The Native troops with the column had given no trouble since we left Lahore.  We were travelling in the direction they desired to go, which accounted for their remaining quiet; but Nicholson, realizing the danger of having them in our midst, and the probability of their refusing to turn away from Delhi in the event of our having to retrace our steps, resolved to disarm the 35th.  The civil authorities in the district urged that the same course should be adopted with the 33rd, a Native Infantry regiment at Hoshiarpur, about twenty-seven miles from Jullundur, which it had been decided should join the column.  The Native soldiers with the column already exceeded the Europeans in number, and as the addition of another regiment would make the odds against us very serious, it was arranged to disarm the 35th before the 33rd joined us.

We left Jullundur on the 24th June, and that afternoon, accompanied by the Deputy-Commissioner of the district, I rode to Philour to choose a place for the disarming parade.  The next morning we started early, the Europeans heading the column, and when they reached the ground we had selected they took up a position on the right of the road, the two batteries in the centre and the 52nd in wings on either flank.  The guns were unlimbered and prepared for action.  On the left of the road was a serai,[11] behind which the officer commanding the 35th was told to take his regiment, and, as he cleared it, to wheel to the right, thus bringing his men in column of companies facing the line of Europeans.  This manoeuvre being accomplished, I was ordered to tell the commanding officer that the regiment was to be disarmed, and that the men were to pile arms and take off their belts.  The sepoys and their British officers were equally taken aback; the latter had received no information of what was going to happen, while the former had cherished the hope that they would be able to cross the Sutlej, and thence slip off with their arms to Delhi.

I thought I could discover relief in the British officers’ faces, certainly in that of Major Younghusband, the Commandant, and when I gave him the General’s order, he murmured, ‘Thank God!’ He had been with the 35th for thirty-three years; he had served with it at the siege of Bhurtpore, throughout the first Afghan war, and in Sale’s defence of Jalalabad; he had been proud of his old corps, but knowing probably that his men could no longer be trusted, he rejoiced to feel that they were not to be given the opportunity for further disgracing themselves.[12] The sepoys obeyed the command without a word, and in a few minutes their muskets and belts were all packed in carts and taken off to the fort.