The causes which brought about the Mutiny were so various, and some of them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as concisely as I could wish; but I will be as brief as possible.

During the first years of our supremacy in India, Hindus and Mahomedans alike were disposed to acquiesce in our rule—­the blessings of rest and peace after a long reign of strife and anarchy were too real not to be appreciated; but as time went by, a new generation sprang up by whom past miseries were forgotten, and those who had real grievances, or those who were causelessly discontented, were all ready to lay the blame for their real or fancied troubles on their foreign rulers.  Mahomedans looked back to the days of their Empire in India, but failed to remember how completely, until we broke the Mahratta power, the Hindus had got the upper hand.  Their Moulvies taught them that it was only lawful for true Mussulmans to submit to the rule of an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme.  The Hindus had not forgotten that they had ousted the Mahomedans, and they fancied that the fate of the British raj might also be at their mercy.

The late Sir George Campbell, in his interesting memoirs, says:  ’The Mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion.’  I do not altogether agree with him; for, although there was no general rising of the rural population, the revolt, in my judgment, would never have taken place had there not been a feeling of discontent and disquiet throughout that part of the country from which our Hindustani sepoys chiefly came, and had not certain influential people been thoroughly dissatisfied with our system of government.  This discontent and dissatisfaction were produced by a policy which, in many instances, the Rulers of India were powerless to avoid or postpone, forced upon them as it was by the demands of civilization and the necessity for a more enlightened legislation.  Intriguers took advantage of this state of affairs to further their own ends.  Their plan of action was to alienate the Native army, and to increase the general feeling of uneasiness and suspicion, by spreading false reports as to the intentions of the authorities in regard to the various measures which had been adopted to promote the welfare and prosperity of the masses.  It can hardly be questioned that these measures were right and proper in themselves, but they were on that account none the less obnoxious to the Brahmin priesthood, or distasteful to the Natives generally.  In some cases also they were premature, and in others they were not carried out as judiciously as they might have been, or with sufficient regard to the feelings and prejudices of the people.