the discretion of Great Britain with respect to the article. If the British people and the British government see fit to do so, they may still make it penal for a British subject to be engaged in the opium trade; and, by so doing, although they will not, probably, in any material degree, lessen the consumption of opium in China, they will, no doubt, do something more or less effectual towards preventing British subjects from being the importers. His lordship said he had induced the Chinese to bring the trade from the region of fiction into that of fact, and to place within the pale of the law, and under its control, an article which was openly sold, and taxed by them beyond that pale. He anticipated, however, that it would make but little difference as regarded the trade itself. As to the custom-house administration, he endeavoured-and, he hoped, not without success -to impress on the imperial commissioners the importance of establishing such a system as will be uniform in all the several open ports, equal in all its operations, and controlled by persons of integrity and competent knowledge. Alluding to his recent expedition up the Yang-tse-Kiang, his lordship said it had fully realised the expectations which induced him to undertake it. He was enabled, during its progress, to obtain much information respecting the political condition of the country, which would, he trusted, be useful to her majesty's government; and the interests of commerce would be undoubtedly promoted by a knowledge of the navigation of the rivers, acquired by the able officers of her majesty, by whom he was accompanied. His lordship's speech gave great satisfaction. Those officers, as well as his lordship, did everything in their power to render the expedition successful; and, in England, there was great rejoicing over the termination of a mission which, it was felt, could not have been placed in better hands. It was henceforth hoped we should have no further difficulties with either Chinese or Japanese. It was believed that an unlimited market was opened to our wares and Manchester manufactures; and London merchants voted Lord Elgin to be of ambassadors the chief.

In a few years after, his lordship died-died just as he had become the Governor-general of India. He was only fifty-two years of age, and had been a member of the House of Peers for upwards of twenty-two years. Lord Elgin may be said to have first entered upon public life in 1841, when he was returned to parliament as member for Southampton; but in a few months he succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father, known as the collector of the celebrated "Elgin Marbles." His rare abilities early gave him prominence and distinction in the House of Lords; and on a vacancy occurring, in 1842, in the governorship of Jamaica, his lordship was selected to fill that office. Here his administrative ability was displayed with so much satisfaction, that, in 1846, he was nominated to the still higher post of Governor-general of Canada. In the latter colony he governed in difficult times, but with a wisdom and impartiality that rendered him exceedingly popular; and socially, politically, and commercially, his rule was of the highest benefit to the people. In 1855 he returned to England, honoured and esteemed by all parties. In March, 1857, the earl was sent as plenipotentiary to China. On his way out to the East, he heard of the outbreak of the Indian mutiny, and, by a happy act of sound judgment (which was invited, indeed, by the viceroy), diverted to India a large portion of the troops that were under orders for China, and thus strengthened the hands of Lord Canning. While the mutiny in India proceeded in its course, Lord Elgin was pushing on his own line of policy in China, the results of which he beheld in the taking of Canton, and in the signing of the treaty of Tien-tsin. Returning to England, he became Postmaster-general under Lord Palmerston, in 1859, but was shortly afterwards again despatched to China, to insist on the reception of his brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, at Pekin. He also went to Japan, and, under the terror created by our imposing fleet, obtained from the Tycoon a treaty of commerce, which has been very imperfectly carried out, and threatens to involve us in war with that exclusive people. Scarcely had he returned to the shores of England, when he was selected to succeed Earl Canning in that splendid but fatal prize for statesmen's competition, the vice

royalty of India. He took up the work where Lord Canning's hands had laid it down, and he was just about to behold the first fruits of the harvest which had been sown by his predecessor and Lord Dalhousie, when he was laid prostrate by the stroke of the hand of death.

CHAPTER X.

THE INDIAN MUTINY.

IN 1857, the alarming intelligence reached England, that our Indian empire was in peril-that the native army was in a state of mutiny-and that our countrymen and countrywomen were being butchered in all directions.

For some time past the storm had been gathering; but no one of the official class had sense to perceive and interpret the signs of the times.

In the native army, ever since the disastrous occurrences in Afghanistan, in 1840-41, the feelings of loyalty and attachment that at one time existed had ceased to operate. The charm of our invincibility and good fortune then received a rude shock. It was apparent to our native subjects that we had been forced to abandon our position beyond the Indus, in consequence of the successful resistance of the Afghan nation, supported in their efforts to drive us out by the corps raised, disciplined, and armed by us, from among the people of that country. From that time forward, the idea had been gaining ground in the minds of many of our subjects in India, especially among the Mahommedan portion of them, that a similar course-a mutiny of the native regiments forming our army, backed by a rising among the people-might prove as successful in Hindostan as it had in Cabul, in expelling the British authority, and restoring native rule; that is, the authority of the Emperor of Delhi. "Although," writes Mr. Edwards, in his valuable Reminiscences of a Bengal Civilian, "in our opinion, the position occupied, for the last thirty years, by the emperor was of the most insignificant and contemptible description, very different was the estimation in which he was held by Hindoos as well as Mahommedans generally. In their eyes he was still the legitimate sovereign of India, and, as such, was looked up to with feelings of reverence and loyal attachment. Our generous, but, in my humble opinion, impolitic treatment of the king, had directly tended to keep alive and foster those feelings of veneration. We permitted him to occupy his palace in the ancient seat of empire, and there to surround himself with the symbols of royalty, and to exercise powers, such as conferring honorary titles on our subjects, which, in native estimation, are indissolubly connected with sovereign authority. Although a pensioner, the king was regarded, by all in India, as the fountain of rank and honour; and the most insignificant marks of his favour were more highly esteemed than the most costly gifts and highest titles which could be conferred by the head of the British government on any of its subjects. Up to the rebellion, the state papers, such as sunnuds issued by subordinate native chieftains, always contained an acknowledgment of their holding as vassals under the King of Delhi; and the coin they issued bore a legend to the same effect. Up to 1842, the governors-general who visited Delhi, were in the habit of presenting, through their secretaries, a nuzzur of 101 gold mohurs to the emperor, as a mark of fealty, and an acknowledgment of holding the British territories in India subject to his authority." In the composition of the army itself, also, there was much to create a feeling of mutiny: the Bengal army believed that the government was afraid of them. They entered that army, as they confessed, from no feelings of patriotism, but to fill their bellies; and they bitterly resented, therefore and regarded as a breach of faith, the stoppage of

higher rates of pay for service beyond the Sutlej, when the Punjaub became a British province. The deprivation of the privilege of having their letters franked since the introduction of the half-ana postage, and of petitioning on unstamped paper since the annexation of Oude, was also regarded by them as a great hardship and indignity. They attributed these changes to a grasping, avaricious spirit on the part of the state, and they often termed it a low government of shopkeepers, whom they were ashamed to serve under. The sepoys were also under the persuasion, that as our government extended its empire to Burmah and China, they would, sooner or later, be required to serve beyond sea. They knew that the government felt that the only obstacle to their proceeding on general service was the dread of the loss of caste; and they regarded the enlistment of the Sikhs into the line regiments, and the new rules for recruiting, as the commencement of an insidious attempt to break up the regimental caste, and fit the corps for foreign service. While our native army was in this state of discontent and restless suspicion, Oude was, to their astonishment and extreme dissatisfaction, annexed. "There is not the slightest doubt," writes Mr. Edwards, "that this act was regarded by the native army as one of rude and unjustifiable spoliation; and I believe that they would have resented at first had they not been under the conviction that the home authorities would annul the decision of the Governor-general, and restore Oude to the king."

While the minds of the sepoys were thus full of resentment against the government, and suspicious of its good faith, the report was spread among them, by the instigators of the rebellion, that the government intended to take away their caste, and compel them forcibly to adopt Christianity; and, for this purpose, had cartridges prepared with pig's fat, to destroy the caste of the Mahommedans; and with cow's fat, that of the Hindoos.

So much for the sepoys. As regards the people, they had also many and serious grounds of complaint.

First, as respects the revenue system, introduced into the North-West Provinces within the last thirty years. It has been generally supposed that this system was one of unmixed good. Mr. Edwards writes-"My acquaintance with the system, during the short time I was collector, has led me to form a different opinion as to its adaptation to the people; and the light in which they regard the basis of the system is, it must be borne in mind, a survey of all lands held under the government, and a record of the government claim accruing therefrom, and of all rights and interests connected therewith. But a record of this description, to be of any value, must be accurate in all its details, completely trustworthy, and beyond suspicion. If it falls short of this it becomes one of the most powerful engines of evil and misgovernment which it is possible to devise. I fear that the revenue records of the North-West Provinces, however correct they may originally have been, have, from constant mutations in occupancy, and corruption of native officials, become a mass of falsehood, inaccuracy, and confusion, and the source of much of that litigation which has made our civil courts the opprobrium of our rule." Again, the assessments were far too heavy in nearly every district, "and could not have been imposed had not the attachment of an agricultural people to their hereditary lands been so great, that they preferred agreeing to pay any amount of revenue for them, rather than desert, or be ousted from them. The result was that the gentry had disappeared, or were in very reduced circumstances; and the mass of the agricultural body were in the most extreme and hopeless poverty. Long before the rebellion, their state of increasing destitution had attracted my notice, and so deeply impressed me, that I had always regarded some great convulsion of society as extremely probable. But I never realised fully the extent of their poverty and wretchedness until, when traversing the country as a fugitive, and having to pass through thousands of villages, hearing of the plunder of those they had attacked, I saw what the plunder consisted of, and for what the people evidently thought it worth risking their lives to steal."

Our civil courts were cumbrous, dilatory, and expensive. Our police, as a body, Mr. Edwards describes, as "most corrupt, and a scourge to the people.'

But there was another cause at work, besides the discontent existing in the army and amongst the people.

The Calcutta rulers, seeing through the false medium surrounding them at the presidency, had been lulled into a state of dangerous security; and the result was, that they denuded Bengal and the North-West Provinces, to an extent unprecedented at any former period. In fifteen years our empire in India had been gradually extending, but our European force had not been increased in proportion. The chief part of our forces had been collected into the Punjaub; and, in 1857, the total European force available for the maintenance of tranquillity was not above 5,000 of all arms, for Bengal and the North-West Provinces. The people, besides, had got the idea that we were used up, and that, in consequence of the Crimean war, no more forces could be spared for India. Under such circumstances, that the mutiny should have occurred, and spread rapidly, can surprise no one.

The first actual rising of the native troops took place at Meerut, an important military station, about thirty-two miles from Delhi. On the 9th of May, eighty-five of the men had been arrested, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, for refusing to receive the cartridges. The next evening, while many of the Europeans were at church, the men of the 11th and 20th native regiments assembled, in armed and tumultuous bodies, upon the parade-ground. Several officers hurried from their quarters to endeavour to pacify them. Colonel Finnis, of the 11th, one of the first to arrive, was shot dead while exhorting the mutineers to return to their duties as soldiers, and remain true to their colours. Other officers fell with their colonel, or in the terrible moments that ensued; for the troopers of the 3rd cavalry poured out of their quarters to join the insurgent infantry, and the whole body rushed through the native lines of the encampments, slaying, burning, and destroying. Every house was fired, and every English man, woman, or child, that fell in the way of the mutineers, was cruelly murdered. Happily, most of the officers and their families succeeded in escaping to the English lines. The eightyfive mutineers who had been confined were liberated, and all at once made their way to Delhi, where they were received by the native garrison of that city with open arms.

It fared with the English at Delhi as at Meerut. The infantry attacked and murdered their officers; the artillery, before joining the mutineers, stipulated for the safety of theirs, who were thus enabled to reach Meerut alive. The representative of the Great Mogul lent a favourable ear to the representatives of the mutineers. Pillage and murder ravaged the streets, and no mercy whatever was shown to the Europeans. Delicate ladies were stripped of their clothing, violated, turned naked into the streets, beaten with canes, pelted with filth, and abandoned to the brutality of the blood-stained rabble, until death or madness deprived them of all consciousness of their unutterable misery. The demoniac fury of the excited multitude knew no bounds; and, in a few hours after sunrise on Monday, the 11th of May, the interior of Delhi was an utter pandemonium. The arsenal and magazines were saved from falling into the hands of the mutineers by the gallantry of Lieutenant Willoughby, of the artillery, who blew them both up-an act which caused the death of about 1,500 of the town rabble and insurgents, who were crushed beneath the ruins. The English lost Delhi; and, for a time, the Mogul empire was restored.

The mutiny spread rapidly. There were demonstrations of it at Umballab, Ferozepore, Lahore, Museerabad, and, in fact, at nearly every station throughout the Bengal presidency. To such an extent was this the case, that one corps, which had been publicly thanked by the Governor-general in person for its loyalty, was obliged to be disarmed; while another regiment of native infantry at Allahabad, which had been loud in its attachment to the government, rose upon its officers and murdered them. Fortunately, the disaffection was confined to the Bengal

army, and did not make its appearance in the troops of Madras or Bombay. Great excitement also prevailed at Calcutta and its neighbourhood. A conspiracy for a general rising on the part of the Mussulman population was discovered, and a regular plan for the capture of the city found among the papers seized.

Delhi, the head-quarters of the rebellion, was one of the first places to be attacked by the British troops. Great difficulties lay in the way of General Anson, the commander-in-chief, destitute, as he was, of men upon whom he could rely. In making preparations for the advance he was attacked by cholera, which terminated fatally. General Sir Harry Barnard was appointed to the command of the army for Delhi; and Sir Patrick Grant was appointed chief commander of the forces in India. After a few skirmishes, General Barnard was compelled to wait for reinforcements.

The

Of all the fearful tragedies at this time, that of Cawnpore was the chief. The town and military station of Cawnpore was situated on the Ganges, fifty-two miles from Lucknow. On the 16th of May, news of the mutiny reached there. On the 5th of June, after a few preliminary symptoms, the outbreak took place. native cavalry deserted, and the infantry broke into open revolt, plundered, and then abandoned their lines. The rebels then sent messengers to Nana Sahib, the Rajah or Mahratta chieftain of Bithoor, announcing their determination to march to Delhi, and their desire that he would place himself at their head. He acceded, and shortly after joined them with 600 men and four guns. His first advice was that they should slay all the English in Cawnpore. Nana Sahib then summoned General Wheeler to surrender the intrenched position and town to the King of Delhi: this being refused, the town was attacked, and captured on the 6th of June, and Nana Sahib took up his quarters there. The intrenchments were, however, kept by General Wheeler and the British troops, who held out bravely. On the 27th of June, General Wheeler, who had received a wound which ultimately proved fatal, agreed to surrender the position he occupied, and abandon Cawnpore, with the public treasure, guns, and magazines, on condition that the lives of all Europeans and native converts at the station should be spared, and that they should be at liberty to depart in boats, provided for their conveyance, down the Ganges to Allahabad.

The party embarked in about seventeen or eighteen boats; but no sooner had they done so, than a fire of artillery and musketry was suddenly opened upon them. Many were killed in the boats, and others shot while attempting to escape by swimming. Most of the boats were brought back, and the swimmers compelled to re-land. Having done so, the men were immediately shot, and the women and children-many of whom were bleeding from wounds-were taken to a house formerly belonging to the medical department of the European troops, where they were left for three days without food, with the exception of a small quantity of parched grain and some water.

In the meanwhile, Cawnpore rapidly filled with the rebel troops; so that about the 10th of June, Nana Sahib was at the head of more than 20,000 armed men. He then issued a proclamation, stating that he had entirely conquered the British, whose period of reign had been completed. Measures were, however, speedily taken for the relief of Cawnpore. On the 3rd of July, General Havelock marched against it, and, after defeating the enemy in three battles, gained possession of the town. Nana Sahib retired to Bithoor; but on finding defeat inevitable, he first caused the whole of the women, children, and other Europeans, to be put to death, under circumstances of the most revolting barbarity. The court-yard of the building in which the women and children had been confined, appeared to have been the principal scene of the slaughter. This place, on being entered by our men, was covered with blood, and with the tattered remains of female apparel. The latter seemed as if hacked from the persons of the living wearers; while tresses of human hair lay trampled among the blood that had yet scarcely congealed upon the pavement. In all the apartments there were traces of brutal violence,