CHAPTER XIX.
Discontent excited in the Madras Army by General Regulations – The Mutiny at Vellore – Dreadful Slaughter of Europeans – Gallant Defence of the 69th – Fortunate Escape of an Officer to Arcot – Energetic Proceedings of Colonel Gillespie – The Mutiny quelled by the 19th Light Dragoons – Punishment of the Mutineers – The War in Travancore – Treachery and Hostility of the Dewan – Horrible Murder of thirty-four Soldiers of the 12th Regiment – Operations against Travancore – Storming of the Lines of Arumbooly – Submission of Travancore and Death of the Dewan – Revolt of the Officers of the Madras Army – Its Causes and Consequences – Hostile Proceedings of the Government and the Revolted Officers – Sir George Barlow's Test and its Effects – Sanguinary Proceeding at Seringapatam – Submission of the Revolted Officers.
The pacific system of Sir George Barlow had no sooner given an appearance of tranquillity to Central India and the upper provinces than an explosion, equally sudden and unexpected, broke forth in the south; which threatened to produce consequences the more dangerous, because the evil was inherent in the very source and foundation of our power and prosperity, the army itself.
In the spring of 1806, symptoms of insubordination were manifested by a part of the troops under the Madras presidency, the ostensible cause of which was the promulgation of an offensive paragraph in the military regulations sanctioned by Sir John Cradock, the Commander-in-Chief, and approved of by the Governor, Lord William Bentinck. It was to the following purport: –
"The Sepoys were required to appear on parade with their chins clean shaved, and the hair on the upper lip cut after the same pattern, and never to wear the distinguishing mark of caste, or their ear-rings when in uniform. A turban of a new pattern was also ordered for the Sepoys."
The alterations thus instituted – which were, it must be confessed, injudicious and offensive, as striking at the
