Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/437

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Closing Act of the Drama.
401

Gogra, whilst Hope Grant, catching the rebels beaten by Rowcroft at Tulsipur, had swept them into Nipál. Then Lord Clyde, moving on Sikrórá, and in touch with Grant on the one side and Rowcroft covering Gorákhpur on the other, drove the Begum and Náná Sáhib before him from Bondí and Báhráitch, cleared the country between Nanpárá and the Gogra, then marching on Bánkí, close to the Nipál frontier, surprised and defeated the rebels, and swept the survivors into Nipál. Jang Bahádur, loyal to the core, informed the rebels who crossed that they must not look to him for protection. He even permitted British troops to come over and disarm any considerable body of rebels who might have sought refuge there.

Lord Clyde, rightly regarding the pacification of Oudh as completed, quitted the province, leaving it to Hope Grant to carry out such operations as might be necessary. What little remained to be done was then done thoroughly. Whilst Colonel Walker crushed, at Bangáon, the more hardened rebels, the survivors of the regiments which had perpetrated the Kánhpur massacre, Grant himself pursued the terrified remnant across the hills into Nipál. Dislodgment alone was necessary, for they had neither arms, nor money, nor food. Contenting himself with locating troops to prevent their return, Grant reported (May 1859) that Oudh was at last at peace. Thanks to the generous policy pursued by Lord Canning, in confiscating that he might restore with a clear title, Oudh has ever since remained a bulwark of British supremacy.

The pacification of Oudh was the closing act of the drama the curtain of which had been raised in 1857. In the interval Sir John Lawrence had, with characteristic energy, put down an attempted rising in the Gughaira district, turbulent even in the time of Akbar; his brother, George Lawrence, had dispersed the few mal-