Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/224

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212 INDIA Anson, the Commander-in-chief, died May 27, 1857, soon after taking the field, and was suc- ceeded provisionally by Sir Henry Barnard. The first movements were against Delhi, which was stormed Sept. 14, after a siege of three months, which was conducted successively by Gens. Barnard, Keed, and Wilson. The troops entered the city, and occupied a part of it on the first day, but did not subdue the last stronghold until Sept. 20. The king was cap- tured and ultimately sentenced to perpetual exite, but most of the rebels escaped. Two sons and a grandson of the king were made prisoners a short distance outside the city by Capt. Hodson, who shot them all with Ms own hand. Meanwhile Gen. Havelock, having col- lected a small force at Allahabad, moved to- ward Oawnpore, where more than 200 women and children, who had escaped the previous massacre, were cruelly put to death, July 16, shortly before he entered the city. He fol- lowed the Nana Sahib to Bithoor, defeated him, and, having been joined by Gens. Outram and Neill, crossed into Oude to relieve Luck- now, where Sir Henry Lawrence, the chief commissioner of Oude, had died of a wound on July 4, and the garrison under Col. Inglis was now reduced to extremities. He fought his way into the city Sept. 25, Gen. Neill being killed in the action ; but beyond an accession of numbers his arrival did not benefit the be- sieged. Sir James Outram assumed command, and their condition remained unchanged until Sir Colin Campbell, who had arrived in In- dia Aug. 14, with the rank of commander- in-chief, relieved them, Nov. 14-19, and en- abled them to withdraw to Cawnpore. Gen. Havelock died Nov. 24. On Dec. 6 Sir Colin Campbell defeated the Nana Sahib with 25,- 000 rebels at Cawnpore, and, making that city a centre of operations, proceeded to attack the rebels of the Northwest Provinces in seve- ral quarters at once, with a view of driving them into Oude, where a combined movement could subsequently crush them all together. The brigades of Lugard, Hope Grant, Sir Hugh Rose, Roberts, Steuart, Showers, Stuart, and others, did good service in the disturbed dis- tricts, and Gen. Outram continued to hold the Alumbagh fort near Lucknow, which had not been evacuated with the city. By Jan. 1, 1858, 23 European regiments had arrived at Calcut- ta, besides those which landed at Madras and Bombay ; the Nepaulese chieftain Jung Ba- hadoor furnished a valuable subsidiary force of Gorkhas, the Sikhs were enlisted, and Law- rence was able to supply troops from the Pun- jaub. Lucknow was gradually retaken by Campbell and Jung Bahadoor (March 2-21), and the army which had been concentrated for this purpose was then broken up into de- tachments for service in Rohilcund and other districts. Sir Hugh Rose, with a detachment from the Bombay army, stormed Jhansi, April 2, and pursued the ranee or chieftainess and the noted rebel leader Tantia Topee to Cal- pee, where he defeated them, and thence to Gwalior, which had now become the strong- hold of the mutiny, as Delhi and Lucknow had been before it. Gwalior was taken, June 20, after the ranee had been killed. This was the last great battle of the campaign, although the rebels, headed by the Nana Sahib, the begum of Oude, Tantia Topee, Maun Singh, and Fe- roze Shah, a prince of the house of Delhi, maintained an obstinate resistance throughout 1858-'9. Though repeatedly beaten in the field, they always escaped destruction to r%- appear in another quarter. Oude was grad- ually pacified, however, in the autumn, and about Feb. 1, 1859, Sir Colin Campbell, whose services had been recognized by the bestowal upon him of a peerage, under the title of Lord Clyde, declared the campaign there at an end. The whole population was disarmed in the course of the spring and summer, 1,327 forts being destroyed and 1,367,406 arms of all kinds surrendered. Tantia Topee was captured, tried by court martial, and hanged. Of the number of Europeans massacred or killed in battle during this mutiny no accurate estimate can be formed. Hundreds of English women and children were put to death after horrible outrages, many stories of which were perhaps fictions or exaggerations, though unhappily the substantial truth of the accounts of these atro- cities cannot be doubted. The rigor evinced by the English in punishing the rebels was in many cases almost equally shocking. One very important result of the mutiny was the trans- fer of the government of India from the East India company to the direct authority of the British crown. This was accomplished by an act of parliament, providing substantially for the system of administration which now exists. Lord Canning, who had continued in office during the whole mutiny, resigned in 1862, and Lord Elgin succeeded him; but the new- viceroy died in the following year, and Sir John (subsequently Lord) Lawrence was appointed. A badly conducted war with Bootan, growing out of territorial disputes, was the most impor- tant event of 1864 and 1865 ; its result was not very satisfactory to the British. Owing to the deficient rainfall of the previous year, a terri- ble famine broke out in Orissa in 1866, and is believed to have caused the death of 2,000,000 persons. Sir John Lawrence was succeeded in 1868 by the earl of Mayo, who was assassinated by a prisoner at Port Blair, in the Andaman islands, while on a visit to the penal colony there, Feb. 8, 1872. No political significance appeared to attach to the crime. His succes- sor, Lord Northbrook, is the present governor general (1874). The resources of his adminis- tration have been severely taxed to avert the famine with which Bengal was threatened in consequence of the lack of rain in 1873. The annual " Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India," which has been furnished to parliament by the authority of the secretary of state for In-