The massacre in the river.

ing garrison to yield up the inclosure and embark in boats, which could not be got off from shore, and were indeed intended merely as convenient shambles. It was then that the wonderful escape of the author of this volume, of Lieut. Delafosse, and two privates took place. They swam to a boat, which-the only one that could be got afloat-was drifting down the river. By a wonderful fortune, they escaped from her just at the moment when she was captured. At last, after being three days without food, and after having been the targets for thousands of bullets, utterly spent, and at the last gasp, they were saved by a faithful Oudh chief. Meantime, they had left worse horrors behind :—

""The scene which followed this manifestation of the infernal treachery of our assassins is one that beggars all description. Some of the boats presented a broadside to the guns, others were raked from stem to stern by the shot. Volumes of smoke from the thatch somewhat veiled the full extent of the horrors of that morning. All who could move were speedily expelled from the boats by the heat of the flames. Alas! the wounded were burnt to death; one mitigation only there was to their horrible fate-the flames were terrifically fierce, and their intense sufferings were not protracted. Wretched multitudes of women and children crouched behind the boats, or waded out into deeper water and stood up to their chins in the river to lessen the probability of being shot.'

"The survivors from this butchery in the boats were seized as they came out of the water. The

men were separated from the women, fired on, and then hacked to pieces. One lady, Mrs. Boyes, wife of Dr. Boyes, of the 2nd Cavalry, who could not be torn from him, shared his fate. There remained then 210 women and children, who, after two more days of unspeakable torture, were finally slaughtered, stripped, and hurled naked into the well of Cawnpore."

'A Year's Campaigning in India, from March, 1857, to March, 1858,' by Capt. Medley, is noticed on the 16th of July: "Capt. Medley is one of the sixty-four officers of the Bengal Engineers who were engaged in the Indian campaign of 1857. Of these, twelve were killed and twenty-two wounded-a sufficient proof of their devoted service. To belong to such a band is of itself a glorious distinction; but Capt. Medley has the further praise of having been one of the foremost among that foremost band. He took a leading part in the erection of the batteries before Delhi, was selected for the difficult and dangerous duty of reconnoitring the breach, and will have his name handed down in history as having led and been wounded with the column which stormed the Cashmere bastion, and paid for its achievement by the death of Nicholson. At Lucknow Capt. Medley's services were scarcely less distinguished, and he has now happily wound up his campaigns

VOL. II.

G

Capt. Medley.

by writing the most lucid and graphic account of them that has yet appeared."

'District Duties during the Revolt in the North-West Provinces of India, in 1857,' by H. Dundas H. Dundas Robertson, noticed on December Robertson. 3rd, fully corroborates the views of the rebellion that had appeared in the Athenæum. "Of this the following passage will furnish a convincing proof :

The

Oudh.

"Though the explosion could not, under any circumstances, have been long warded off, there can be but little doubt that the annexation of Oude exercised the annexation of greatest direct share in the mutiny and revolt of 1857, and this was invariably advanced to me in conversation by natives near the centres of revolt as the all-important cause, after other influences had paved the way throughout the territory belonging to the old Oude Nawabee 'vice-royalty' previous to 1801. But in the Delhi territory another chapter of intrigue was opened, of an almost purely Mahomedan type, though the caste and Oude grievances had here also their share as the necessary means of exciting the Nawabee Sepoy, who was the agent in these scenes. Beyond the confines of these two tracts, other influences formed the incentive to revolt, which were, as previously stated, often extremely local in their complexion, and have given rise to much confusion in logically accounting for the revolt even amongst the higher class of natives themselves. Thus, nearer the Punjaub, frequently have I heard them attribute the mutiny to the fact, that the Sepoys had gone 'must,' similar to a well-kept male elephant, in consequence of being too well cared for and not sufficiently worked ; and

this, like a great many other things, had its share. But Oude was the real stumbling-block of the day. Twothirds of our Sepoys being recruited either in Oude, or from those surrounding districts which tradition told them rightfully belonged to the old Nawabee, embracing, previous to the annexation of Oude, many of the richest districts in our possession, were all, though living under separate governments, connected by the closest ties of kindred and intermarriage, rendering them in every respect the same race, influenced by like prejudices or fears. Not unnaturally, then, all looked on the dethronement of the King of Oude in the same light as the Highlanders regarded the expulsion of the Stuarts, and by that step the feudal pride of a powerful, and, in some respects, an aristocratic army was deeply injured.'"

'Essays, Military and Political, written in India,' by the late Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, K.C.B., Chief Commissioner in Oudh, and Provisional Governor-General of India, is reviewed on the 10th of December. To annexation Sir Henry Lawrence was directly opposed. "Let not a rupee,' he said, 'come into the Company's coffers.' He advised that every competent Oudh official willing to remain should be retained. In a word, he proposed that Oudh should be governed 'not for one man, the King, but for him and his people.' He lived to see his advice disregarded, the King dethroned, and the province annexed, and, by a remarkable destiny, he himself perished among the foremost victims of the

Dethrone

ment of the king.

The annexation

opposed by Sir Henry Lawrence.

Literature of

measure he had resisted, and which he, nevertheless, was compelled to be the chief agent in carrying out."

The literature of the year included 'Idylls of the year. the King,' by Alfred Tennyson; Adam Bede,' by George Eliot; The Wanderer,' by Owen Meredith; John Stuart Mill's essay 'On Liberty'; Faraday's 'Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics'; 'Recollections,' by Samuel Rogers; "Shelley Memorials: from Authentic Sources. Edited by Lady Shelley. To which is added an Essay on Christianity, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, now first printed "; the first volume of David Masson's 'Life of Milton'; 'The Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis,' edited with notes by Charles Ross; Lady Morgan's ' Autobiography'; the ninth and concluding volume of 'The Letters of Horace Walpole,' edited by Peter Cunningham; 'What will he do with it?' by Pisistratus Caxton; 'Facts, Failures, and Frauds,' by D. Morier Evans; 'Memoirs of the Court of George III., 1820-30, from Original Family Documents,' by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, K.G.; 'The Life and Times of Charles James Fox,' by Lord John Russell; Sketch-Book of Popular Geology: being a Series of Lectures delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh,' by Hugh Miller; the first volume of 'Speeches of the