Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/161

Rh for not quitting the house; hut it was a frightful scene—English soldiers firing on British uniforms, pursuing them in all directions; some of our servants were wounded. We fortunately did not know at the moment that the night the mutiny broke out all the sentries in and about the house belonged to the 47th. The scene of action was not a quarter of a mile from this house. Many shots entered the cookhouse and many fell into the water under our windows, and we saw great numbers trying to swim the Ganges. Few reached the opposite shore from the strength of the current. Twenty or thirty dead bodies were seen floating down of these unhappy people. The different regiments of British troops remained at Barrackpur about a week, after which the native regiments marched quietly to the eastern frontier, and the British troops returned to their destinations. The English regiments were encamped in the park, as also the artillery and the bodyguard. Had any cause brought them here but the actual one, we should have enjoyed this beautiful encampment and scenery extremely.'

Something has to be added to this narrative if justice is to be done to the wretched mutineers. Their demeanour on that last parade, as described by some who witnessed the scene, was that of men dazed by excitement, of men not so much bent on mischief as possessed by some fatal infatuation. They stood 'with ordered arms in a state of stupid desperation, resolved not to yield, but making no preparation to resist.' The punishment was just, but the fate of the regiment was unspeakably pathetic. The native officers were dismissed from the service, and the name of the regiment was effaced from the list of the army. Thirty years later a scene closely resembling this in