THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TURNING POINT IN THE INDIAN MUTINY A TURNING POINT IN THE INDIAN MUTINY BY I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING AUTHOR OF 'MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS w. NEWMAN' ' Theirs is the battle ! Theirs wholly, For that Day is a day will be written in story To the great world's end. and for ever : ' So, let them have the Spurs, and the glory ' No man who is not endowed with a comprehensive imagination can govern India with success Dalhousie had no imagination.' SIR JOHN KAVE ' I believe it would be better for the land in which we live, if India appealed more than it does to our imagination. The interest so created would help to bridge over the gap between East and West.' MACPHAIL. ' The defence of Arrah may be considered one of the most remarkable feats in Indian history.' SIR VINCENT EYRE. THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THOMAS GISBORNE GORDON IN MEMORY OF AN OLD FRIENDSHIP IN EARLIER DAYS 1411725 PREFACE THIS book aims at throwing a light on a very crucial time in our Empire's history. It aims at lighting up that part of England's memory which is concerned with a certain siege which happened more than fifty years ago, lest she forget splendid deeds done by heroic Eng- in the Indian at lishmen Mutiny ; men who, out-of-the-way stations, fought against gigantic odds, with only a few troops to support them fought, and saved their country's colours. These were the men who held up the lamp of the Ideal high above the heads of their fellow-men. Would there were more of them here to-day in England ! Men, who simply could not be discouraged by any amount of failure, by any amount of discouragement. They were aware of the inner meaning of * those inspiring words : how far High Failure overleaps the bounds of low successes.' And vi PREFACE though for many of them, the last words that sounded in their dying ears were those of ' ' * defeat and disaster,' though the bitter taste of the fruit of War was on their lips, and ghastly sights met their eyes, theirs was the unconquerable spirit which can die, and yet remain at the supreme moment of death victor, in spite of all. To-day in the hearts of many the light of has burned of Chivalry very dim ; that Reverence flickers low; while the power of Idealising lights comparatively few. The following pages are full of the deeds of some of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen and in almost all these men ; the fires of Chivalry, 1 Reverence, and the power of the Ideal, allied with absolute pluck and heroism, burned high. I should like to express my hearty thanks to those who so kindly lent me old records, 1 To-day, as these pages go to press, I have heard of a doctor's rare act of chivalry. (I should state he was not in good financial circumstances at the time.) He had been for many weeks attending a patient at her request (though she only needed him temporarily, and was not one of his regular clientele), and at the end of her illness he refused to accept any return whatever, simply because to have taken any fee, would have seemed, in his eyes, to be contrary to what he conceived to be the true spirit of Chivalry. PREFACE vii letters, papers and photos. Among these I would mention the names of Mr. Herwald Wake and Mr. J. C. Colvin, to both of whom I owe a very special debt of thanks. Also those of Major Leather, of the 5th Fusiliers, General Broadfoot, Sir George Trevelyan, Dr. Theodore Maxwell (who kindly gave me permission to use the letters of John Nicholson), Miss Lucy Wake, Miss Bax- Ironside (who most kindly allowed me access to her father's papers), Mrs. Radcliffe, Surgeon-General Sir James Thornton, K.C.B., Lady Fayrer, Mr. Stafford Bailey, Mrs. Ross Mangles, Mrs. McDonell, and many others. To one friend I am indebted for his great kindness in reading my MSS., and stating (he was one of the besieged party at Arrah) that what I have written is correct. I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING. EXMOUTH PLACE, HASTINGS, February 1910. CONTENTS PAGE A TURNING POINT IN THE INDIAN MUTINY . 1 THE SIEGE OF ARRAH . .," . .17 " * THE RELIEF THAT FAILED . .49 THE RELIEF THAT SUCCEEDED .... 71 HERWALD WAKE : THE MAN WHO HELD THE FORT AT ARRAH 93 KOER SINGH is HUNTED TO HIS JUNGLE STRONG- HOLD 106 THE MAGISTRATE OF GHAZIPUR ; AND HOW HE HELPED FORWARD THE RELIEF OF ARRAH . 137 LETTERS FROM JOHN NICHOLSON AND OTHERS . 159 ILLUSTRATIONS MR. HERWALD WAKE. Taken just after the Mutiny ..... to face page 21 ATTACK ON ARRAH HOUSE, 1857. From a picture in the Officers' Mess, 5th Fusiliers 29 MR. J. C. COLVIN, one of the besieged at Arrah House ..... 47 MR. Ross MANGLES, V. C., of the Indian Civil Service ..... 59 MR. McDONELL, V.C., of the Indian Civil Service 65 SIR VINCENT EYRE 71 MR. HERWALD WAKE. From a painting done before he went out to India . 93 THE HOUSE AT ARRAH. From a Sketch by Sir Vincent Eyre, 1 857 . 122 SURGEON-GENERAL SIR JAMES THORN- TON, K.C.B ,,135 BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON. From a lithograph by Baignet . 159 THE MOTHER OF JOHN NICHOLSON. Taken for him before the Mutiny . 161 CASTLE TERRACE, LISBURN, IRELAND, where John Nicholson was born. 174 CHARLES NICHOLSON. From a coloured photo ,,189 CHARLES NICHOLSON. From a painting 207 A TURNING POINj 'HE INDIAN Mill [NY WHAT is it that strikes one most keenly when one looks at the events of the Mutiny of 1857 ? Surely this: the great lack of imagination in the ranks of English officials out in India at that time. Indeed it was so palpable, so insistent, that it practically amounted to a sort of mental colour- blindness. For the signs of the times were signifi- one cant enough ; patent enough, would have thought, in all conscience. And what is more, they were happening daily before the eyes of soldier, civilian, and government official. Those who knew the native most, who could put two and two together, foretold the mutiny long before it came Sir Henry Lawrence prophesied its probable course fourteen years before it came but to no effect. It is one thing to warn, another thing to take the 2 THE INDIAN MUTINY warning, and the English Government in India chose not to be warned. They rode blindly wilfully blindly, for their fall, and they got it. The lack of imagination is a grievous blank in any character. Yet are there many people in England to-day who would think such a lack of no importance. Plenty of people, indeed, would go one step farther, and consider it perhaps the ' thing too much,' which was as well left out of the qualities which go to make up a personality. But then, these are the people who believe that a man can be sufficiently equipped to all intents and purposes without that power that transposes the commonplace into a higher key, and, reading between the lines in other people's lives, teaches sympathy. Lack of imagination in a nation, however, is a deficiency of so vast an importance that, interfering as it does with its progress, it inevitably brings disaster. How could it be otherwise ? For lack of imagination means missing the point when it is most imperative that it should have been grasped. It means want of intuition that invalu- able guide which steers straight, notwithstanding the absence, metaphysically speaking, of lighthouse or signpost. It means that what a man does not actually see for himself can never be grasped as a reality. That he cannot, in effect, put himself in THE INDIAN MUTINY 3 another's see with his think with his place ; eyes, thoughts, and live, in imagination, his life. That he cannot realise, in short, that other's way of life. And not to be able to realise, means also not to be able to sympathise, and with that last word the whole signification of lack of imagination becomes as clear as daylight. It stands revealed before us in its naked truth. How vast a disaster lack of imagination is capable of bringing on a nation, is patent to us when we look at the mutiny of fifty years ago. For what was it that precipitated matters so much then ? that stirred up the whole native mind against us ? that made that revolt possible, in fact ? What but that fatal lack of imagination which prevented our seeing, as a nation, that we were constantly sinning against -the native point of view; constantly going counter to some deep- seated prejudice and religious conviction. Was it not that unrestrained invective against the Hindu and Mohammetan religion, in which a good many missionaries indulged, which roused to bitterness so many natives ? They had apparently forgotten, in India, all about St. Paul's restraint in Ephesus in the matter of Diana, the great goddess of the Ephesians. One of those Englishmen who, in 1857, was ' ' most conscious of our many false steps in the B 2 4 THE INDIAN MUTINY conduct of our affairs with the native, was Martin Gubbins, of the Bengal Civil Service. It was he who was then financial Commissioner of Oudh, and who was, later on, at Benares, spoken of by Sir Evelyn * Wood as the moving spirit of the station.' It was he who, working daily among the natives, knew them more thoroughly perhaps than any Englishman of his time, with the exception of Sir James Outram and Sir Henry Lawrence.