; that we had held the balance of justice even; and, had been the friends of the poor man.
To follow the author in his narrative of the events at Delhi, at, Meerut, or in the Punjab, is no part of our present plan. His recital, always interesting, is Often animated and picturesque. Hod- son, Nicholson, Havelock, and other heroes, pass before us, and as we read, we feel that England's prowess, energy, and practical intelli- gence are not things of the past, but breathing and actual realities,. that her soldierly and enterprising spirit is still embodied in the flesh. and blood of her children. To Nicholson, especially, belonged that splendid presence, from which a preternatural power seems to ema- nate, so that he was almost worshipped by the pliaat Asiatics. Canonized he actually was, even in life, by a brotherhood of Fakirs on the 11-q2ara frontier. Their history, says our author, is given in full in the Friend of lUdia, October 18, 1860. These Fakirs called themselves by his name, "Nikkul Seynees" "They wore saffron- coloured garments and round black hats as their distinguishing garb. Their worship consisted in. singing a kind of dirge, every verse of which echoed the refrain Goroo Nikkul Sept.! On Nicholson's glorious fall before Delhi, their leader declared he could not live in a world where there was no Nikkul Seyn, and going to his hut, de- stroyed himself, cutting his throat from ear to ear?
Other curious facts, though, none we believe so curious as this, are related in the attractive volume now before us. We draw attention also to matter of a different kind,—to the statement that in the rebellion of 1857 the Mahomedans were generally hostile to us, the Hindoos much less so; to the assertion. that some artillery °Seers protested that the practice of the enemy at Delhi was better than our own, and that many believed that their fire was under the superintendence of Europeans, followed by the instructive generalize, tion on the readiness of the people of Europe to attribute a stre- nuous resistance, as in the Sikh war and the repulse on he Peilio, to the aid of their own race ; to the severe censure on Mr. Cooper,.not for the tremendous tradegy, of which he was the enforced agent, but i
for the spirit of levity n which, he relates "the fate of the men whom it was his dismal privilege to destroy in oold blood ;" to the rebuke of the policy which transferred, without their consent and without their usual bounty,. ten thousand of the soldiers who had saved India, from the ranks of the Company to those of the Crown; and lastly, to the significant but cheering reflection that the two greatest struggles in the war—the siege of Delhi, and the relief ef Lucknow—were fought out without the aid of a single soldier from Europe. Nor must we pass over an occasional correction- of blunders
and inaccuracies noticed by the author of this volume ; as when, in opposition to the false accounts spread abroad of the fate of an unfortunate lady, he tells us that Miss Jennings, the daughter of the chaplain, was murdered at once by the side of her father ; or when he denies the truth of another statement in the Red Pamphlet, and informs us that the Hindun was ten miles off, and that the Fifty-fourth were led into the Cashmere Gate, not out of it ; or the error of Hodson, whose letters, by the way, are, he says, full of mis- takes; on the affair of 19th June, which it seems was fought almost entirely by the artillery, or Mr. Rotton's blunder that the Ochter- lony Gardens, instead of the plain beyond, were the scene of the fight ; or once more, when he challenges the correctness of Mr. Cooper's story of Rujjub Ali, which he says gives an unnatural order to events, as it makes the world revolve round the Moonshis Alfer. There are assertions or remarks perhaps equally important; but we must refer those who still feel an interest in the late Insur- rection in India to the narration of a writer who himself witnessed so much of what he describes. This book has a fair share of literary merit, and as a contribution to the general history of the war, as well as of the siege of Delhi itself, is entitled to critical approbation.
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