178 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
contrary, therefore, to Major Crabb’s expectation, he 
obtained possession of the strong fortress of Lutteefpoor 
without firing a shot. 
Upon ascertaining the successful issue of this double 
enterprize, Mr. Hastings repaired without delay to 
Benares, where he found every thing as quiet as if 
the sound of insurrection had reached no mortal ear 
within the sacred precincts of that venerated capital. 
A proclamation was immediately issued offering a 
general pardon and oblivion of the past, excepting 
only the Rajah and his brother, whose rebellion, 
aggravated by their wanton cruelties, precluded them 
from that lenity which the Governor was not only 
willing but anxious to extend to their misguided sub- 
jects. A town in which two soldiers of Major Crabb’s 
detachment had been inhumanly butchered was also 
excepted in the general amnesty declared in the 
proclamation, and razed to the ground : — a signal but 
just retribution, because the butchery of the two 
soldiers was an act of popular ferocity in which the 
whole population concurred. 
On the return of Mr. Hastings to Benares, he im- 
mediately settled the succession to the Zemeendary, 
now vacant by the rebellion and voluntary abdica- 
tion of Cheit Singh, who had thus doubly forfeited his 
title. The Governor-General, with a sense of justice 
which characterized every act of his administration, 
however this may have been denied by his detrac- 
tors, bestowed the vacant Zemeendary upon a first 
cousin of the deposed Rajah, a grandson of Bulwunt 
Singh’s by a daughter, which arrangement gave general 
satisfaction to the family, and by which a faithful 
