548 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



pose these rebels had been natives of Algeria, [ 

 and the executioners French Zouaves, should we 

 not have been confirmed in the belief that Alge- 

 ria was a doubtful gain to France ? 



The Sepoys were mutineers. But the people 

 of Oude were not mutineers. They were fight- 

 ing, most unwisely, no doubt, but not unnaturally, 

 for their native dynasty. Their crime cannot be 

 said to have been worse than that of the Scotch 

 Jacobites, who are now objects of historic sym- 

 pathy ; yet they were included in the undiscrim- 

 inatiDg slaughter. 



Lord Elgin was above the suspicion of pseu- 

 do-philanthropy, or of any weakness or illusion 

 which could interfere with a rational pursuit of 

 British interests. For that reason we shall make 

 a free use of his testimony, as recorded in his 

 " Letters and Diary." Visiting India, on his 

 way to China, at the time of the mutiny, he came 

 into contact with the spirit of sanguinary terror- 

 ism evoked among the dominant race ; and the 

 impression which it made upon him is not doubt- 

 ful: 



" August 1\st. — It is a terrible business, how- 

 ever, this living among inferior races. I have sel- 

 dom from man or woman since I came to the East 

 heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the 

 hypothesis that Christianity had ever come into 

 the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, ven- 

 geance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the ob- 

 ject. There are some three or four hundred ser- 

 vants in this house. "When one first passes by 

 their salaaming, one feels a little awkward. But 

 the feeling soon wears off, and one moves among 

 them with perfect indifference, treating them, not 

 as dogs, because in that case one would whistle to 

 them and pat them, but as machines with which 

 one can have no communion or sympathy. Of 

 course, those who can speak the language are 

 somewhat more en rapport with the natives ; but 

 very slightly so I take it. "When the passions of 

 fear and hatred are ingrafted on this indifference, 

 the result is frightful : an absolute callousness to 

 the sufferings of the objects of those passions, 

 which must be witnessed to .be understood and 

 believed. 



and feeble from his many wounds, he was deliberately 

 placed upon a small pile of dry sticks, which had been 

 improvised for the purpose, and there held down, in spite 

 of his dying struggles, which, becoming weaker and more 

 feeble every moment, were, from their very faintness and 

 futile desperation, cruel to behold. Once, during this 

 frightful operation, the wretched victim, maddened by 

 pain, managed to break away from his tormenters, and, 

 already horrihly burnt, fled a short distance, but he was 

 immediately brought back and placed upon the fire, and 

 there held till life was extinct." Englishmen were look- 

 ing on all the time ! 



" August 22<£.— 



tells me that yester- 



day, at dinner, the fact that Government had re- 

 moved some commissioners who, not content with 

 hanging all the rebels they could lay their hands 

 on, had been insulting them by destroying their 

 caste, telling them that after death they should be 

 cast to dogs to be devoured, etc., was mentioned. 

 A reverend gentleman could not understand the 

 conduct of Government ; could not see that there 

 was any impropriety in torturing men's souls ; 

 seemed to think that a good deal might be said 

 for torturing their bodies as well. These are your 

 teachers, O Israel ! Imagine what the pupils be- 

 come under such leading ! " (page 199). 



Subsequently, as governor-general, Lord Elgin 

 had the opportunity of learning more of these 

 events from sources which he deemed authentic: 



" The feeling of the natives of India toward 

 Canning was in some measure due to a similar 

 cause. The clamor for blood and indiscriminate 

 vengeance which raged around him, and the abuse 

 poured upon him because he would not listen to 

 it, imparted in their eyes to acts which carried 

 justice to the very verge of severity the grace of 

 clemency. I could give you plenty of proofs of 

 this. . . . The following sentences occur in a let- 

 ter written from Delhi during our recent panic by 

 an officer: . . . ' The native force here is much too 

 small to be a source of anxiety, and, unless they 

 take the initiative, it is my opinion that there can 

 be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Del- 

 hi are a contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare 

 on this side of the Sutlej. The terrors of that 

 period when every man who had two enemies was 

 sure to swing are not forgotten. The people de- 

 clare that the work of Nadir Shah was as nothing 

 to it. His executions were completed in twelve 

 hours. But, for months after the last fall of Delhi, 

 no one was sure of his own life or that of the being 

 dearest to him for an hour.' " 



We might fancy ourselves reading an account 

 of the reign of terror in Ireland after the rising 

 in '98. That all this is not English, that it is ut- 

 terly at variance with the general character of 

 the English*people, is certain ; every candid crit- 

 ic of English society would say so ; but no char- 

 acter is independent of circumstance, and if we 

 choose to put ourselves into the circumstances 

 of foreign conquerors, into the place of Nadir 

 Shahs, the natural consequences will ensue. There 

 is nothing to save us from them, any more than 

 there was to save the Spanish conquerors of Mex- 

 ico. From Egypt we shall infallibly be drawn on 

 to Abyssinia ; and in Abyssinia, if not in Egypt, 

 there is likely to be just as bloody work as there 

 has been in Hindostan. 



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