76.Gordon, Our India Mission, pp. 130–1.
77.Ibid.
78.Ibid.
79.The allusion is to the elders of the Presbyterian church.
80.Ibid., p. 132.
81.Ibid.
82.Ibid.
83.Ibid.
84.Ibid., p. 133.
85.Letter from A. Gordon, 15 May 1857, Evangelical Depository, p. 210.
86.Ibid., p. 209.
87.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 53
88.Mainodin Hassan Khan, in Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives, p. 38.
89.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 129.
2.A RELIGIOUS QUESTION FROM WHICH AROSE OUR DREAD
1.For a more detailed account of the introduction of the Enfield Rifle, see Wagner, The Great Fear, pp. 27–44.
2.‘Depots for Training Officers, &c., in the Use of the Rifle Musket’, Allen’s India Mail, 30 Jan. 1857, p. 83.
3.‘The Punjab School of Musketry’, Allen’s India Mail, 17 March 1857, p. 171.
4.Report by Brevet Colonel G. Farquharson, 11 July 1857, in ‘Report regarding the mutinees of the 14th and 46th Regiment Native Infantry at Jhelum and Sealkote’, National Archives of India (NAI), Military Department, 15 July 1857, 83 A.
5.Rifle companies in the Bengal Army were already armed with the 1838 Brunswick Rifle, see Wagner, The Great Fear, p. 27.
6.See examination of Lieut. M.E. Currie, in George W. Forrest (ed.), Selections from the Letters, Despatches and Other State Papers Preserved in the Military Department of the Government of India, 1857–58, 4 vols, Calcutta Military Department Press, 1893, I, Appendix D, p. lxv.
7.‘The School of Musketry at Sealkote’, Allen’s India Mail, 15 April 1857, p. 240.
8.In this context ‘Hindostanee’ refers to a sepoy in the Bengal Army.
9.Traditionally Chamars were tanners and therefore untouchable.
10.Subadar, or captain.
11.Nund Singh to Nehal Singh, 10 June, cited in J.W. Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War in India 1857–1858, 3 vols, London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1876–80, I, pp. 651–2.
12.The Delhi Gazette, 26 Feb. 1857.
13.See examination of M.E. Currie, in Forrest, Selections, I, Appendix D, p. lxv.
14.J. Abbott to R. Birch, 29 Jan. 1857, HC PP, 1857, Session 2 [2254], p. 7.
15.Examination of E. Martineau during the trial of Bahadur Shah, P.K. Nayar (ed.), The Trial of Bahadur Shah, Hyderabad, Orient Longman, 2007, p. 84; and examination of M.E. Currie, in Forrest, Selections, I, Appendix D, lxii.
16.Examination of Byjonath Pandy, in Forrest, Selections, I, p. 8. The English transliteration of Indian names could be quite atrocious.
17.Examination of Ajoodiah Singh, ibid., p. 12.
18.A later cross-examination revealed that the word used had been bharosa or ‘trust’, ibid., Appendix D, p. lxxiv.
19.Examination of Sewbuccus Sing, ibid., pp. lxix-lxx.
20.Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives, p. 38.
21.Wagner, The Great Fear, pp. 54–9.
22.Petition cited in W. Mitchell to A.H. Ross, 27 Feb. 1857, in Forrest, Selections, I, pp. 46.
23.General order by Governor-General, 27 March 1857, in Forrest, Selections, I, pp. 94–7.
24.See Wagner, The Great Fear, pp. 79–97.
25.Examination of Shaik Pultoo, in Forrest, Selections, I, p. 124.
26.The Delhi Gazette, 18 April 1857.
27.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, pp. 51–2.
28.Deposition of Sheo Churrun Das, Depositions taken at Cawnpore under the directions of Lieut-Colonel G. W. Williams, (Allahabad, 1858), no. 17.
29.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, p. 7.
30.The Delhi Gazette, 7 May 1857.
31.Ibid.
32.Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives, p. 38.
33.N.A. Chick (ed.), Annals of the Indian Rebellion, Calcutta: Sanders, Cones and Co., 1859, p. 76.
34.Nund Singh to Nehal Singh, 10 June, Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War, I, p. 653.
35.E. Martineau to J.W. Kaye, 20 Oct. 1864, Kaye Papers, H/725(2), 1019, APAC. This letter is a fragment and some words have to be inferred from the context.
36.Examination of E. Martineau, Nayar, Trial of Bahadur Shah, p. 84.
37.Kaye’s and Malleson’s History of the Indian Mutiny, I, pp. 416–17.
38.Examination of E. Martineau, Nayar, Trial of Bahadur Shah, p. 83.
39.E. Martineau to J.W. Kaye, 20 Oct. 1864, Kaye Papers, H/725(2), 1027, APAC.
40.John Cave-Browne, The Punjab and Delhi in 1857: Being a Narrative of the Measures by which the Punjab was Saved and Delhi Recovered during the Indian Mutiny, London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1861, I, p. 42.
41.E. Martineau to A. Becher, 20 March 1857, Martineau Letters, Mss. Eur. C571, APAC.
42.Ibid.
43.Ibid.
44.Ibid.
45.Ibid., 23 March 1857.
46.Ibid.
47.See Ian Copland, ‘Christianity as an Arm of Empire: The Ambiguous Case of India under the Company, c. 1813–1858’, The Historical Journal (2006), pp. 1025–54.
48.S. Wheler to J.B. Hearsey, 4 April 1857, in S. A. A. Rizvi and M. L. Bhargava (eds.), Freedom Struggle in Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow: Publications Bureau, 1957–61, I, p. 297.
49.Letter from E.A. Stevenson and R.A. Hill, 12 Feb. 1857, Evangelical Repository, pp. 29–30.
50.Letter from T. Hunter, 24 Jan. 1857, Youngson, Forty Years, pp. 93–94.
51.Letter from A. Gordon, n.d., Evangelical Repository, 53.
52.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 18.
53.‘New Church in the Punjab’, Illustrated London News, 29 April 1854; and Rich, The Mutiny in Sialkot, p. 3.
54.The sacred thread worn by Brahmins.
55.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, pp. 4–5
56.See Andrea Major, Sovereignty and Social Reform in India: British Colonialism and the Campaign Against Sati, 1830–60, Abingdon: Routledge, 2010.
57.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 20. See also ‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, pp. 3–4.
58.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 16.
59.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, p. 5.
60.See James W. Hoover, Men Without Hats: Dialogue, Discipline, and Discontent in the Madras Army 1806–1807, Delhi: Manohar, 2007.
61.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, pp. 1–2.
62.Ibid.
63.Interview with Mahoobalee, Sleeman, On the Spirit of Military Discipline, pp. 11–12.
64.See Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War, I, pp. 195–9; and Clare Anderson, The Indian Uprising of 1857–8: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion, London: Anthem, 2007, pp. 27–55.
65.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, p. 4.
66.Anand A. Yang, ‘Disciplining “Natives”: Prisons and Prisoners in Early Nineteenth Century India, South Asia, 10, 2 (1987), 29–46.
67.‘Shaik Hedayut Ali’, p. 3.
68.Ibid., p. 4.
69.Alavi, The Sepoys and the Company, p. 31.
70.Anonymous petition to Major Matthews, March 1857, Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War, I, pp. 639–41.
71.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 14.
72.See Wagner, The Great Fear, pp. 107–123.
73.Defence of Mattadin Havildar, in Forrest, Selections, I, pp. cxliv-cxlv.
74.Ibid.
75.Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, p. 52.
76.Wagner, The Great Fear, pp. 131–88.
77.Examination of Ahsan Ulla Khan, in Nayar, Trial of Bahadur Shah, p. 60.
78.Jewan Lal, in Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives, p. 235.
79.J. Lawrence to C. Canning, 4 May 1857, quoted in Kaye’s and Malleson’s History, I pp. 427–8.
80.Ibid.
81.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 8 May 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 17.
82.Report by Lieut. Col. A. Campbell, 11 July 1857, in ‘Report regarding the mutinees of the 14th and 46th Regiment Native Infantry at Jhelum and Sealkote’, National Archives of India (NAI), Military Department, 15 July 1857,
83 A.
83.Letter by Mrs Campbell, 12 July 1857, ‘Letter from India’, Glasgow Herald, 11 Sept. 1857. See also letter by Mr. Jones, 13 July 1857, ‘Letter from a gentleman in the civil service, dated Sealkote, July 13’, The Times, 2 Sept. 1857.
84.R.G. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny, London: John Murray, 1894, p. 13. See also W.S. Moorsom, Historical Record of the Fifty-Second Regiment (Oxfordshire Light Infantry) from the year 1755 to the year 1858, London: Richard Bentley, 1860, p. 392.
3.COMMON FAME IS BUT A LYING STRUMPET
1.Letter by Mr. Jones, 13 July 1857, The Times, 2 Sept. 1857.
2.Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, p. 14.
3.Ibid., pp. 14–15.
4.Letter from A. Gordon, 15 May 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 209.
5.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 23 May, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 21.
6.Letter from A. Duff, 16 June 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 291.
7.See Jenny Sharpe, Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text, Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993; and Nancy L. Paxton, Writing Under the Raj: Gender, Race and Rape in the British Colonial Imagination, 1830–1947, New Brunswick: Rutgers U.P., 1999; and Alison Blunt, ‘Embodying war: British women and domestic defilement in the Indian ‘Mutiny’, 1857–8’, Journal of Historical Geography, 26, 3 (2000), pp. 403–28.
8.Letter from R.A. Hill, 26 May 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 227.
9.Cited in Kaye’s and Malleson’s History, II, p. 342.
10.H.R. James to R. Montgomery, 19 May 1857, Mutiny Records 7:1, p. 45; and A.A. Roberts to R. Montgomery, 20 March 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 235–6.
11.G. Bourchier, Eight Month’s Campaign Against the Bengal Sepoy Army, During the Mutiny of 1857, London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1858, n. p. 6.
12.Letter by Mr. Jones, 13 July 1857, The Times, 2 Sept. 1857.
13.A.A. Roberts to R. Montgomery, 20 March 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, p. 236.
14.H.R. James to R. Montgomery, 21 May 1857, Mutiny Records 7:1, p. 51.
15.See also Thomas Dixon, Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
16.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 134.
17.A.A. Roberts to R. Montgomery, 20 March 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, p. 231.
18.Letter by Mr. Jones, 13 July 1857, The Times, 2 Sept. 1857.
19.H.R. James to R. Montgomery, 19 May 1857, Mutiny Records 7:1, p. 45.
20.A.A. Roberts to R. Montgomery, 20 March 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 236–7.
21.Ibid., p. 278.
22.Letter from R.A. Hill, 17 July 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 317.
23.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 135. Italics in original.
24.G. Ousely to E. Thornton, 25 Jan. 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, p. 393.
25.Ibid.
26.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 18 May 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 17.
27.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 136.
28.Letter by Mr. Jones, 13 July 1857, The Times, 2 Sept. 1857.
29.Ibid.
30.Letter from A. Gordon, 15 May 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 210.
31.Letter from E.H. Stevenson, 29 May 1857, ibid., pp. 213–14.
32.Letter from A. Gordon, 1 June 1857, ibid., p. 212.
33.Ibid.
34.Ibid., 15 June 1857, ibid., pp. 287.
35.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 136.
36.Letter from E.H. Stevenson, 29 May 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 214
37.See for instance Dr Graham to J. Graham, 23 May, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 21.
38.Gordon, Our India Mission, pp. 136–7.
39.See Anand Yang, ‘A Conversation of Rumours: The Language of Popular “Mentalitès” in Late Nineteenth-Century Colonial India’, Journal of Social History, 20, 3 (Spring 1987), pp. 485–505; and Guha, Elementary Aspects, especially chapter 6: ‘Transmission’, pp. 220–277. See also Wagner, The Great Fear; and Wagner, ‘“Treading Upon Fires”’.
40.Address of Judge Advocate General Major F.J. Harriott, Nayar, Trial of Bahadur Shah, pp. 163–4.
41.Reproduced in Rizvi, Freedom Struggle, I, pp. 353–4.
42.‘Translation of an urzee in urdu from Taj-Ood-Deen to the King of Dehlee, 29 May 1857’, Mutiny Records 7:2, p. 206.
43.Report by Captain Mackenzie, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 388–9.
44.W.H. Sleeman to W.H. Macnaghten, 29 March 1838, Thagi & Dakaiti, G5, Sept 1836–April 1839, 102, NAI.
45.There is little evidence to suggest that mendicants were involved in the dissemination of sedition in 1857, but see C.A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India 1780–1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 318–19. See also Wagner, ‘“Treading Upon Fires”’.
46.R.E. Egerton to A.A. Roberts, 9 Feb. 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, p. 262.
47.Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, pp. 34–35. Nicholson would furthermore tap the telegraph wires to keep himself up to date with all messages being passed along the line, ibid.
48.G. Ousely to E. Thornton, 25 Jan. 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, p. 392.
49.Bourchier, Eight Month’s Campaign, p. 11.
50.Ibid., p. 10. See also D.K.L. Choudhury, ‘Sinews of Panic and the Nerves of Empire: The Imagined State’s Entanglement with Information Panic, India 1880–1912’, Modern Asian Studies, 38, 4 (Oct. 2004), pp. 965–1002; R. Peckham (ed.), Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015; and Harald Fischer-Tiné (ed.), Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
51.Reproduced in Chick, Annals of the Indian Rebellion, Appendix, pp. vi-viii. See also Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, p. 220. The letter formed part of the evidence against Bahadur Shah, during his trial, see Nayar, Trial of Bahadur Shah, pp. 102–104.
52.This sentence hints at the different ways the Hindu and Muslim sepoys reacted to the rumours of the greased cartridges.
53.The reliance on European artillery during the unrest at Berhampore is here conflated with the use of guns to execute sepoys; it may also be noted that Mangal Pandey was hanged, and not blown away.
54.Chick, Annals of the Indian Rebellion, Appendix, p. vii.
55.See also Tapti Roy, ‘Rereading the Texts: Rebel Writings in 1857–58’, in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (ed.), Rethinking 1857, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007, pp. 221–36; and Nupur Chaudhuri and Rajat Kanta Ray, ‘1857: Historical Works and Proclamations’, in Crispin Bates (ed.), Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 Volume VI: Perception, Narration and Reinvention: The Pedagogy and Historiography of the Indian Uprising, London and New Delhi: Sage, 2014, pp. 19–30.
56.Chick, Annals of the Indian Rebellion, Appendix, p. viii.
57.See Faisal Devji, ‘The Mutiny to Come’, New Literary History, 40, 2, India and the West (Spring 2009), pp. 411–430.
58.See Rajat Kanta Ray, The Felt Community: Commonality and mentality before the emergence of Indian Nationalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
59.‘Translation of a Proclamation addressed to the Native Soldiers of the regiments of Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, Etc., cantoned at Lahore’, translated 20 March 1858, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 258–9.
60.This is a distinctly Hindu greeting.
61.The salary of a sepoy in the Bengal Army at the time was Rs 7.
62.‘Translation of a Proclamation’, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 258–9. For another example of a similar letter, sent from Delhi to Punjab, see ‘Proclamation from Delhi published by Lahore Chronicle’, Aberdeen Journal, Sept. 2 1857. It is worth remembering that the extant copies of these letters and proclamations are translations of the originals.
63.Mainodin, in Metcalfe, Two Native Narratives, p. 37.
64.‘Translation of an inflammatory placard discovered on a Garden Gate at Sealkote’, translated 20 March 18
58, Mutiny Records 8:1, pp. 259–60.
65.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 14 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 29; and ‘Letter from India’, Glasgow Herald, 11 Sept. 1857.
66.‘Petitions of native officers and men of the 39th Reg Bengal NI expressing loyalty: Translation of a petition of the native Commissioned and Non-Commissioned Officers and Sepoys of the 39th Regiment of Native Infantry to the Right Hon Governor Gen of India’, IOL/F/4/2699, APAC.
67.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 19 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 31.
4.ESCAPE AT ONCE FROM THIS HORRIBLE PLACE
1.Proclamation found at Sialkot’, translated by A. A. Roberts, 31 Aug. 1857, Mutiny Records 7:2, p. 12.
2.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 137.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid., p. 138.
5.Letter from A. Gordon, 15 June 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 286.
6.Gordon, Our India Mission, p. 139. Emphasis in original
7.Letter from A. Gordon, 16 July 1857, Evangelical Repository, p. 315.
8.Letter from T. Hunter, 9 June 1857, in Youngson, Forty Years, p. 99.
9.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 7 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 25.
10.This was the wife of Dr James Graham, the assistant surgeon of the 46th BNI, and no relation of Sarah or Dr Graham.
11.S. Graham to J. Graham, 10 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 26–7.
12.Ibid., p. 27.
13.Ibid.
14.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 30 May 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 22.
15.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 7 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 25.
16.Bourchier, Eight Month’s Campaign, pp. 7–8.
17.See Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, pp. xix and 284.
18.Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, p. 31; Kaye’s and Malleson’s History, II, p. 301.
19.Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, p. 32.
20.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 6 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 24.
21.Boyle would have sent a letter to Jhelum, via Gujrat, which was then telegraphed to Lahore.
22.S. Graham to J. Graham 10 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 27. Italics in original.
23.Dr Graham to J. Graham, 13 June 1857, The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 28. For a broader discussion of this attitude in the colonial context, see Mark Condos, The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
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