Foreign Letters Received. BERHAMPORE-H. Wilkinson, June 30th, CUTTACK-G. Taylor, July 11th. July 11th. Contributions RECEIVED ON ACCOUNT OF THE GENERAL BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY, From August 18th to September 18th, 1857. Subscriptions and donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by Robert Pegg, Esq., Derby, Treasurer; by the Rev. J. C. Pike, Quorndon, Leicestershire, Secretary; and by the Rev. W. Miller, engaged, during his sojourn in England, as Travelling Agent to the Society. ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 THE fearful and wide spread rebellion among the Bengal sepoys, the earnest and universal support that they receive both openly or in secret from the Mahommedans, the startling intelligence which reaches this country by every letter, both public and private, of conspiracies in every place, and of universal alarm among the European and christian population of Hindostan, render the present crisis the most fearful which has ever occurred in the history of that vast country. Never, in any of her colonies, have so many helpless British women and children fallen under the stroke of the murderous and cruel foe; and never in the annals of the world, except in connexion with the progress of Mahomed and his blood-thirsty followers, have been perpetrated deeds of villany and abomination so atrocious. Almost every communication from the chief scenes of action gives in detail enough to sicken and appal the most insensible nature; and all, darkly hint that what they have dared to write gives but a feeble idea of the unutterable, vile, and inhuman wickedness in which the incarnate demons have indulged. Honour, virtue, truth, humanity, pity for the helpless, the weak and unoffending, every feeling and sentiment which gives dignity to man, are unknown to the monsters who, taught by Europeans the use of military weapons, now roam at large through upper India, and gloat with infernal pleasure over the victims of their lust and rage, and employ those weapons against the people they have sworn to defend, and against their wives and children, in the vain hope of entire extermination. Wretched, miserable, infatuated men! How contemptible is the theory of those who seek to palliate if not to justify your excesses; and who lay the blame of them at some other door than that of their perpetrators! Yours are not deeds for which an apology can be taken. Brave men fighting for the independence of their country, oppressed men contending for their emancipation from thraldom, injured men retaliating on their tormentors are not wont to go your lengths, or to run riot in deeds of vile, cowardly, and wanton cruelty like yours. No: they protect the unoffending, they assist the feeble, they respect the sanctities of humanity; they shew their manhood in their gentleness, as well as in their prowess; and, even if discomfited, they secure admiration. But you have nothing in common with them. Yours are the deeds of monsters, whose souls are set on fire of hell! Any theory which would vindicate the mutineers as goaded to rebellion by British oppression and wrong cannot be entertained; especially as the sepoy, the actor in this vile tragedy, has been notoriously the most petted and favoured soldier upon earth. His deeds call for punishment and not palliation. What may be assigned as the probable causes of this rebellion ? and what were some of the circumstances that rendered the year 1857 favourable to their occurrence? Since our ears were astounded by the announcement of the mutiny, enough has transpired to point out these pretty clearly. It is a Mahommedan rebellion. This appears now to be the general feeling. They were formerly the rulers of the country. Their "Great Mogul" was the lord paramount throughout all India, and they have been for a long time plotting and praying for the restoration of the old order of things. "Upwards of a dozen years ago," writes an old Indian, "the late Sir William Sleeman, who, perhaps, more than any other man of his day, had mingled freely with the natives and gained their confidence, remarked, that the Mahommedans in India sigh for the restoration of the old Mahommedan règime.' We pray' said they, 'every night for the Emperor and his family, because our forefathers ate the salt of his forefathers.' As the result of personal enquiry, I am enabled to state positively that for nearly the last 100 years daily prayers have been offered in the mosques throughout India for the House of Timur, and the re-establishment of the king of Delhi on the throne of his ancestors." 6 Such being the unextinguishable spirit of Mahommedanism in India, it must have been with sullen hate that they observed the constantly increasing power of the English, and marked all the provinces from Burmah to Beloochistan falling under British rule. In immediate connexion with this, though the Government have been wickedly prone to ignore the christian religion, they also observed the efforts making for the diffusion of christianity in India. Those efforts were conducted in a kind, quiet, and suasive manner, and on no account deserved censure; yet the success attained, and the probabilities of future and larger accessions of converts to the christian church, tended naturally to deepen the hate which the Mussulman cherished to British rule. Hence to plot as well as pray became natural to him; and the evidence that is presented of private correspondence amongst the deposed princes, or the discontented Mahommedans, who have agents at every important place, shews that for many years past a formidable political conspiracy has been formed and carried on in secret throughout India, the end and purpose of which is to exterminate the British, to resuscitate the old Mogul empire, and to give life to its former tyrannies and abominations. The probabilities are, that in every province in India, there has been for years a secret understanding among the Mussulmans to this effect, that as soon as a favourable juncture arrives, the rising against the present rulers of India shall take place. It is not the King of Oude, simply, nor the Rajah of Sattara, whose wrongs are to be avenged, it is the empire of the faithful followers of the prophet that is to be set up, and the infidel christian dogs are to be destroyed. Nor is there anything contrary to the Mahommedan religion in all this. It is, and ever has been, sanguinary. From the day that Mahomet took the sword, until the present time its true spirit is that of conquest and dominion. It is a great merit to slay the infidel. "The koran" says one of the Mahommedan historians, "declares that the highest glory man can attain in this world is, unquestionably, that of waging successful war against the enemies of his religion." Accordingly, how often do we read in Mahommedan narratives of warriors hastening to the doomed cities of unbelievers, that they might "share in the merit of sending their souls to the abyss of hell!" How often do we read of their sparing neither old men nor young children, neither rich nor poor, male nor female, and of scores of pyramids being made of their heads for trophies. The more brutal their ferocity, and the more entire their abandonment of themselves to every cruel and evil passion in the destruction of the infidels, the more meritorious their conduct! Circumstances, to be afterwards referred to, seemed to indicate that the proper time was come for this rising against the British. The brahmins and Rajpoots were won over to their former oppressors, and consented to become their coadjutors in this work. The incident recorded in the following extract from an officer's letter at Benares, is important, as giving an insight into the Mahommedan policy: 66 For years these Mahommedans have been biding their time, and trying to get the Hindoos to help them, and they have succeeded for a time. One old subadar the other day who was not quite so bad as his neighbours, and had got some of. his officers to escape, put a bag of money, £90, into one of their hands, and said-'You English must now go. We have now got the Hindoos on our side. We are too strong, and our arrangements are too complete, nothing can resist us. Besides, you have made a great mistake. You think the King of Oude is at the head of this; but it is the King of Delhi who is to be King of India. As soon as you have gone I then take all the troops here to Delhi.' This occurred near Benares; but after the officers were in the boats the sepoys went after them, shot them, and took the money." With the help of the Hindoo soldiers, the Mussulmans, who are numerous in most places of importance, hoped at once to overturn the British rule, and to exterminate every vestige of their race and their religion from India. Calcutta-Benares-Agra-every place of importance seemed to be embraced in their all comprehensive arrangements. But how did the Mussulmans obtain the favour and affiance of the Hindoo soldiers? This is a question not yet satisfactorily answered. They have had their agents going about among them for years, seeking to worm themselves into their confidence, and to generate within them the spirit of disloyalty and treachery to their rulers. The sepoy regiments, though kept aloof from christian influence and from the missionary, have not been insensible to the strange innovations which have been made in public feeling by the introduction of European science, art, and skill into India, every particle of which as much tends to overturn the dogmas of their absurd mythology as do the truths of the christian religion; the steam boat, the rail-road, the telegraph, as well as the telescope and the microscope, were all undermining their system and consequently the importance of the higher castes. And then, with the certain prospect that the light of science, the influence of education, of legislation, and of the christianizing of missionaries would soon explode every particle of their brahminical importance, the new cartridge, falsely said to be so greased as to make them lose caste, and that for the purpose of securing their degradation, and as it were by force and fraud making them christians, seemed to complete their consternation. The delusion was encouraged by the Mahommedans, and they were engaged to combine with them for the destruction of the English as of their common foes. Everything seemed favourable for such a combination taking dreadful effect. The Government was supine, sleepy, and secure. It connived at a thousand faults both in Musslemans and the sepoys, and stolidly refused to receive any evidence to their discredit. It trusted them with various appointments by which they were the better enabled to carry out their plans. It appointed men to command the army both of British and Hindoo soldiers, who were indolent and incapable of their work. It permitted the sepoy to be detached from his officer, or to be under the guidance of a boy or a subaltern. It annexed the kingdom of Oude, and left the forts with 800 guns in native hands, thus transferring its untrustworthy soldiers to the Company's service. And when two regiments of British soldiers were removed to the Russian war and not returned, and others were off to the Persian war, itself most offensive to the Mahommedan, and England was commencing a war with China, so that there were no European troops from Dinapore to Delhi, and only one regiment in the kingdom of Oude, and none to be obtained; when, in fact, to one half blind it was apparent that the vast empire of India was left, as it were, to the fidelity of native troops, and was at their mercy if they chose to rise; that was the time selected for this vast mutiny. The praying, plotting, bloodthirsty Mussulmans would see their opportunity. They would have a strong temptation to set before the proud Rajpoot or haughty Brahmin soldier.—“Do you see? India is at our feet. There are some 200,000 of you now under arms. You have only a few British officers to kill and a very few regiments of English to conquer, and all is yours. The forts, the property, the arms and ammunition, the whole country is yours. These British who have tried to destroy your caste by their greased cartridges, and who have tyrannized over us so long, and added of our princes and yours, kingdom to kingdom, will then be destroyed. We can easily, as taught both by the prophet and our own hate, root them all out, and kill them every one, young and old. We have emissaries everywhere, and success is sure." Such, only far more subtle would be the form of the temptation. Wealth, honour, religion, the preservation of caste, and the destruction of a careless, slumbering, and confiding foe, and all by a simultaneons movement, would present a temptation which he did not choose to resist. The influence of the insurrection has been contagious. Some regiments hung back till prompted by others to mutiny. Some in order to carry out their design more effectively asked to be led against the insurgents only to have a fair opportunity of joining them. The sentiment of one of our political writers, that the rebellion in India became a fact because it was a possibility, is we think correct. The vigilant eye of the tamed tiger had been looking on its keeper for a long time; it was always tame and quiet and good, confiding and playful as a kitten, so long as there appeared no prospect of a successful spring; but no sooner did it seem that the prey might be secured than its ferocious nature was displayed as perfectly as if it had never been under rule. We have to thank Providence, and not the vigilance of our rulers in India, that all is not lost, and we think with the merchants of Calcutta, |