ANNALS OF THE INDIAN REBELLION. THE machinery (said the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Army at the trial of the titular King of Delhi,) that has set in motion, such an amount of mutiny and murder, that has made its vibrations felt almost at one and the same moment from one end of India to the other, must have been prepared, if not with foreseeing wisdom, yet with awful craft, and most successful and commanding subtlety. We must recollect, too, in considering this subject, that in many of the places where the native troops have risen against their European officers, there was no pretence even in reference to cartridges at all. Numbers of these mutinied, apparently, because they thought there was a favorable opportunity of doing so ;-because they were a hundred to one against those in authority, and fancied that they might pillage, plunder and massacre, not only with impunity, but with advantage. Is it possible that such fearful results as these could have at once developed themselves, had the native army previous to the cartridge question been in a sound and well-affected state? Can any one imagine that that rancorous wide-spread enmity, of which we have lately had such terrible proof, has been the result of feelings suddenly and accidentally irritated? Does it appear consistent with the natural order of events, that such intense malignity should start into existence on one single provocation? Or can it be reconciled with the instincts, the traditions, or the idiosyncracies of the Hindus, that they should, recklessly, without enquiry and without thought, desire to imbrue their hands in human blood, casting aside the pecuniary and other advantages that bound them to the cause of order and of the Government? Or, more than this, can it be imagined that the three regiments at Meerut, even when joined by those at Delhi, could have conceived an idea so daring as that of overthrowing, by themselves, the British Government of India? If the native regiments, previous to the cartridge question being mooted, had been in a sound and well affected state, such a frightful, and all but universal revolt could not have occurred; there must have been some other and more latent power at work to have thus operated on a whole army scat B tered in different cantonments from Calcutta to Peshawur. I think that such could not have been accomplished without some secret mutual understanding, and some previous preparation, the establishment of which may appropriately be termed conspiracy. * In alluding then to the existence of a conspiracy, I do not mean to imply that we have come upon traces of a particular gang of men specially banded together for the fixed definite object of causing the late rebellion in the native army, in any manner similar to that in which we have seen it developed; but such evidence as we have been able to obtain does appear to me to point out that, for a considerable time antecedent to the 10th of May, agitation and disaffection to British rule among the Mahomedans, was more than ordinarily prevalent, and that such disaffection had been stimulated by active and designing men, who have most craftily taken advantage of every circumstance that could be made suitable for such a purpose. The annexation of Oudh to British rule was perhaps one of these. It seems to have been particularly displeasing to the Mahomedans, as anihilating the last throne left to them in India; and for some other reasons, it would appear to have been almost equally unpalatable to the Hindu sepoy. It may perhaps have interfered with his position then as a privileged servant of the Company; so instead of having to rely on the influence and prestige of the British Government in dealings or disputes with the native landholders of that province, he found himself brought at once under direct European control. One of the witnesses, Jat Mall, draws a marked distinction between the Hindu sepoy and Hindu tradesman, in reference to their feelings for the British Government, and perhaps the annexation of Oudh, with other causes, may tend to account for it. Being asked whether there was any difference between the Mahomedans and Hindus in this respect, he replies-" Yes, certainly, the Mahomedans, as a body, were all pleased at the overthrow of the British Government, while the merchants and respectable tradesmen among the Hindus regretted it.” He, however, says that the general feeling throughout the army was the same both among the Hindus and Mahomedans, and that they were both equally bitter; and this view of the case is, I think, supported by our experiences of both. The great bulk of the infantry portion of the native army was undoubtedly Hindu; but we have not found this any check or restraint upon their revolting barbarity, and as far as the army has been concerned, Hindus and Mahomedans appear to have vied with each other in the enormity of their crimes. But apart from the army, |