Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/368

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344
OUR ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY.

thousand rupees and a gold medal for his fidelity. Amongst the arrangements which followed, it was determined to send the Mysore princes to Bengal; they were accordingly sent down to Madras, under an escort commanded by Colonel Gillespie, and embarked for Calcutta on board the Culloden.

The next step adopted by Government was to rescind the fatal regulations respecting dress; and these being disposed of, another question arose as to the manner of disposing of the culprits. Here conciliation again triumphed, and ultimately the greater part of the disaffected troops escaped with very slight punishment. A few only of the most culpable suffered death; the remainder were merely dismissed the service, and declared incapable of being re-admitted to it; while some of the officers whose guilt was thought to be attended by circumstances of extenuation actually received small pensions.

Vellore was the only station disgraced by open revolt and massacre; the symptoms of disaffection manifested at Wallajahbad, Hyderabad, and other places, were, by seasonable and salutary precautions, suppressed. Finally the panic wore away; the Sepoys forgot their fears of an attack upon their religion; the officers were no longer in apprehension of the safety of their lives, or slept with pistols under their pillows; and Lord William Bentinck and Sir John Cradock, the originators of the catastrophe, were recalled by the Court of Directors.

From this melancholy and revolting subject we turn with pleasure to one of a more gratifying and chivalrous character, the short but decisive war in Travancore, where the exploits of the Anglo-Indian Army speedily obliterated the memory of Vellore.

A subsidiary treaty had been concluded in 1795 between the British Government and the Rajah of Travancore, and a second treaty in 1805. By the former, the Rajah engaged to assist the Company with troops in time of war; but, by a clause in the latter, this aid was commuted for an annual tribute. Owing, however, to the