CAWNPORE. CAWNPORE. BY G. O. TREVELYAN, AUTHOR OF "THE COMPETITION WALLAH." _THIRD EDITION._ London and Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1866. _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._ LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. PREFACE. The Author of this work has made it his aim to preserve a scrupulous fidelity to the original sources of his information. The most trivial allusions, the slightest touches, are equally authentic with the main outlines of the story. The authorities most frequently consulted are: 1. The Depositions of sixty-three witnesses, Natives and Half-castes, taken under the directions of Colonel Williams, Commissioner of Police in the North-West Provinces. 2. A Narrative of Events at Cawnpore, composed by Nanukchund, a local lawyer. 3. Captain Thomson's Story of Cawnpore. 4. The Government Narratives of the Mutiny, drawn up for the most part by the civil officers in charge of the several districts. The Author returns his most hearty thanks to Sir John Lawrence and the authorities of the Calcutta Home Office, who, at the cost of great trouble to themselves, supplied him with the copies of these invaluable documents reserved for the use of the Indian Government. 8, GROSVENOR CRESCENT. CONTENTS. PAGE THE STATION 1 THE OUTBREAK 58 THE SIEGE 112 THE TREACHERY 179 THE MASSACRE 245 CAWNPORE. CHAPTER I. THE STATION. The city of Cawnpore lies on the south bank of the Ganges, which at that spot is about a quarter of a mile in breadth, and this too in the dry season: for, when the rains have filled the bed, the stream measures two thousand yards from shore to shore. And yet the river has still a thousand miles of his stately course to run before that, by many channels and under many names, he loses himself in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. In old times an officer appointed to Cawnpore thought himself fortunate if he could reach his station within three months from the day he left Fort William. But tow-ropes and punt-poles are now things of the past, and the traveller from Calcutta arrives at the end of his journey in little more than thirty hours. By the treaty of Fyzabad, in 1775, the East India Company engaged to maintain a brigade for the defence of Oude. The revenues of a rich and extensive tract of country were appointed for the maintenance of this force, which was quartered at Cawnpore, the principal town of the district. In 1801, Lord Wellesley, who loved to carry matters with a masterful hand, closed the mortgage, and the territory lapsed to the Company, who accepted this new charge with some diffidence. Indeed, they were not a little uneasy at the splendid rapacity of their high-souled servant. No one understood better than he the full meaning of the finest lines of that poet whose graceful diction none like himself could imitate:--