the premature outbreaks at Meerut and Delhi that served to put us on our guard. In May and June mutinies and appalling massacres were of constant occurrence, culminating in the Cawnpore catastrophe. I had a remarkably providential escape from being involved in that awful massacre. It happened in this way. On my arrival at Cawnpore a splendid opportunity seemed then to invite me to better my prospects as a married man, inasmuch as several of the native regiments there were in want of interpreters; and as I had passed in such high examinations as for high proficiency in Hindee, the interpreter's examination in Persian, etc., and the thousand-rupee prize examination in two languages, I very naturally thought that I therefore ought certainly to get what I had such a good claim to if I only asked for it. I consequently made personal applications to the commanding officers of those regiments in want of interpreters. But, strange as it appeared, my efforts to procure a nice addition to my lieutenant's pay were unsuccessful, and Major-General Wheeler, commanding at Cawnpore, little thinking of what he was saving me from, was the cause of this remarkable failure, by saying, when he heard of my application, "No; this officer is required to take recruits to his regiment." I was much vexed at the time at my ill success in not getting what seemed so needful to me. But how thankful I felt to the Almighty a few months afterward, when I perceived how He had mercifully saved me, with my wife and child, from being involved in the terrible Cawnpore massacre! I had been unwittingly seeking my own destruction; but God turned a great disappointment to a great deliverance! Truly God's ways are the best, and He is the wisest who with childlike simplicity recognizes this fact at all times and under all circumstances.

Agreeable to the General's requirements, I took recruits up to my regiment stationed at Agra. The two Sepoy regiments here, who had planned a scheme for a surprise massacre on Sunday, May 31, were circumvented by

NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXVIII., No. 6.

a remarkable interposition of Divine Providence, and on their being disarmed, I had the satisfaction, with a party of soldiers, of safely conveying their arms into Agra Fort. My first battle in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny was the sanguinary one at Shahgunj on Sunday, July 5, the day after the mutiny of the Kotah Contingent at Agra. If we had honored the Lord's Day by postponing the attack till Monday, I believe that the disaster about to be related would not have occurred.

The enemy consisted of the 72d Regiment Native Infantry, the 7th Regiment Gwalior Contingent, the Kotah Contingent, two troops of the 1st Light Cavalry, four troops of the Mehidpore Horse, and one troop of horse artillery. Their guns were placed half on one flank, and half upon the other, and were screened by rising ground and trees. Their infantry were posted inside the village as well as behind it, and their cavalry were massed in rear of both flanks. The miniature little army, led out to the attack by Brigadier Polwhele, was composed of about five hundred men of my regiment, with Captain D'Oyley's troop of artillery, and nearly sixty mounted militia, amounting altogether to about seven hundred men, who were in good spirits and eager for the combat.

The mutineers outnumbered us by quite seven to one. Having had some experience of war in the Sutlej campaign, I was put in command of a company. We commenced operations by pounding away at the mud-walled village with our six and nine pounders, which only raised a harmless dustindeed, the only gun that did the enemy any damage was our howitzer, that sent shells inside their position. This bungling and waste of precious time gave the enemy the victory. Polwhele's attempt to silence the enemy's artillery failed, and the mutineer gunners, having got our range, exploded two of our ammunition-wagons, blowing up cur poor artillerymen, and dismounted one of the guns. Captain D'Oyley, mortally wounded by a grape-shot, exclaimed, "I am done for. Put a stone

49

upon my grave, and write that I died fighting my guns." Two columns of my regiment (3d Europeans) were then thrown forward, one commanded by Major G. P. Thomas, and the other, which included my company, was commanded by Colonel Fraser, of the Engineers.

The village was carried after an obstinate defence; but we suffered a very severe loss from the enemy's guns, and the fire of marksmen from the housetops, as well as from the obstinate resistance made inside the village. Much harm was done by a rifle company of the 72d Regiment Native Infantry. I saw poor Major Thomas lying mortally wounded in one of the lanes, who died afterward in hospital. The enemy, driven out of the village, took up a covered position outside. This was indeed a critical moment, and I believe that if we had improved our success by a determined charge upon the mutineers they would have given way, and we should have gained the victory. For it is said that their artillery were limbered up for flight, and Sepoys don't relish crossing bayonets with the British soldier. Of course, the risk would have been weighty, since the failure of such an onward move would have involved the loss of all our guns, and of every unmounted man besides. Anyhow, a retreat, whether wise or unwise, was ordered in consequence of the lack of artillery ammunition. But I must not forget here to mention that a gallant charge was made by our sixty mounted militia, composed of members of the Civil Service, officers of mutinied and disarmed native regiments, clerks, and some equestrians of a wandering circus from France. This mere handful of men had the boldness to charge the mutineer cavalry. Of course they were far too few to make any impression, except this-that Englishmen, when once their blood is up, are too plucky to count the numbers of their foe! They returned with the loss of their head man of the circus, Monsieur Jordan, who was killed, and six others were mortally wounded in the hand-to-hand combat.

The enemy, as might have been ex

pected, pertinaciously harassed our retreat, which was conducted in good order toward the fort, instead of to cantonments whence we had started. Their artillery galloped ahead and pitched into us repeatedly, which was extremely annoying. Their cavalry raised a ringing cheer, indicating their purpose of charging right down upon us. The thought that then took possession of me was that it would be all up with us if they did so, because I knew that our men could not have formed square to resist cavalry. Happily the stalwart mutineer troopers had not the courage to close with us, being checked by a volley which we delivered with the old muskets then in use, which made many a horse riderless, and deterred the rest from coming to close quarters. But, notwithstanding this repulse, the rebel cavalry rode after us to within a mile of the fort; and they once more charged and were repelled as before.

Finally, at the close of the day, the beaten army reached the fort in safety. Heartrending was the scene as we entered the gate, where wives were anxiously waiting to ask for their husbands, many of whom they met carried in doolies, dead or mortally wounded. I felt myself quite exhausted, having had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast, and this after marching so many miles under a broiling sun. Our loss was very severe, my regiment having lost a hundred men in killed and wounded, and the total loss of the whole. force under that heading amounted to about a hundred and fifty. Besides Major Thomas, of my regiment, already mentioned as being mortally wounded, two other officers of the 3d Europeans, Lieutenants Pond and Fellows, were also wounded. Several other officers of the force were wounded, some mortally. Great was the dismay of our people inside the fort when the terrible reality of our defeat became known to them; their hearts, indeed, failed them.

The same evening our houses in cantonments and the civil lines were set on fire by the budmashes, when a vast conflagration, raging over a space of

five or six miles, presented a most melancholy spectacle to the inmates of Agra Fort. There was also a great uproar in the city, and a horrible massacre, outside the fort, of Mr. Hubbard, Professor of Literature, Agra College, Major Jacobs, and thirty other men, women, and children (principally Eurasians), who had declined to avail themselves of the fort's protection, relying doubtless on the expectation of our defeating the mutineers. One of those inhumanely murdered, Major Jacobs, defended himself with desperate valor till at last he fell overpowered by numbers.

The day after the battle of Shahgunj a party of volunteers went out, who, having buried the dead, brought back our dismounted gun that had been left behind in our defeat. Disorder, however, was rampant outside the fort for a day or two, and the King of Delhi was proclaimed in the city. Plundering went on unchecked for the time. I have reason to remember this, since I lost all my tents, as well as other necessary articles of clothing, which was a serious loss to me in the low state of my finances. At first few servants made their appearance, and we had to draw our own water from the well inside the fort, and for some days we were dependent on the commissariat for our butcher's meat, which was unprocurable in the ordinary way. The fort was divided into what was called blocks, alphabetically arranged, with the abodes therein duly numbered, by which means every one's address became as it were registered. The Agra civilians occupied quarters in the palace gardens, which were about the best in the fort. Many of the officers lived in tents pitched on a large green. Brigadier Polwhele and Colonel Fraser of the Engineers lived in a tiled barrack, situated on an elevation. There were also some other houses, inhabited by officers and their families, in one of which Lady Outram resided. Extensive apartments were assigned to a lot of priests, monks, and nuns, with their schoolgirls, and a bishop or archbishop at their head. The Protestant chaplain had comfortable quarters, and

Mr. French and the other missionaries dwelt in the palace gardens. The soldiers, of course, lived in their barracks. I and my wife and child had to share a horrid close storeroom with poor Mrs. Hawkins and her three children. Our dwelling was without any kind of aperture to let in a breath of air, except, of course, the entrance folding-door, which had to be closed at night every time it rained, which was frequently the case, in order that I might get some shelter from the pattering rain by placing my bed close up to the closely-shut door, as, of course, common decency forbade the impropriety of my sleeping inside, and even then half of my bed used regularly to get wet, so that it was a great wonder and a remarkable mercy that I escaped getting rheumatic fever. It was worse still for the ladies and children inside, as they must have been half stifled with the intense heat. Mrs. Hawkins, the widow of Major Hawkins, was particularly to be pitied, as she was weighed down with a terrible grief; she had been confined on the day preceding the mutiny at Gwalior, and had seen her husband and her two children killed by the Sepoys. But, howsoever undesirable my quarters were, there were, no doubt, many others lower down in the social scale who might have regarded them as an elysium in comparison to theirs, as every available spot was crammed with thatched sheds and suchlike inelegant shelters.

Our wounded in hospital were devotedly ministered to by our Protestant ladies. I went among the poor men to try to cheer them with my sympathy, and I well remember one case that particularly arrested my attention and excited my admiration; it was that of one of our poor artillerymen, who had been blown up by the explosion of a tumbril on July 5, and who now exhibited a marvellous example of manly fortitude while suffering much agony. A few days after we had been driven by the mutineers into Agra Fort we had an outbreak of cholera. Captain Burlton was taken ill on Sunday, July 12, and though the doctors did all they could to save him, yet all

their efforts were unavailing, and the disease proved fatal. About a week afterward Captain Prendergast, 44th N.I., was stricken with the dreadful malady, and after terrible suffering during the day the poor fellow died in the night. Such awfully sudden deaths are most powerful sermons, forcing the careless to acknowledge the wisdom of being prepared for the momentous and final settlement of their eternal exist

ence.

I must not also forget to notice that we had in the fort two newspaperprinting establishments, belonging to the Delhi Gazette and its rival paper, the Mofusilite. From these periodicals I derived my information of those stirring events of the outside world which I at once recorded in my diary. Mr. Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor, organized an intelligence department, of which Mr. William Muir had the chief direction; * and one source of entertainment was the arrival of special passengers from Delhi and other places with news. They were paid as much as forty or fifty pounds for tak ing a message, for it was at the imminent risk of their lives. But what won't a native do for money? They used to conceal their despatches in their hair, shoes, hookahs, etc. Mr. Colvin used to despatch letters written in Hebrew, Greek, and cipher to Colonel Greathed and the government at Calcutta, vainly imploring aid against the expected attack of the Gwalior Contingent. And here I may observe that the native Christians, hitherto so unjustly depreciated by most Anglo-Indians, now rose in public esteem, as being reliable and one with us. The fourth day of our residence in the fort witnessed a successive arrival of messengers with gloomy tidings, the third courier bringing in the heartrending news of the Cawnpore Ghaut massacre.

Our position at Agra was quite isolated, being closed in on every side,

*Now (1896) Sir William Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D. He was Lieut.-Governor North-West Frovinces, 1868-74, and member of the Council of the Governor-General of India, and he afterward became a member of the Secretary of State's Council for India, a post held by him till 1885.

and it really seemed exceedingly doubtful whether we could possibly hold on with a country all round seething with revolt till English troops could march 800 miles from Calcutta to our aid! For it must be considered that not only had more than 100,000 of well-disciplined native soldiers to be conquered, but we had also to contend with a widespread civil insurrection in revolted provinces containing a population of about fifty millions, with the Punjaub ready to unfurl the banner of revolt to regain their independence, while Rajpootana, Holkar, and the Nizam were watching on tiptoe the progress of events. Moreover, the loyalty of the great Mahratta Chief Scindia was very questionable, despite the current belief at Agra of the invaluable nature of his services, as there is good reason to believe the praise bestowed on the Gwalior Muharaja to have been quite undeserved.

Now if Scindia had placed himself in June at the head of the Durbar troops and the mutinied Gwalior Contingent, and had marched against Agra (the seat of the Government of the Northwest Provinces), then that important city would, humanly speaking, have fallen, and the siege of Delhi have been raised. And it is hard to see under such circumstances how the Delhi field force could have escaped annihilation. The terrible result of all this would have been our loss of India, the reconquering whereof would have been an almost, if not quite, impossible achievement, even if we could have sent 80,000 of our best soldiers from England. From these dire reverses, that might have happened, we were providentially saved by the salutary influence exercised on the Muharaja by his wise Prime Minister, Dinkur Rao, to whom were entirely due the valuable services nominally rendered to us by the Gwalior Muharaja.

We recovered our spirits in August and were ready to retrieve the disaster of Sussia. Colonel Cotton was now commanding at Agra in room of

He had been on staff employ all his life, and knew nothing of regimental matters, and was of so hot and impetuous a temper

Brigadier Polwhele, who had been removed from the command. The despatch of the Supreme Government for his removal was addressed to Mr. Colvin, who, it is stated, sent for the General, and received him in the presence of other officers, when he abruptly handed him the despatch, which the General took with a smile, little anticipating its humiliating contents. Having read it he turned very pale and appeared as if about to faint; but recovering himself, he with much dignity rose, returned the letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, bowed, and left the

room.

A force under the command * of Major Montgomerie was now sent to Alygurh against Ghousa Khan, who had proclaimed himself Soobadar of the King of Delhi. This miniature army consisted of three companies of my regiment, a hundred and fifty. strong, with four officers, two 9-pounders, and a 24-pounder howitzer, manned by about thirty European artillerymen, and thirty militia. We left Agra late on the evening of August 20. I commanded a party of my regiment composing the advance-guard, mounted on elephants. The only appliance for keeping our seat was by holding on to the rope bound round the huge quadruped. The instructions which I received were short and simple. I was, in case of coming in contact with the enemy, to dismount my men and form them up to resist any attack that might be made till the main body should come up. The night, which passed without any encounter, was the most miserable one that I have ever spent, for. soon after starting I was attacked with ophthalmia. I kept my seat on the elephant as long as I could, but at last I felt it so very difficult to hold on by the rope with the pain I was in, that I dismounted and marched on foot at the head of the advance-party on elephants.

And oh the agony I endured every time I strained my eyes in the darkness to keep clear of the elephants! The wretched long night, however, passed

that he earned the sobriquet of "Gun Cotton."

* Thornhill's "Indian Mutiny," p. 235.

at last, and next day it was proposed to send me back to Agra, but against this I earnestly protested, fearing that I should be murdered on the way. So with one eye like a ball of fire, I was allowed to stay and get on as best I might. Having been joined by a troop of sixty or seventy native horsemen raised by Thakoor Govind Singh, we attacked the enemy in the vicinity of Alygurh on August 24. I commanded a company in this action, though my eyes were painful and I could not see very well. Ghousa Khan's army was said to be about four thousand men, but without any exaggeration the rebels may be reckoned as outnumbering us by ten to one.

They were composed of undisciplined, armed insurgents, and a detachment of the 3d Cavalry that had mutinied at Meerut. The battle raged furiously for some time. I shall now just record what met my limited vision, which was a body of fifty or sixty Ghazees sweeping right down on my company. On they dashed, sword in hand, inflamed by religious fanaticism and rendered insensible to fear by having freely partaken of the soothing bhang. On they rushed just like so many mad dogs. I had only about thirty men with me to the front, and one of these rashly ran out a considerable distance in advance, apparently desirous of distinguishing himself by driving them back by his single-handed prowess; but the poor fellow paid dearly for his undisciplined act of valor, for he was cut to pieces in a few moments by the sharp swords of the Ghazees, and this seemed to strike my men with horror.

We now formed up near a gun, which fired with much precision and exhilarating effect, so that in conjunction with our musketry fire, the rebels were driven back. I believe the two other companies of my regiment maintained a successful fight with the enemy; but suffering from ophthalmia. as I was, I could not see what they did.

Our loss was thirty killed and wounded. Mr. Tandy, one of the managers of the Agra Bank, and Ensign Marsh, 16th N.I., were killed.