Page:A Statistical Account of Bengal Vol 1 GoogleBooksID 9WEOAAAAQAAJ.pdf/101

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
86
STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF 24 PARGANAS.

at the beginning of the month, that other white regiments were coming, and that the Government would force them to use the obnoxious cartridges, or treat them like their comrades that were marching down from Barhampur to be disgraced. So the great terror that was driving them into rebellion grew stronger and stronger, and as from mouth to mouth passed the significant words, “Gorá-log áyá,”—“the Europeans have come,”—their excited imaginations beheld vessel after vessel pouring forth its legions of English fighting men, under a foregone design to force them all to apostatize at the point of the bayonet.’

In the meantime the repentant 19th were marching down from Barhampur to their punishment, and were expected to reach Barrackpur at the end of March. Two days before their arrival, an outbreak occurred at Barrackpur. On the 29th March, fresh excitement was created by the arrival of a small detachment of the 53d Europeans, who had come by water from Calcutta. One private of the 34th, named Mangal Pánde, inflamed by bháng, seized his musket, left his hut, and calling upon his comrades to follow him if they did not wish to become infidels, ordered the bugler to sound the assembly, and fired his musket at a European sergeant-major, who came up on hearing the disturbance. The native officer and men on guard-duty of the 34th saw what was going on, but made no attempt to arrest the fanatic. Lieutenant Baugh, on hearing what had occurred, galloped to the spot, and was fired at by Mangal Pánde, the shot hitting his horse. A hand-to-hand conflict took place, in which the lieutenant was wounded, and would most probably have been killed, if a Muhammadan Sepoy had not seized the mutineer and held him till the officer got away. All this took place within a few yards of the quarter-guard, where a Native non-commissioned officer and twenty men were on guard. Numbers of excited Sepoys rushed up on hearing the firing, but, with the exception of the Musalman, no man moved to assist his officer or to arrest the criminal, and some even struck the lieutenant when wounded on the ground. Meanwhile tidings of the tumult reached General Hearsey, who with several officers proceeded to the spot where the mutineer was pacing up and down with his musket in hand. As the officers approached, Mangal Pánde turned his piece upon himself, and fell, wounded, when he was immediately secured and taken to hospital. The man recovered, and both he and the native officer in charge of the guard were tried by court-