the danger had been more pronounced and more serious.
The removal of Mr William Tayler from the administration of the affairs of Western Bihár had given a marked impetus to the rebellion. The feeble men who succeeded him, Mr Samuells and Mr Alonzo Money, were as shuttlecocks in the hands of Kunwar Singh and his partisans. The difficulties of the situation were, too, considerably aggravated by the action of the landowners of Ázamgarh and Gorákhpur, and by the exposure of the districts of Chaprá, Champáran, and Muzaffarpur, to the incursions of rebels from Oudh. The arrival of the 5th Irregulars, and, a little later, of the two mutinied companies of the 32d N. I., from Eastern Bihár, still further increased the difficulties of the situation. Vainly did Rattray, with his Sikhs, pressed by Alonzo Money, attempt to bar the way to the 5th. He was compelled to fall back on Gayá. The victors, but for the prompt action of Skipwith Tayler, the son of the far-seeing man whom personal spite had removed from the scene of his triumphs, would have massacred all the residents at that station. After that there was a slight change of fortune, and Rattray avenged his defeat, by the 5th, by annihilating a body of rebels at Akbarpur (October 7), and by compelling the retreat of the two companies of the 32d at Danchuá (November 6).
The Government of India had, in the meantime, accepted the offer of the able ruler of Nipál, Jang Bahádur, to despatch, to co-operate with their own troops in the Ázamgarh districts and in Eastern Oudh, a division of Gurkhás, led by their own officers. The Government had[1] also raised a regiment of cavalry, styled the Yeomanry Cavalry, composed for the most part of European adventurers, and commanded by Major J. F. Richardson, a very
- ↑ Vide page 213.
