Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/23

 partly to his superiority in the departmental examinations that he owed his rapid advancement to the position of responsibility which he occupied when the troubles began.

The Indian Mutiny. We now come to the sad and terrible events of the Mutiny of 1857 ; and I cannot do better than give in extenso the admirable summary of events at Etawah contributed to the journal India by his friend Colonel C. H. T. Marshall of the Indian Army, which shows how Mr. Hume, by the confidence he inspired among the people of his district, was able to save the lives of the European residents, to organize a force of faithful local levies, and finally to restore order, after defeating in a pitched battle a far superior force of disciplined mutineers, and capturing their six guns. The following is the account given by Colonel Marshall : —

"Allan Hume joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1849, towards the end of his twentieth year. Before he had been nine years in India, the great Mutiny of 1857 broke out, and he had many opportunities of showing his capabilities as a soldier as well as a civilian. He got rapid promotion ; for though only twenty-six, he was officiating as Chief Civil Officer in charge of the Etawah District, in the North-West Provinces, with an area of 1693 square miles, a population of 722,000, and a revenue of £136,500. The headquarters were at the town of Etawah, which contained 34,000 inhabitants.

"When the fatal month of May 1857 opened, all was going smoothly — crime decreasing, revenue flowing in easily, the Great Canal spreading fertility through an ever-widening area, the railroad fast ripening. The community seemed happy and contented. The storm burst on the 10th, when the 3rd Cavalry mutinied at