158 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
CHAPTER XII. 
INSURRECTION AT BENARES, CONTINUED. 
After his escape, Cheit Singh fled to one of his 
strongholds, taking all his family and his whole force 
with him. It seems almost a miracle that Mr. 
Hastings escaped destruction in this formidable in- 
surrection, as he was almost entirely unprotected, not 
being able to muster around him more than fifty 
armed sepoys and about thirty civilians, while the 
enemy were upwards of two thousand in number. 
But we are perhaps to attribute his salvation to that 
prudent policy which is never entirely lost sight of, 
even amid the most tumultuary and ferocious acts of 
rebellion. The rebels knew that a signal revenge would 
be taken by the government at Calcutta for the de- 
struction of their chief, and further, that every native 
state would instantly rush to arms, in order to oppose 
what they would have considered as universally de- 
cisive of the national fate. They would have joined 
the stronger against the weaker, and thus the petty 
Zemeendary of Benares would have been crushed by a 
host of neighbouring foes, acting upon the mere animal 
instinct of self-preservation. The wily Rajah well 
knew that there was a boundary-line, beyond which 
it would be at once impolitic and rash for him to 
