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Rh pride of caste, and the bigoted attachment with which the Hindoo clings to an unsocial superstition – seemed for a time to be received by the Sepoys with submission. They were, however, either a violent outrage on the prejudices of the men, or they were seized on by designing agitators as the means of exciting disaffection to the European authorities.

The first symptoms of a spirit of insubordination appeared in the second battalion of the 4th regiment of Native Infantry, which then composed part of the garrison of Vellore. This fortress had been, fixed upon, at the termination of the Mysore war in 1799, for the residence of the family of the late Tippoo Sultaun; and at this period not only his sons and their numerous relations and attendants lived in the fort, but the whole neighbourhood swarmed with the creatures of the deposed family. An extravagant revenue had also been placed at their disposal, which enabled them to purchase the services of a host of retainers. Accordingly no fewer than three thousand Mysoreans settled in Vellore and its vicinity, subsequently to its becoming the abode of the princes; the number of their servants and adherents in the pettah amounted to about one thousand eight hundred; while the general population of the place had astonishingly increased, and some hundreds of persons were entirely destitute of any visible means of subsistence.

Such were the promising materials that abounded at Vellore, when on the 6th and 7th of May, 1806, the 4th regiment, as we have stated, became most disorderly and even mutinous when called upon to wear the new turban, inflicted by the unlucky and ill-timed regulation. This turban was held up to their hatred, by the agitators, as a Christian hat; while the turnscrew attached to the forepart of the uniform was converted into a cross, the symbol of the Christian faith; and even the practice of vaccination, which had been recently introduced into India, was represented as intended to advance the cause of Christianity.