to the justice of the censure on him suggest themselves to Calcutta. There is but a step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian. From the eminence which in thirty years he had achieved, Mr. Colvin fell in an instant into discredit.
Lord Canning's objections to the text of the Proclamation, conveyed by telegraph on receipt of it, were threefold. Only those guilty of heinous crimes against private persons were exempted from amnesty: hence men who had murdered their officers could claim pardon. The burden of proof was thrown on the officers of the Government. These again had no power reserved them to detain for inquiry such soldiers as might give themselves up.
Mr. Colvin at once pointed out that the Proclamation was a Hindustáni document addressed to Hindustáni soldiers. The words 'private persons' were expressed in the vernacular in terms which every native would at once understand. Resistance to public authority was distinguished from the commission of acts against the lives or persons of individuals. The latter were declared by the Proclamation to be unpardonable. The former alone would be condoned[1]. On the vernacular purport of
- ↑ The vernacular version is this: 'Siraf wuh log jo hangámah men fasád ke sarghanah wa sardár the, aur wuh, jinhon ne riyáya par kúch juram sangin kiye hon, albatta sazá pawenge.' This, by a Sepoy, would be read: 'Only those who in the disturbances have taken a chief and leading part in mutiny, and those who have committed any heinous crime against the people, will assuredly be punished.' Soldiers who had killed their officers fell directly under the first exception.
