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4 May 58 Julius Azimgurh Father Hyde Park Place (West) ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Azimgurh. 4th May 1858
My dear Father
I see by the papers, of which by the bye we have had of late a plentiful supply, that you have been speaking in the house & writing in the Times on the subject of Soldiers’ Barracks. Let me first congratulate you on having chosen a subject so open to & worthy of improvement.
It has always appeared to me so ungenerous, to say the least of it, and so expensive a system to keep a man, who as you justly say, are the preservers of the country’s honor, in unhealthy barracks. Besides being unhealthy they are devoid of every comfort and attraction. The consequence is that men flock to the public house & take to drinking, which is undoubtedly the real cause directly or indirectly of the large mortality in the army.
A man getting any disease is always rendered much worse by the state of his blood, which from constant drink is very much heated. Any wound of course quickly inflames so men die off & the country has the exposure of providing fresh, which is much more expensive than giving a few additional comforts to the Brks.
The middle of the day, in fact from 7½ A.M. until 5 P.M. is so hot that unless one is obliged, you never think of exposing yourself to the sun. With the aid of one of my 8 servants who is fanning away, I will jot down everything I can think of regarding India. I hope you will find some thing of use. If not, it will serve to pass away some time which at present I have no profitable employment for.
This mutiny was to a certain extent caused by the manner in which the English as a body treated the natives. It is the custom of the country for superiors in rank to meet with great deference from their inferiors, no matter who or what they are, at the same time the latter always accompanying their humility with their hate.
The English came out here, and being a superior race to the ‘mild Hindoo’ of course came in for all the salaams. Of late years however young fellows coming out here regularly tyrannized over the natives. Boys who never knew what it was to have a servant have bullied & thrashed their servants out here (generally for the great crime of not understanding their Anglo-Hindostanese) until it has become known what all overbearing people we English are, commanding the large number of native hangers-on to each individual & the number of individuals coming out year by year, it is not wonderful that this knowledge should have pretty well spread.
All this, although perhaps not being one of the principal causes of the mutiny, accounts to a great extent for the barbarous way in which defenceless Englishmen were treated by the natives.
The Asiatic character is full of subtlety. We are the masters here now, & as we always do, have invited the inhabitants back. The place is pretty well crowded. I was riding through the bazaar yesterday with a brother Officer when one & all as we passed got up, left whatever business they were engaged in & gave us a most abject salaam. A month since, you would have met with a different reception in that town.
It is the prevailing opinion now that we have too many Sikhs in our service; that when we have made them into good troops, principally light cavalry & Sappers, they will be quite strong enough to annoy us if they think proper. At the end of this business, great quantities will be turned off. They have in most cases amassed a good deal of loot & (there is a small party here, about 120. Their Officer was telling me that they had over 1,000 rupees - £100 – each) will go home & spend it. Where that goes however, having imbibed a taste for fighting if nothing better turns up, they will take to pillaging.
I do not think however that for some years at any rate, they would ever attempt to fight us as they have seen lately what we can do when we are so inclined.
It is a mistake to suppose that this war is over or nearly so. We have taken their principal stronghold & every newspaper tells of guns being captured. It is a fact that has become evident since the mutinies – although unknown before – that guns grow out of the earth. You take the guns from a force & they are heard of in another week with fresh. They dig up what they buried before as encumbrance. Fortunately for us, they are of native manufacture & cannot fire truly except as an exception. Their firing with their favourite matchlock is equally bad. They always fire at you at a long distance if practicable. They point well up in the air so that although the bullet goes a long way, the force is much diminished.
As long as a native can keep at long balls he is delighted, as there is not much danger to himself & he imagines that everyone of his bullets take effect. Push on with the bayonet & he vanishes after firing his piece. It is the opinion of all men of experience that Sir John Lawrence* is the right man for the Governor-Generalship, so that you had better keep Lord Stanley* in England. They say that Sir J.L. fully understands & sees through the natives which is the thing that is so wanted in a G.G.
I was talking about the fighting being finished. These fellows will go on now knowing there is no quarter. We shall have parties after them but never catch them. Gradually we will get their guns, ammunition, stores – everything except the men themselves. They will be the hardest to catch, however I think we are going on a very good principle. If we get all their stores & money, disorganization will take place. They will lose confidence in their leaders & go off into their villages by which time we will have an efficient native police who, being stimulated by rewards, will give up the men so that whatever people may say about Sir Colin not catching & killing all Lucknows, which I need not say was a moral impossibility with such a small force, it will lead to much less loss on our side as, if driven in a corner where they must fight, they can do a great deal of harm before being killed.
The papers say there is to be a medal for Delhi.* I wonder whether Lucknow will get one for us. We were given to understand that we were to get prize money but I suppose they will do us out of it if possible.
Before closing this, I must notice what my Mother says in her last letter (March 17) that you have had a letter from Wyse about the horse being unsound. To my knowledge he was perfectly sound until he strained his shoulder of which I told Wyse myself & that was the reason he did not buy him at the time. I left, if he chose to buy the horse after that, he did it with his eyes open & it is not my fault if he does not like him.
My Mother’s letter, the only one I have received for some time, mentions that Arthur is at home & gives out that such proceeding was unexpected, so that I must conclude that he broke down at the examination. I am sorry to learn it but I hope he has been more fortunate since. He ought to have been for the Bengal service, as that has everything to recommend it above the others – climate, promotion. If that is impossible he ought to get into an English Regt. There are some in each Presidency called Fusiliers.
The Cavalry is preferable to the infantry as it is equally cheap to live in it, for in any branch of the service you have to keep two horses & the allowances are larger. Besides which, they always get the best stations.
I will now finish this. I hope my Mother is well. I will write to her in a few days, love to all
I remain
yr. affect. Son
J D Laurie
I see in the papers that a Mr Rich says that we are treating the natives very badly out here; that we ought not to kill them & quotes a passage (I think from Sir John Lawrence) that there are no prisoners ever taken. I wish some of these very humane people would come & do a little of the work themselves, just to try what their feelings would be when, having suffered every imaginable sort of inconvenience & petty misery, they really did come in with some of these brutes.
I do not think any Englishman would wait to ask him if he was a murderer before knocking him over. We all know what tortures they put our wounded to, who happen to fall into their hands. I told you of a man of Ours who was taken by them near Bunnee Bridge. Every Sepoy taken with arms ought to be allowed no quarter.
There is another class of people, the ‘Budmarshes’ (which is a name the natives of Oude go by) who, not being Sepoys, fight against us because they think they are defending their country. I expect they will all be let off on giving up their arms.
Best is on his way home. I understand he is to get a Majority in a Second Battalion. Harman is also to go at the recommendation of a medical board. He is going to take substantiation immediately. I have no doubt if I can stand this, which I hope to, for 3 or 4 years, I shall be pretty well up.
I have scribbled a good deal & now it only remains to send it off. I hope you are all well at home. My Mother says you like your new home which I am very glad to hear. She seems delighted with it. I think you were quite right to get rid of such a large trouble.
Yr. affect. Son
J D Laurie
6th May /58
* Sir John Lawrence – (1811-1879) Bengal Civil Service 1830-59; Member, Board of Administration of the Punjab 1849-53; Chief Commissioner of the Punjab 1853-59; Member, Council of India 1859-63; Viceroy of India 1864-69
* Lord Stanley – Edward Henry Stanley (1826-1893), the son of the Prime Minister (Earl of Derby), had been appointed under-secretary for foreign affairs in his father's first administration
* Medal for Delhi – The Indian Mutiny Medal was awarded in 1858 to British and Indian troops deployed against the mutineers, with five fish tailed bars (as appropriate) for DELHI: DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW: RELIEF OF LUCKNOW: LUCKNOW: or CENTRAL INDIA. His Mutiny medal bears the ‘Lucknow’ bar