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104A THE LEADER. [No. 397, October 31,18...
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THE NEW ASPECT IN INDIA. The operations ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Once more , then , the British flag waves > ver the ramparts of Delhi . The stronghold ) f rebellion has been stormed and captured , md the focus of disaffection is , for the time it least , put out . But . the puppet King appears to have escaped . There is , indeed , a rumour of his Majesty having been . made prisoner : but we cannot trace the report to any reliable source . While the living representative of the Great Mogul continues at largo s the standard of revolt will be ever faised , or ready for raising , in whatever . quarter that personage may find an asylum .
This is an inevitable consequence of the titular monarch having abandoned 120 , 000 / . a year and a quiet life for traitorous intrigues and dreams of restoration , destined , ere long , to end in poverty and exile . The King of Delhi must , therefore , be looked up with as little loss of time as possible . " We have no sympathy with one who so little deserves any . The House of Ti-iloite owes its continued
-existence to British interposition . On the 12 th of September , 1803 , Lord Lake released poor blind Shah AiiiTJM from inany years of captivity and subjection to the iron rule of ' the Mahrattas . His empire had already passed away ; and so had the day for reconstituting it . He lived thenceforth and
died ( as his successors have since lived and died ) a wealthy pensioner of the British Government . Indeed , far too great indulgence viras shown towards these royal shadows . Their permittpd regal pomp in Delhi had long been recognized as a fatal errors But the mistake remained uncorrected , until at last it corrected itself . What a wonderful
maxim is it— ' That a Native [ of India 3 may forget an injury , but he never forgets a benefit ! ' Yet in this dictum we own to having once believed—ay , as firmly as we were convinced that Oliveb Cromwell cut off CHAaiiESTHEFiBsx ' s head with hisovvn hands . Since our remarks of the 4 th July were penned , the nature of the King of Dklhi ' s gratitude has heeti more fully manifested . " We could pardon the ill-starred ambition
that aspired to recover an ancestral throne , but when , a would-be Emperor of the East has stooped to be the instrument of common thieves and murderers , lie cannot reasonably expect to be judged independently of his associates . Their lota are cast together , and together they must hang ; although , in respect of his antecedents , the King of the Mutineers may be indulged , pace nostrd , with a silken rope , and the gallows of Haman .
Delhi is oura again ; but the struggle is not yet over , nor is it likely to be soon terminated . The head of the conspiracy has heeu sorely bruised ,- but its limbs are fiercely ¦ writhing Btill . Hitherto , alL the main operations have been confined to the vicinity of great lines of communication , such as ' river Ganges and the Grand Trunk Boad . All this must now be changed . The war will now be transferred to hill and jungle . A series of campaigns may be looked for of the most
harassing nature—unhealthy too—and eventually more destructive to human life than any number of pitched battles , fought by the same number of troops , within a given period of time . All the North-Western Provinces have to bo more or less reconquered : Oude , Bohilcund , Owalior , Bundelcund , and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories almost
entirely so . The whole of these states are dotted with forts and strongholds of every description ; and the trouble that some of these are capable of giving , even to a well appointed detachment , is long sinco but too well known . Central India ia already menaced , and . much confusion prevails throughout all that important region . The Bengal mutiny etill hastens to its completion ; -witness the
recent instances of the 50 th K . I . ( at 3 S " agode ) and the 52 nd N . I . ( at Jubbulpore ) , which leave a balance of three regiments still supposed to be faithful . Seditious movements are also rife in the Bombay army . Nor could it well be otherwise , seeing , as we have before mentioned , that more than half of the Bombay Sepoys are drawn from Oude or the neighbouring districts , and are own brothers to the class with which the Bengal army swarms .
It is far from our wish or intention .- to speak discouragingly ; unless , indeed , it be to discourage false confidence , an error that has so often proved the bane of military enterprise under British auspices . We most sincerely believe that all will come right in due time ; but no relaxation must be dreamed of in the efforts now making . There wiil be
work enough yet to test the military genius of our best and bravest commanders , and the endurance of our hardiest troops . The intelligence received by the last overland mail breaks off so abruptly as not to admit of our pursuing the present subject into anything like detail . The succeeding despatches may perhaps supply us with a more definite text .
104a The Leader. [No. 397, October 31,18...
104 A THE LEADER . [ No . 397 , October 31 , 1857 .
The New Aspect In India. The Operations ...
THE NEW ASPECT IN INDIA . The operations at Delhi must be regarded as the prelude to a systematic and laborious campaign . We have still to wait for intelligence of the effect produced upon the native mind by the result of the six days' conflict between the forces under General Wilson and those of the Mogul apparition . We cannot doubt , however , that it will be considerable . The spell of the sudden Mohammedan triumph has been destroyed , and
circumstances accompanied its collapse which will alienate the sympathies of large numbers who had previously relied upon the grandiloquent assurances of the extraordinary Restoration attempted in the North- West . While the four columns were preparing to advance , some princes at the palace sent to Gteneral Wilson" offering to surrender the murderers upon condition of being themselves pardoned by the British Government . The answer was that future heralds would be
hanged . This incident must have shown to the Sepoys what trust they would repose in the chiefs under whose standards so many of their comrades have fallen . Dissension , however , partially opened a way to the attack . The General defeated at Nuffjughur , afraid toreturn in disgrace , abandoned the city and took to military freebooting on his private account . Thus , the rebellion had begun to dissolve between the Jumna and the Sntlej even before the great achievement of the 14 th and 20 fch
of September . Major-General TucKEit , himself no optimist , writing before the event , said , " With the reoccupation of Delhi , the revolt in our old possessions in the Upper Provinces will cease , and wo shall have simply to resume our control and authority . " The grand arena of the struggle has been thus transferred to Oude . While Lucknow and the forts along the Gogra remained in possession , of the rebels , General Outbam ' s CommuBsionership would be equivalent to the royalty of Barataria ; but the political aspects of that
country as exhibited by the recent despatches , are of a very remarkable character . From , various quarters the Hindoo population had intimated their anxiety to bo rid of the monstrous Mohammedan authority which had been thrust upon them . The Nana Sahib , in fact , was neither more nor less than a lieutenant of the fictitious King of Delhi , to whose sovereignty his proclamations have generally referred , and who stood ab the head of an armed Muslim conspiracy , into which bodies of the Hindoos had been decoyed . The people , as a people ,
have taken no parb in the insurrection , except to intercept and kill the dispersed mutineers . A . t the same time , we should be mistaken if , calculating upon the fall of Delhi as a dislocation of the revolt , we omitted to notice the fact that the native Bengal army was chiefly a HLindoo force . It contained less than thirteen thousand Mohammedans the vast majority being made up oi Brahmins , Rajpoots , and Hindoos of an inferior description . The larger proportion
of Mohammedans is in Madras , of the IVIahrattas and mixed castes in Bombay . Therefore , keeping in view the military character of the outbreak , we are at no loss to imagine how the Mohammedans , with a deep design , worked upon the growing rancour of the Hindoos , who , when , instigated by their comrades of another religion , formed plans and combinations of their own , but not in concert with the people—if so loose an aggregate as the population of
India can be so termed . Brahmins and Rajpoots flung themselves into the cause of the Sullateen of Delhi . Goojars and rift-raff joined them . Some of the kindred of the Sepoys were drawn into the movement . But the hereditary chieftains , the zemindars , and the ryots generally stood firm , actuated by friendly feelings , or by considerations of interest ; The Nana . Sahib is a Mahratta ,
with a grievance ; but Holkar and Sindiah are not with him . We hold it to . be impossible that the small English army , without reinforcements , should have held its ground so well , and broken up the political organization at Delhi , had the mass of the inhabitants of India been arrayed , even" by their passive sympathies , against them . But between tiie several divisions of the Bengal army there
was the bond of language . The Mohammedan spoke Hindostani to the Rajpoot , while in Madras he was unintelligible to the Tamilun and Telinga . This facilitated the insurrection , and gave it a unity and concentration which it could nob otherwise have possessed . . These points are brought out with fresh and peculiar distinctness in the latest intelligence . The union of the rebels is palpably shown to have been ephemeral and fortuitous . Even at Delhi the garrison was
without regular plans , and acknowledged noundivided allegiance . The division defeated at Nuffjughur inarched oft' , as we have seen , upon a separate adventure , and never returned to the city . While the streets and walls were being forced , the cavalry and largo bodies of infantry consulted their own safety by disappearing across the river . So also in the Lower Provinces . Two regiments in Oude sneaked out of the enemy ' lines , and proposed terms of accommodation . Clearly , the mutiny has no longer a consistent , or substantial basis . It must now
range over an immense ' open , ' the bepoys havingpossessed themselves of no considerable fortreas except the citadel of Delhi . Politically , they repi'esent no cause whatever---unless , perhaps , that of a mendicant Mogul in woman ' s clothes . That is an eiligy which will scarcely continue to excite the enthusiasm of thiry millions of the Faithful . With the progress made by the nnny the public is undoubtedly content . We happen to have good men in India at this moment ;
certainly , we could not have bettor than Lawrence , Wilson , Niciiolhon , Havelock , Neii-t ,, Ernis , and Colin Cami'bem ^ Outham has so far dono his work well . But the civil power is unfortunately in an omcious fovor , and there are strange reports ot collisions bctweon the Governor-General and the Commander-m-Chief . Wo do not wwh to exceed our knowledge ; but a few P lain questions may bo put without injury to any
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 31, 1857, page 1044, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_31101857/page/12/
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