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Leader (1850-1860), 10th October 1857, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13

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      beaten the Sepoys in hand-to-hand conflict before Delhi . They are a brave , hardy , warlike , and . vigorous , though diminutive people . They might at least have been the saviours of Cawnpore ; but they were ordered off the British territory . That fact we repeat , and we recommend the relatives of the slain to put Lord Canning upon his conscience , and ask him why he permitted a thousand Christians to be murdered by the Nan ± Sahib . Wifchin a week he was eager to obtain the assistance of the ten thousand allies whose

      friendly offer he had rejected . But it seems to be Lord Canning- 's doom to be a week , or a month , or three months behindhand . What did he know of India that he should dare to write home after mutinies had taken place , and assure the Cabinet that all causes for alarm had subsided ? The first blow was struck in January had he acted with sense or energy he might Lave had twenty thousand reinforcements with him before July . But he expressed his confidence in himself and his

      Sepoys ; and the Imperial Groverhment slept while during the months of February , March , April , May , and June the rebellion gathered force , and Parliament listened to satisfactory explanations from Mr . Vernon Smith . Then we learned that the spectre of a Mogul had appeared at Delhi , and that Lord Cantning- 's confidence meant anarchy and massacre . Here arose a double responsibility- — that of the local and that » f the supreme authorities . How did Lord Canning act ? Everyone knows by this time . He took few or no precautions . At the very localities

      pointed out to him as centres of anxiety , he allowed conspiracies to ripen into actual revolt , and no one has yet ventured to calculate at what a sacrifice of human life—to say nothing of power endangered , or property destroyed—the Groyernor-General nursed himself in blindness and apathy . If the actual cost be incalculable , what of the interests he hazajded ? What of Calcutta itself in flames , half the Europeans murdered and the survivors flying to Fort William or the sea ? Of Allahabad , captured by the mutineers ? Of all Bengal Proper ravaged ? Yet it was not until the last moment that Lord

      Canning partially guaranteed tlie community against these horrible chauces . The natives began buying arms in the bazaars Twit 3 k uuuanal activity . Was this interfered with ' t No . All the guns , pistols , and steel weapons for sale in Calcutta were bought up , and the Governor-General allowed

      assassination to sharpen its knife in the open streets . He was at work in other quarters . He was bridling the press . He was shamefully confounding a number of public-spirited English journalists with a swarm of malignant and seditious Oordoo scribblers engaged In the avowed occupation of hounding on the military rebels in their murderoua crusade

      against the British inhabitants of India . There was nothing to prevent ten thousand Mohammedans and Hindoos from beginning afusillade along the wharfs of Calcutta ; Lord Canning was content when he had gagged The Englishman and the Jfurkaru . He knew , or ought to have known , that General Hewitt was unlit to command at

      Meerut . He knew , or ought to have known , that four regiments at Dinapore should not be left under the charge of an epileptic patient , seventy years of age , who had to be bfted in and out of his saddle . He cannot excuse himself on the ground that this was a military matter . It is no secret that bo

      pretended to bo Coinmnndcr-in-Chief as well aa Governor-General , and that even poor General Anson was sometimes overruled when he desired to take vigorous measures . We well know that Sir JPatuick Gjiant wcib && 1 to return to Madras to escape from the

      meddlesome tyranny of the civilian Viscount at Calcutta . It is Lord Canning , and Lord Canning alone , who is responsible for the fatal imbecility displayed at Meerut and Dinapore . Yet the General , seventy years old , is superseded , and will be tried ; the man who knew what he was , and left him where he ought not to have been , i s—who knows what we shall have to pay for it ?—the supreme authority in India .

      ¥ e should like to see the letters written by Sir James Oxjtkam and Sir Henry Lawhence from liucknow . Did they recommend the disarmament of the Oude chiefs and their followers ? Did they point out the perilous situation of that territory long before the mutiny began ? Who advised Lord Canning to watch the movements of Cheke Singh in Berar—a man with a standing

      grievance and a standing army , who was permitted to maintain a little park of artillery , which he lent to the Dinapore rebels , and who is now in arms against us ? Bad symptoms were betrayed in Bengal and the North-West Provinces soon after the conclusion of the Hussian war . In fact , the mutiny had begun to develop itself . Peculiar organizations in the army were heard of ; the lotus and the cake passed through India like the bearded

      flame in the tragedy ; the native prints were insolent and exulting in their language ; both Hindoos and Mohammedans talked aloud , although vaguely , of certain coming events . Who cannot fancy a faultless British peer holding up an eyeglass , remarking , " How very curious I * ' and wondering what he had to do with it ? Mark , we are not jocular . This is exactly the light in which our representative men of the aristocracy regard a great public crisis . It is not laugh-able ; it is very

      . Lord Canning , in the latitude of Oriental ruby-and-diamond beds , kept himself remarkably cool while insurrections and slaughter did their work in the Upper Provinces . Coolness was also the prevailing characteristic of the departments at home . They resolved so to order the departure of troops that they should ax-rive in India in the cool season . Havblock

      might conduct a July campaign , Wilson a July siege , Wheeler and Lawrence a July defence ; there were midsummer massacres ; while heavy transports were plunging across the Atlantic , the sun burnt docp stains of blood into the Indian soil ; the rainy Benson washed them away , while the frightful conflict added new blots to nature , itself ; and the

      light August breezes played upon the sails that were slowly bringing succour round the Cape . Nothing could then be done with the overland route . And yet something is now to be done with it . It was absurd to talk of sending artillerymen via Egypt ; and yet vid Egypt artillerymen are to go . The Peninsular and Oriental and the Australian steam

      vessels are to carry them . It is four months since this was suggested , and the Government has only just discovered it to be practicable . A thousand bluejackets might have gone up to Delhi before the end of June ; Captain Peel is now taking them up , but ho may be too late ; at all events he is too late

      to prevent much that has happened and that might have been prevented . In India , responsibility is concentrated—Lord Canning is master . At home it is divided , we suppose . Mr . Beunal Osjjohne , for instance , may be held responsible as an Admiralty oilicial for not discovering , until last week , that a iew gunboats might be useful in India .

      The Government is getting no moro than fair play , we arc told . We question whether the aaino sort of fair play will last much longer . There may be encouraging news from India , but are we to condone criminal

      neglect even while its results are spreading in a circle of bloodshed and disaster ? We have always insisted upon fair play towards public men ; we were alone , perhaps , in dealing justly with the Duke of Newcastle during the Crimean wax ; we feel nothing but contempt for the bungling and imperti ° nent criticisms passed upon the strategy of Havelock , who , we are told , ought to have marched upon Lucknow and relieved the garrison ! But if a Governor-General oi India is not to he held responsible , if an Administration is not to be blamed for

      dilatoriness when every hour calls for earnest and vigorous exertion , we know not why public opinion should exist , or why , indeed , General Havelock should have made forced marches from Allahabad to Cawnpore . We want something like a forced march at home ; somebody like Law be nob at Calcutta . Fair

      play by all means towards the Ministers of the Crown ; but next session , let them burst the walls of Parliament with their oratory , they cannot remove the fact that Lord Canning , their representative , was amply warned , and that he neglected to take even tlie slightest precautions . If they support him , they undertake his responsibility .

      No. 394, October 10,1857.] The Leader, 9...

      No . 394 , October 10 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER , 973

      Mr. Buchanan And The Zfouty Priests. The...

      MR . BUCHANAN AND THE ZFOUTY PRIESTS . The case of ' bleeding Kansas' was presented to Mr . Buchanan by Professor Silliman and forty-two other persons of Connectic ut , who made their appeal in tlie name-, of ' Divine Power ; promising , however , that in any event the memorialists would exercise their influence to procure the Divine countenance for his administration . Their case is so well summed up by Mr . Buchanan himself that we may quote the abridgment of it from ] iis reply : —

      " You first assert that the ' fundamental principle of the Constitution of the United States , and of our political institutions , is , that the people shall make their own laws and elect their own rulers . ' ITou then express your grief that I should have violated this principle , and through Governor Walker have employed an army , ' one purpose of which is to force the people of Kansas to obey laws not their own nor of the United States , but laws which it is notorious and established upon evidence-they never made , and rulers they never elected , ' and as a corollary from the foregoing , you represent that I am openly hold up and proclaimed , to the great derogation of oar national character , as violating in its most essential particulars the solemn oath which the President Jias taken to support the Constitution of this Union . ' "

      These , as Mr . Buchanan says , are heavy charges , which ought , if they are well founded , to consign his name to infamy ; or , if they are made without having been duly verified , they ought to rebound with withering condemnation on their authors . Now , what are the facta ? When he entered upon the presidential office , the Territory of Kansas had been organized under an act of Congress ; it had a Governor , Territorial Secretary , Judges , and executive officers ,

      appointed b } r his predecessors , a code of laws enacted by the Territorial Legislature , and a whole public machinery in full working . It is true that there had been a controversy respecting the validity of the legislatorial election , and of the laws passed by the Legislature ; but Congress had recognized the Legislature more than once . Tlmfc delegato elected by the House of lieproscntativea at the Congress had completed his term of service before Mr . Buchanan ' s

      inauguration . In short , tho President might as well have examined into tho tenure and relation of auy other Territory in the Union . But this ia not all ; there was another fact . Within tlie Territory of Kansas there are two parties , one upholding the established system , another insisting that an opposite system ough t to have been eata

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 10, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10101857/page/13/