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This is a small selection of quotes by
the British of acts by the British. The purpose is to give some background
to the story of Lakshmibai, to show the attitudes of many of the British
and the sort of news that would have received in Jhansi, rather than to
castigate the British. The effect of the stories of British actions, which
would hardly need amplifying, reaching Jhansi, combined with the news of
Rose's force heading their way requires little by way of imagination.
By and large these quotes are taken from
Hibbert's The Great Mutiny.
The Suppression
"
the Word of God gives no authority to the
modern tenderness for human life."
--
Colonel James Neill, 1st Madras Fusiliers
"
[There] must be no more disbandments for mutiny.
Mutineers must be attacked and annihilated; and if there are few in any
regiments, and not immediately announced to be shot or hanged, the whole
regiment must be deemed guilty and given up to prompt military execution."
--
Brigadier-General Havelock.
"
Let us propose a Bill for the flaying alive
impalement, or burning of the murderers of the women and children at Delhi.
... I would inflict the most excriutiating tortures I could think of on
them with a perfectly easy conscience."
--
Brigadier John Nicholson
in a letter to
Herbert Edwardes, Commissioner at Peshawar.
"
Few courts martial were held by Nicholson;
his dictim 'the punishment for mutiny is death' obviated any necessity
for trial ... Nicholson issued an order that no native should pass a white
man riding, without dismounting and salaaming."
--
Ensign R. G. Wilberforce, 52nd Light Infantry
on Brigadier John Nicholson.
Benares
"
... gallows were immediately erected; and
scores of natives suspected of rebellious intent were subsequently hanged
on them, including 'some boys, who, perhaps in mere sport, had flaunted
rebel colours and gone about beating tom-toms'."
--
Hibbert
The Great Mutiny, p 201, quoting
Sir John Kaye, on Neill restoring order in Benares
"
Hanging parties also went out into the surrounding
districts, 'and amateur executioners were not wanting to the occasion.
One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had finished off, quite 'in an
artistic manner', with mango trees for gibbets and elephants for drops,
the victis of this wild justice being strung up, as though for pastime,
in 'the form of a figure of eight'."
--
Hibbert
The Great Mutiny, p 201, quoting
Sir John Kaye, on Neill restoring order in Benares
Allahabad
"
Eagerly responding to [Colonel Neill's] orders,
European volunteers and Sikhs descended upon the town, burning houses and
slaughtering the inhabitents, old men, women and children as well as those
more likely to be active rebels who were submitted to the travesty of a
trial."
--
Hibbert
The Great Mutiny, p 202, on the
retaking of Allahabad.
"
The gallows and trees adjoining it had each
day the fresh fruits of rebellion displayed upon them. Hundreds of natives
in this manner perished and some on slight proofs of criminality."
--
F. A. V. Thurburn, Deputy Judge Advocate
General at Allahabad.
"
Every day ten or a dozen niggers are hanged.
[Their corpses hung] by two's and three's from branch and signpost all
over town ... For three months did eight dead-carts go their rounds from
sunrise to sunset, to take down corpses which hung at the cross-roads and
the market places, poisoning the air of the city, and to throw their loathsome
burdens into the Ganges."
--
Lieutenant Pearson
on the punishment of
rebels in Allahabad, in a letter to his mother.
Delhi
"
We took a Pandy prisoner and my men amused
themselves by making him eat greased cartridges, but we are to take no
prisoners in future ... It is impossible to feel the slightest sympathy
for these black beasts"
--
An officer named Hare
at the siege of
Delhi.
"
Unwary civilians who showed their faces in
the streets were as likely to be murdered as captured sepoys. Those suspected
of being or harbouring rebels were hanged, bayonetted or shot. 'Already
intent on vengeance, the soldiers were more than ever determined to exact
it when they came across the mutilated corpses of comrades murdered in
side streets and alleys to which they had been enticed by the female accomplices
of badmashes and fanatics'. The revenge was appalling. Old men were shot
without a second thought; groups of younger men, endeavouring to escape
from the city were rounded up and executed in a ditch outside the gates.
'No one with a coloured skin could feel himself safe.' The murders were
committed quite without compunction or regret."
--
Hibbert
The Great Mutiny, p 311, on British
actions after the recapture of Delhi
"
[A civilian whose sister had been murdered
by the rebels was in the habit of attaching himself to any regiment with
whom he might have an opportunity of glutting his desire for vengeance]
He shook my hand saying that he had put to death all he had come across,
not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance
of his dress - which was covered with bloodstains - I quite believed he
told me the truth. One would imagine he must have tired of the slaughter
during the six days of fighting in the city, but it was not so."
--
Captain Griffiths, 61st
at Delhi writing
of an old school friend.
Lucknow
"
Everywhere might be seen people helping themselves
to whatever they pleased. Plunder was the order of the day. Jewels, shawls
dresses, pieces of satin, broadcloths ... the most magnificent divan carpets
studded with pearls ... books, pictures, European clocks, English clothes,
full-dress officers' uniforms, epaulettes, aiguillettes,manuscripts, charms;
[and much more besides]."
"
There were hundreds of sepoys [mutineers]
dead and dying, many on fire. Piled around the entrance and in every court
and garden of the place, they lay in heaps, three and four deep, a suffocating,
burning, smouldering mass while many a Highlander, Sikh, 50th and a few
of ours lay among them. Now and then a stray shot came from some wretch
yet able to pull his trigger. While there I saw 64 collected, drawn up
and bayonetted with yells of 'Cawnpore'. God forgive us..."
--
Lieutenant Cubitt, 5th Fusiliers
at Dilkusha
Park, Lucknow
"
[The scene was terrible] But at the same time
it gave a feeling of gratified revenge. You may think me a savage but I
gloated over the sights in this charnel house. Who did not who saw the
slaughter at Cawnpore? ... Among the corpses were those of several women
... I saw the body of a woman lying with a cross-belt upon her and by her
a dead baby also shot with two bullet wounds in it. The poor mother had
tied the wounds round with a rag ... McQueen told me he had seen a Highlander
bayonet another woman and on his upbraiding him for such a brutal act,
he said the man turned upon him like a madman and for a minute he almost
expected to be run through with his bayonet himself."
--
Lieutenant Fairweather
at Dilkusha Park,
Lucknow.
Dhar
"
The men were off duty, and even some native
soldiers, but chiefly the 86th and artillery were frightfully drunk. Having
seized on the native liquour shops, they then commenced looting and killed
everything black, old men and young, woen and children ... They shouted
'Cawnpore!' and 'Delhi!' and down they went. Streete says he saw a room
full of dead women with children suckling at their breasts. Other women
brought out dead children supplicating for mercy. Officers rushed down
with the Provost Marshall and some dragoons and put a stop to it and destroyed
all the liquour."
--
Dr Sylvester
the siege of Dhar.
"
[Durand led his column towards Chambal, capturing
numerous prisoners who were shot with their hands tied behind their backs.]
Then we burned some houses near a village. The men in them ran out all
on fire, their hair in a blaze and were killed by the infantry muskets.
Whilst we were attacking the escaping villagers, I saw a man in a tree
and shot him with my revolver."
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