Infatuation of the authorities at Agra—­A series of Mishaps —­Result of indecision and incapacity

During our three days’ halt at Agra we were told the story of all that had happened before we came, and a sad story it was of incapacity and neglected opportunity.  The Lieutenant-Governor, an able, intelligent man under ordinary circumstances, had, unfortunately, no firmness of character, no self-reliance.  Instead of acting on his own convictions, he allowed himself to be entirely led by men about him, who had not sufficient knowledge of Natives to enable them to grasp how completely the latter’s attitude towards us had been changed by the loss of our military hold over the country.[1]

Deaf to warnings from those who did understand the magnitude of the danger, the Lieutenant-Governor refused to listen to the Maharaja Scindia, who, influenced by the wise counsels of his astute and enlightened minister, Dinkar Rao, told him that the whole Native army was disloyal, and that the men of his own (the Gwalior) Contingent[2] were as bad as the rest.  The authorities refused to allow the ladies and children at Gwalior to be sent into Agra for safety; they objected to arrangements being made for accommodating the non-combatants inside the walls of the fort, because, forsooth, such precautions would show a want of confidence in the Natives! and the sanction for supplies being stored in the fort was tardily and hesitatingly accorded.  It was not, indeed, until the mutinous sepoys from Nimach and Nasirabad were within sixty miles of Agra that orders were given to put the fort in a state of defence and provision it, and it was not until they had reached Futtehpore Sikri, twenty-three miles from Agra, that the women and children were permitted to seek safety within the stronghold.[3]

Fortunately, however, notwithstanding the intermittent manner in which instructions were issued, there was no scarcity of supplies, for, owing to the foresight and energy of Lieutenant Henry Chalmers, the executive Commissariat officer, assisted by that prince of contractors, Lalla Joti Persad, and ably supported by Mr. Reade, the civilian next in rank to the Lieutenant-Governor, food was stored in sufficient quantities, not only for the garrison, but for all the refugees from the surrounding districts.[4]

Mr. Drummond, the magistrate of the district, who had from the first been the chief opponent of precautionary measures for the security of the residents, had the audacity to set the Lieutenant-Governor’s order for victualling the fort at defiance.  He forbad grain or provisions being sold to the Commissariat contractor, whose duty it was to collect supplies, and positively imprisoned one man for responding to the contractor’s demands.  It was at this official’s instigation that the Native police force was largely increased, instead of being done away with altogether, as would have been the sensible course; and as there was an insufficiency of weapons