against our power; and in the second week of May the troops at Meerut broke into open mutiny, set fire to the public buildings, murdered their officers, and even their wives and children, and then marched off to Delhi, where the garrison was prepared to receive them with open arms, and to imitate their atrocities.  The contagion spread, and in a few weeks nearly all Bengal was in arms.  In one or two instances the native chiefs stood by us, but the greater number joined the insurgents, some from the desire to throw off our yoke, but others, probably, from constraint and through fear.  Whatever were their motives, before the end of June nearly all the principal cities and fortresses of Bengal, up to the very gates of Calcutta, were in the hands of the insurgents, the chief exception being at the great city of Lucknow, where, though the mutineers got possession of the city, a British garrison held the Residency, in the centre; and, maintaining themselves with heroic fortitude, unsurpassed in all the history of war, for nearly nine months, contributed more than any other body of men to the final suppression of the revolt.  It would be beside our purpose here to dwell upon the great deeds by which in that terrible year our army, in all its branches, maintained its old renown; upon the recapture of Delhi; the deliverance of the incomparable defenders and preservers of Lucknow; the exploits of Lawrence, and Inglis, and Havelock, and Outram, and Peel, and Campbell; and, if we are forced to deny ourselves the proud gratification of dwelling on their combined heroism and wisdom, we may for the same reason be spared the pain of recounting the horrid cruelties wreaked in too many instances not only on the officers who fell into the rebels’ hands, and on the civil magistrates, but on the helpless women and children.  In the first excitement of fear and horror those cruelties were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, but still enough remains proved to stamp the insurrection as one branding with the foulest disgrace the race which perpetrated and exulted in them.

It was not till the last week of 1858 that the last sparks of rebellion were finally extinguished by the defeat in Oude of the last body of rebels who remained in arms, and the flight of the remnant of their force across the frontier of Nepaul; but, even before that day came, the ministry at home had been led to see the necessity of putting the government of the country for the future on a different footing.  It could hardly be doubted that the prompt suppression of a revolt of so unprecedented a magnitude, and the proof given in the course of our operations that the British soldier still maintained the same superiority over the native trooper as in the days of Clive, had heightened our reputation and the belief of our power among the native tribes.  But, speedily and decisively crushed though it had been, the revolt had given too terrible a proof of the inconstancy and treachery of the native tribes not to act as a warning to our statesmen; and the reflection that was thus forced upon them showed that a company of merchants, however distinguished by general courage and sagacity they had shown themselves, was no longer qualified to exercise imperial dominion over a territory which now extended over more than a million of square miles, and more than a hundred and fifty millions of native subjects.