said, that his Sepoys were staunch and true, and could be depended upon to defend them! I looked after the old man as he hurried away from me, with the sad presentiment that he was mistaken. He “blew up” Troup, and was so firm in his reliance on the Sepoys that, had it not been for the influence of his officers, he would, in order to show his confidence in his troops, have yielded to their request to order back the ladies to Bareilly. On such a thread as this our fate hung. Yet this very man, to whom his Sepoys swore such fidelity and made such promises, was the first person whom they shot on that Sabbath morning, May 31st. In his dying hour, if he thought of them, he must have felt that the safety of his own wife and daughters was due to the precaution of the officer he had blamed! But we are anticipating what follows.
Forty-eight hours after the Meerut massacre (and three days before the account of that of Delhi reached us) a mounted horseman entered Bareilly, with a letter from the English Governor of the North-west, Mr. Colvin, to the commanding officer, narrating the terrible deeds done at Meerut, and suggesting that every precaution should be taken to provide for the safety of the ladies and children. Colonel Troup, being in command, received the letter and acted as we have stated. The telegraphs had been cut all over the country, and the mails on the Delhi side stopped; so that had it not been for the precaution of Mr. Colvin in sending a message direct, we should have been in ignorance of what had been done, and of our own fearful danger. Many such facts might be given to show the merciful Providence which watched over us to save us. But these may suffice here.
I now turn to our personal narrative, and, in presenting it, have carefully looked over the letters addressed to the Corresponding Secretary of our Missionary Society, in various dates from May 26 to July 10, 1857, when I gave the facts as they occurred; and in the light of the explanations which subsequent years have developed, I find only a few words that I need at all to qualify; so that the facts and impressions are given in the form in which they came from an anxious heart, which, in the midst of danger and in the
