Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
George Yule was thus engaged when the Mutiny broke out, and it soon
made itself felt in the districts under him. To its suppression within
his limits, he addressed himself with characteristic vigour. Thoroughly
trusted by every class—by his Government, by those under him, by
planters and by Zemindars—he organised a little force, comprising a
small detachment of the 5th Regiment, a party of British sailors,
mounted volunteers from the districts, etc., and of this he became
practically the captain. Elephants were collected from all quarters to
spare the legs of his infantry and sailors; while dog-carts were turned
into limbers for the small three-pounders of the seamen. And with this
little army George Yule scoured the Trans-Gangetic districts, leading
it against bodies of the Mutineers, routing them upon more than one
occasion, and out-manœuvring them by his astonishing marches, till
he succeeded in driving them across the Nepaul frontier. No part of
Bengal was at any time in such danger, and nowhere was the danger more
speedily and completely averted.
After this Yule served for two or three years as Chief Commissioner
of Oudh, where in 1862 he married Miss Pemberton, the daughter of a
very able father, and the niece of Sir Donald MacLeod, of honoured
and beloved memory. Then for four or five years he was Resident at
Hyderabad, where he won the enduring friendship of Sir Salar Jung.
“Everywhere he showed the same characteristic firm but benignant
justice. Everywhere he gained the lasting attachment of all with whom
he had intimate dealings—except tigers and scoundrels.”
Many years later, indignant at the then apparently supine attitude
of the British Government in the matter of the Abyssinian captives,
George Yule wrote a letter (necessarily published without his name,
as he was then on the Governor-General’s Council), to the editor of
an influential Indian paper, proposing a private expedition should
be organised for their delivery from King Theodore, and inviting the
editor (Dr. George Smith) to open a list of subscriptions in his paper
for this purpose, to which Yule offered to contribute £2000 by way of
beginning. Although impracticable in itself, it is probable that, as in
other cases, the existence of such a project may have helped to force
the Government into action. The particulars of the above incident were
printed by Dr. Smith in his _Memoir of the Rev. John Wilson_, but are
given here from memory.
From Hyderabad he was promoted in 1867 to the Governor-General’s
Council, but his health broke down under the sedentary life, and he
retired and came home in 1869.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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