India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Biography; Lawrence, John Laird Mair, 1811-1879
“Sepoys! I warn and advise you to prove faithful to your salt;
faithful to the Government who have given your forefathers and you
service for the last hundred years; faithful to that Government
who, both in cantonments and in the field, have been careful of
your welfare and interests, and who, in your old age, have given
you the means of living comfortably in your homes. Those regiments
which now remain faithful will receive the rewards due to their
constancy; those soldiers who fall away now will lose their service
for ever! It will be too late to lament hereafter when the time has
passed by. Now is the opportunity of proving your loyalty and good
faith. The British Government will never want for native soldiers.
In a month it might raise 50,000 in the Punjab alone. You know well
enough that the British Government have never interfered with your
religion. The Hindoo temple and the Mahommedan mosque have both
been respected by the English Government. It was but the other day
that the Jumma mosque at Lahore, which the Sikhs had converted into
a magazine, was restored to the Mahommedans.”
Simultaneously under his directions, or with his sanction, several
important forts, arsenals, treasuries and strategic positions, which had
been more or less in the guardianship of the Sepoys, were swiftly
transferred to the care of European troops, before mutiny had time to
develope itself.
Soon it became necessary for him to urge, with as much secrecy as
possible, the disarming of the Sepoys at nearly every station in the
Punjab. This measure was successful at Peshawur, though with some
bloodshed and other distressful events; at Rawul Pindi it was carried
out under his own eye; at Mooltan a point of vital importance, it was
executed brilliantly under provident arrangements which he was specially
instrumental in suggesting. It was effected generally by the presence of
European troops; at Mooltan, however, he was proud to reflect that it
had been managed by Punjabi agency with the aid of some loyal
Hindostanis. But at Ferozepore its success was partial only, at
Jullundur the mutineers escaped through local incompetence, but the
effects were mitigated by his arrangements. At Sealkote he had advised
disarming before the European regiment was withdrawn to form the Movable
Column already mentioned; nevertheless the military commanders tried to
keep the Sepoys straight without disarming them, so when the mutiny did
occur it could not be suppressed. He felt keenly the ill effects of this
disaster brought about as it was by murderous treachery. But the
mutineers were cut off with heavy loss by the Movable Column which he
had organised. Space, indeed, forbids any attempt to describe the
disarming of the Sepoys which was executed at his instance, or with his
approval, throughout the Province. Once convinced that the Sepoys were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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