It has never been definitely settled whether the charge as to the composition of the unguent was correct or not. The Government did what it could to allay the excitement and fears of the Sepoys, even to the withdrawal of the obnoxious cartridges, offering the men the right to make them up themselves with such grease as was not offensive to them. But it was all too late; midnight meetings now began to be held and plans of resistance discussed, and immediate and open mutiny was proposed.
General Hearsey at Barrackpore, by a well-timed and judicious address to the Sepoys of his command, in which he showed them the folly of supposing the Government inclined to attempt their forcible conversion, and the Governor General by proclamation to the whole army, tried to arrest the fearful tendency of affairs, and tranquilize the troops; but the effect was temporary. The lull was only the prelude to the storm. The General's manly and straight-forward address to the men, with whom he had served nearly forty years, ought, if any thing could have done so then, to have satisfied and appeased them. He told them, among other things, that “the English are Christians of the Book, (that is, Protestants,) and Christians of the Book admit no proselytes, and baptize none, except those who fully understand and believe in the tenets therein inculcated.”
But rebellion was a foregone conclusion with these infatuated men; so they dissembled and professed to be “koosh” (pleased) with his address, yet they only awaited their hour. Twenty days after this, on that same parade ground, a Brahmin Sepoy named Mungul Pandy turned out armed, and in the presence of his regiment, not a man of whom interfered to save their officers or to arrest the Sepoy, shed the first blood of the Rebellion by firing on and wounding Adjutant Baugh and Sergeant-Major Hewson. The firing drew General Hearsey and his son to the spot. Mungul took aim at the General, who drew his sword, and with the words, “John, if I fall, rush upon him and put him to death,” spurred his horse forward. The man was overpowered, and after attempting suicide was tried and executed, and died refusing to make any statement to
