Scindia had reformed his courts of justice, and introduced extensive reforms into his territories and government;* and it will be curious to inquire into the character of the other rajahs who have stood by us. One man or rather monster may suggest himself as a contradiction of the truth of this theory. Nana Sahib has been spoken of as an educated man; and some journals have even held him up as the embodiment and type of what it is the fashion to call young Bengal; arguing, that if he be the result of education, policy should teach us to enlighten no more natives. But it is a mistake to regard Nana Sahib as an educated man. True he has a smattering of English, but I hear that he is so ignorant of even our language that he could not converse with his guests save through an interpreter; and as to education, in its only valuable signification, he is as uninstructed as the lowest mutineer. He knows nothing of European literature, science, or morality; and is, to all intents and purpose, an ignorant uneducated native.†

Let us acknowledge with thankfulness the debt we owe to the

* The following extract is taken from the "Athenæum " of the 2nd June, 1857 :"The Maharajah Scindia, we learn from the " 'Mofussilite," has instituted great reforms. His dewan has compiled a civil and criminal code, the system of farming the revenue has been abolished, village leasehold settlements on terms more favorable to the ryots than exist in our own provinces have been made, a sudder court has been established, and various grades of moonsiffs have been constituted. To add to this goodly catalogue, it may be mentioned that the revenue exhibits a substantial surplus, that schools have been established, roads and bridges made, and transit duties abolished. The Maharajah also possesses an admirably drilled and disciplined force of regulars of all arms; a portion of this force is now in Agra, attesting, as our contemporary truly observes, alike to Scindia's military talents and his friendly confidence in the British Government."

+ Since the writing of these lines, Mr. Halliday, the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, addressing an audience at Calcutta, thus corroborates what I have said :—

"It is to ignorance, not to the presence, of education, that we owe, if not the rebellion itself, certainly the dark and dismal horrors which have distinguished it. Those who have imbibed the greatest share of English ideas and knowledge have taken the least part in the recent troubles and atrocities; the best educated have been universally the best affected; and I know scarcely one well authenticated instance of really educated native-I will not say joining, but even sympathising, with the rebels. When I say this some of you will probably think of the Nana, but the case of the Nana is no exception. It has been said, and quoted over and over again, that that execrable and atrocious miscreant is a man of English education. But I am informed that he has merely a small smattering of English education, and that he cannot, in any one sense of the word, be called an educated man. The cause of education has much suffered by this mistake committed in respect to the Nana."

educated natives; and regard this little known fact which I have explained, as one of the marvellous circumstances in our favour, which look as though they had been pre-ordained to prevent our utter extermination; so that while we have been cruelly aroused to the true character of our own position in India, and awakened to the perception of our duties as the governing power, we are still preserved for the purpose of discharging those duties. We are far more necessary just now to the natives of India than they are to us. England would indubitably sink in the scale of European nations to a second-rate power if she were to lose India; but if India were to lose England, eye hath not seen, heart hath not conceived the horrors that would be in store for this unhappy land. The present struggle has not brought forward a single man of mark, not even a commander of ordinary capacity.* There does not exist among the whole people the man now alive who could re-organize the Government if we were expelled to-morrow.

Every man's hand would be against his neighbour; each petty rajah would be at feud with the other; the people would be the universal sufferers. Soon religious differences would arise between the Mahomedans and the Hindoos, for the latter could not now tamely submit to the domination of the former. The banker and the merchant, in fact every man with even the appearance of wealth, would be the special mark for plunder and torture; indeed, the description of what has occurred even among the rebels themselves, and in the territories which have felt their presence, gives us a sufficiently significant glimpse of what would happen had they prevailed in the extermination of the British; though the extortions, the murders, and wanton crimes which the natives have committed upon each other in the course of the rebellion, afford but a very faint sample of what must have universally happened had any new "Raj" been established.

It would seem as though the destinies of both nations, so much in want of each other, required such a shock as that we have just felt to rouse us to a sense of our duties, and secure their fulfilment. Year after year remonstrance, warning, evidence,

* I have seen Nana Sahib spoken of as a commander of consummate military tact, but the grounds for such an assertion are not set forth. Koer Sing is probably the ablest man among them.

argument, entreaty, was poured out before the English nation, whose lethargy was as that of the seven sleepers. Nothing short of the grand crash with which the East India Company's system has at last exploded could excite attention and sympathy towards India, or teach us that we cannot accept only the profits and pleasures of government to the neglect of its chief obligations. God knows we have been bitterly punished for our listlessness and remissness. But the thunderstorm clears the atmosphere. May we have learnt wisdom from our sufferings; and henceforth, while we sternly exact the full rights of Government, earnestly and conscientiously apply ourselves to the faithful fulfilment of its duties!

CHAPTER III.

TOPICS 3RD-6TH.

III. How shall we treat the Rebels ?—IV. Had the Supreme Government warning of the coming danger?-V. Were all practicable measures taken to meet the crisis?-VI. Who is pay the cost of the Rebellion?

to pay

THERE are several topics of some importance which it is well to dispose of before we proceed further. The first is, what shall be our treatment of those who have risen against us, after victory shall have placed them in our power? This question has in a great measure already solved itself, and the work of punishment and retribution will probably be complete before Parliament could interfere, even if it were disposed to do so. There has been an insane cry for vengeance raised in England, and by some journals in India, especially the "Friend of India" and the "Lahore Chronicle." The pulpit was in some instances made the vehicle of most unchristian denunciation, and most uncharitable advice. The wildest propositions were launched by public speakers, and Mr. Bernal Osborne and other orators spoke soberly of sowing Delhi with salt. Mr. Colvin's proclamation and Lord Canning's "Clemency Order" excited great indignation. Nothing short of extermination was thought sufficient amende for the atrocities of the sepoys; a natural though unreasoning anger was raised at the cruel murders of our women and children. Even Lord Shaftesbury demanded an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Fire and sword must desolate the homes of such wretches; the survivors must pass under the yoke. It would be an easy task, were it not beside my purpose, to cite historical passages which would show that horrors of equal magnitude have accompanied revolutionary movements since the world began. Rape and child-murder are no new crimes, nor is this the first time we have heard of infants being tossed up

and caught on the points of bayonets and pikes. The massacre of Glencoe, the horrors of the Irish outbreak, the sack of Magdegburgh, the great French Revolution, the cruelties to the Albigenses, and fifty other historical recollections, at once suggest the a-priori probability that such demi-savages as the Hindoos would accompany their attacks with atrocious cruelty. Our seafenced island home is so isolated from all practical experience of the horrors of popular commotions, that the novelty of cruelties and indignities perpetrated on the persons of our own citizens breaks upon us with all the more startling effect, and excites the keener indignation. Subsequent accounts, however, seem to qualify some of the worst stories at first rife; at any rate, so far as to bid us suspend our judgment, and demand further enquiry. Extermination, not dishonour, seems to have been the main object of our enemies. But I am not disposed to undergo the risk of being mistaken for an apologist of the sepoys. Our men, women, and children have been inhumanly butchered; whether nameless injuries have, in addition, been inflicted on them previous to the fatal stroke, may require clearing up hereafter; but death is the fitting penalty of simple murder; we can inflict no worse penalty, even when murder has been accompanied by the most revolting circumstances of cruelty.

"

The Morning Star" in England, the " Athenæum " in India, from the outset, steadily and humanely opposed the cry which was raised for vengeance; and I do believe that calmer reflection has caused many to feel shame for their first out-pouring of blind and universal wrath. Indophilus has shown that Mr. Colvin's proclamation was not only justifiable, but in conformity with established precedents. Having regard to the time when it appeared, it was not only justifiable, but politic. Those who were on the point of becoming mutineers had a locus penitentiæ afforded to them; they were plainly warned that such as did not avail themselves of it would find no mercy. Lord Canning's Clemency Order "* appears to me to have been right in principle, though it was most infelicitously worded; and the blunder in this particular instance some may think consisted in publishing the order, instead of sending it in the shape of private

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*31st July, 1857.