Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/376

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352
OUR ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY.

supersessions, and suspensions. Four officers of rank were suspended, an equal number removed from their commands, or staff appointments, and four were superseded in the command of battalions, accused of having signed the address to Major Boles; and among these were Colonels St. Leger, Chalmers, and Cuppage, who had recently performed such distinguished services in Travancore. All these punishments were the result of a secret inquisition carried on by Sir George Barlow; the officers having no means of defending their conduct, and hearing of the charges against them for the first time when they read their sentence. No wonder that such treatment should have added fuel to flame.

The more marked indications of ill-feeling towards the Government having hitherto been exhibited by that portion of the army serving in Travancore, Sir George Barlow complimented the subsidiary force at Hyderabad for not having entered into these insubordinate proceedings; but they repudiated the compliment, and became even more violent than the others. They published a letter to the army, in which they declared their entire disapprobation of the suspension and removal of so many valuable officers, and their determination to co-operate with the army in all legal measures for the restoration of their brother officers. This was followed by an address to the Governor in Council, signed by a hundred and fifty-eight officers of the divisions of Jaulna and Hyderabad, urging the restoration of the removed officers as the only means of preventing a separation of the civil and military powers, the destruction of all discipline and subordination, and the ultimate loss of a large portion of the British possessions in India.

About the same time an overt act of mutiny was committed by the Company's European regiment quartered at Musulipatam. An order having been issued for three companies to prepare for marine duty, a service they particularly disliked, the men refused to obey, and the officers placed their own colonel under arrest. The com-