This circumstance was reported to Government by General Hearsay on the 11th February.  In the same letter he said, ’We have at Barrackpore been living upon a mine ready for explosion,’ and he reported a story which had reached him from Dum-Dum of a sepoy, on his way to cook his food with his lota[1] full of water, meeting a low-caste man belonging to the arsenal where the Enfield cartridges were being manufactured.  This man, it was said, asked the sepoy to allow him to drink from his lota.  The sepoy, a Brahmin, refused, saying:  ’I have scoured my lota; you will defile it by your touch.’  The low-caste man replied:  ’You think much of your caste, but wait a little:  the Sahib-logue[2] will make you bite cartridges soaked in cow’s fat, and then where will your caste be?’ The sepoy no doubt believed the man, and told his comrades what was about to happen, and the report rapidly spread to other stations.

Early in March several of the Hindu sepoys belonging to the Dum-Dum School of Musketry expressed their unwillingness to bite the new cartridge, and the Commandant proposed that the drill should be altered so as to admit of the cartridge being torn instead of bitten.  Hearsay supported the proposal, remarking that the new mode of loading need not be made to appear as a concession to agitation, but as part of the drill for the new weapon.  Events, however, moved so quickly that, before sanction could be received to this suggestion, the troops at Berhampur had broken into open mutiny.  They refused to receive their ammunition, on the ground of its being polluted, even after it was explained to them that they were not being given the new cartridges, but those which had been made up in the regiment a year before.  That night they broke open the bells-of-arms, and carried off their muskets.

The Government then became aware that prompt action was necessary.  They decided that such open mutiny could not be excused on the grounds of religious scruples, and ordered the regiment to be disbanded.  As Berhampur was somewhat isolated, and some distance from European troops, it was arranged that the disbandment should take place at the Head-Quarters of the Presidency division, and the 19th Native Infantry was accordingly ordered to march to Barrackpore.

The revolt of this regiment brought forcibly before Lord Canning and his advisers the perilous position of Lower Bengal, owing to the paucity of European troops.  Well may the authorities have been startled, for between Calcutta and Meerut, a distance of 900 miles, there were only four regiments of British infantry and a few scattered Artillerymen, numbering in all less than 5,000, while the Native troops amounted to upwards of 55,000.  One of the four Infantry regiments was at Fort William; but as only a portion of it could be spared for the disbandment of the 19th, a special steamer was despatched to Rangoon to bring over the 84th Foot.  This regiment reached Calcutta