A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & IISleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
Oudh (India) -- Description and travel
but the eldest son never made his appearance. Out of the twenty-nine
men who composed the party when the attack commenced, seven had been
killed and eighteen wounded. Mr. Ravenscroft died during the night of
the 7th, after great suffering. He retained his consciousness till
near the last; but the blood continued to flow from his mouth, and he
could articulate nothing. On the morning of the 8th, he was buried in
the grove, and Ensign Platt read the funeral service over his grave.
Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child were taken to Colonel Patton, at
Secrora, and soon after sent by him to Lucknow.
On the 10th, he reported the circumstances of this murder to the
Resident, Mr. Ricketts; and sent him the narratives of Mosahib and
Deena; and his report, with translations of these narratives, was
submitted by the Resident to Government on the 12th of that month.
But in these narratives no mention whatever was made of a British
officer having been present at the murder and the burial of Mr.
Ravenscroft. This suppression arose, no doubt, from the apprehension
that Government might be displeased to find that the military
authorities at Secrora had become aware of Mr. Ravenscroft's
residence at Bhinga without reporting the circumstance to Government;
and still more so to find, that he had been there visited by a
British officer, when search was being made for him throughout India.
In acknowledging the receipt of the Resident's letter on the 23rd of
May, the Secretary, Mr. George Swinton, observes, that the Governor-
General in Council concludes, that he shall receive a more full and
satisfactory report on the subject from Colonel Patton than that to
which his letter had given cover, since he considered that report to
be very imperfect; that one of the narrators, Mosahib, states, that
he himself conducted Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child to a neighbouring
village, and yet he brought no message whatever from that lady to
Colonel Patton at Secrora; that none of the wounded people or
servants of the deceased, except Deena, appear to have found their
way to Sacrora, though four days had elapsed from the date of the
murder to that of the despatch of the report; that the body seemed to
have been hastily interred by the people of the village, without any
notice having been sent to the officer commanding the troops at
Secrora; that such an atrocious outrage as that described in these
narratives, on the person of a subject and servant of the British
Government, demanded the exertion of every effort to ascertain the
real facts of the case by local inquiry; yet it did not appear that
any person had been despatched to the spot to verify the evidence of
the two men examined by Colonel Patton, or to clear up the doubts to
which all these circumstances must naturally have given rise; nor did
it appear that the defects in Colonel Patton's report had occurred to
the Resident, or that he had directed any further inquiry to be made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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