few only of the more active were executed, the punishment of the remainder being commuted to hard labour in irons, for terms proportioned to their guilt. The native officers, though not participators in the rebellious movement, were believed to be cognisant of the acts and intentions of the mutineers, and they were in consequence dismissed from the service. The regiment was disbanded, and its number most properly erased from the list of the army, the European officers being transferred to another raised in its place.
"Thus," says Thornton, from whose lucid pages we have extracted the foregoing, "arose the mutiny of Barrackpore. It was the offspring of temporary disappointment and privation, and, excepting that all such movements are fraught with evil suggestion for the future, it was calculated to excite little alarm. In the language of the Court of Inquiry appointed to investigate and report on the unhappy affair, it was an 'ebullition of despair at being compelled to march without the means of doing so.'"
It was not long, however, before an occasion offered itself to obliterate from the annals of the Anglo-Indian Army the stain which had been cast upon them by the mutiny at Barrackpore. This was an occurrence which took place at Bhurtpore in the early part of 1825; when but little progress had been made in the Burmese war, and exaggerated reports were circulating throughout all India of the difficulties, the checks, and the reverses which Sir Archibald Campbell was encountering. The particulars of this transaction may be briefly summed up as follows: –
On the 26th of February, 1825, the Rajah of Bhurtpore, an ally of the Company, died, leaving his infant son, Bulwunt Singh, to succeed him. Knowing that the succession to the musnud could not fail to be disputed, the deceased Rajah had implored the protection of General Sir David Ochterlony for his young son; and Sir David, who was then Commander of the Forces and Political Resident at Delhi, acknowledged the boy's right to the
