world, it may be asked, will one find more forethought, kindness of heart, and less personal selfishness than this? And yet, the phenomenal fact remains, that the Sepoys who conmiitted the bloodthirsty massacres and murders, were actually recruited from among these very peasantry.
The limits which I have prescribed to myself in these fragmentary pages, prevent my going into a detail of circumstances to prove the above-stated startling fact in this place; but I shall have something to say on the subject, when I come to speak of the cause that led the Sepoys to commit such cruel and inhuman atrocities, as positively shocked and horrified their own rustic parents and brethren.
Whatever may have been their natural feelings of indignation raised by the perfidious cry of their caste being on the brink of destruction, these faithful peasantry remained steadfast in their allegiance to the Government that had brought them within the pale of civilisation. And through all the vicissitudes of the Mutiny — through all the horrors of that sanguinary epoch, their sympathies were with the Sahibs (European gentry). As a rule, they not only manifested the utmost repugnance to the cause of the rebellion, but fearlessly supported the authorities where they were able to resist the influence of the vortex in which vast numbers were engulfed, like thousands of the Sepoys; who were positively the victims of the revolt themselves. The sweets of the East India Company’s rule — albeit with all its bitter faults — were not to them
