1805–1807 Lieut. Colonel Gillespie—19th at Arcot—Mutiny of Vellore—A military wonder—19th ordered to England—A quarter of a century’s changes—The “terrors of the East”—Farewell orders—19th land in England.
“‘Trumpeter, sound for the Light Dragoons,
Sound to saddle and spur,’ he said,
‘He that is ready may ride with me,
And he that can may ride ahead.’”
—Newbolt.
In January 1801, a second Lieut. Colonel had been added to the establishment of the regiment, in the person of Major Edgar Hunter, promoted from the 2nd Dragoon Guards, without purchase. Lt. Colonel Hunter remained in England, and never joined the regiment. The vacancy caused by Maxwell’s death at Assaye was filled for a time by the Governor General, at Sir Arthur Wellesley’s recommendation, appointing Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace of the 74th Highlanders to command the 19th Light Dragoons. But the appointment was not confirmed in England, and, the following year, Wallace was transferred to H.M. 80th, to make way for Major James Kennedy, who had been promoted to fill the vacancy. A little later, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Robert Wilson was brought from half-pay of Hompesch’s Mounted Riflemen to be Lieutenant Colonel, in place of Hunter, who was placed on half-pay. But Wilson also did not join the regiment, and, three months later, exchanged into the 20th Light Dragoons with Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rollo Gillespie, who,[158] during the short time he was with the 19th, was destined to perform one of the most curious feats of arms ever done by an individual.
In an age prolific of daring deeds Gillespie was already widely known as the hero of many a desperate adventure. Headstrong and impetuous by nature, in action he was a brave and gallant soldier to whom nothing appeared impossible. The only child of a Scotch gentleman settled in Ireland, at the age of ten Gillespie was gazetted as Ensign to the 45th Foot, from which he was transferred as Lieutenant to the 104th. On that regiment being disbanded in the beginning of 1783, he was transferred as Cornet to the 6th Dragoon Guards, then quartered in Ireland. Four years later, he was concerned in an affair that attracted much notice at the time, and nearly brought his military career to an abrupt close. While quartered at Athy in Kildare, an altercation took place one day in Gillespie’s room, between one of his brother officers, named Mackenzie, and a Mr Barrington, brother of Sir Jonah Barrington, whose estate was in the neighbourhood. In a duelling age, the Barringtons were remarkable for their fire-eating propensities. A meeting was fixed upon for the following morning, Barrington insisting on fighting in a particular part of his family estate. Gillespie attended as second to Mackenzie. Shots were exchanged without result, and it was proposed by the seconds that the affair should be considered at an end. Barrington objected, and a fierce quarrel arose between him and Gillespie. A challenge to fight on the spot was given and accepted. Gillespie, knowing Barrington’s reputation as a duellist, drew out his handkerchief, proposing that each should hold one end of it. Both fired at the same moment: Barrington fell shot through the heart, but Gillespie escaped with only a slight wound, the bullet having glanced off a button. Gillespie was tried at the summer assizes of 1788, at[159] Maryborough, for wilful murder, and acquitted by the jury, with a verdict of justifiable homicide.
In 1792, Gillespie was promoted to a Lieutenancy in the newly raised 20th Light Dragoons, which was enlisted for service in Jamaica, and maintained at the expense of the island. In the attack of Port-au-Prince in St Domingo he distinguished himself, along with Captain Rowley of the Navy, by swimming ashore, their swords in their mouths, as bearers of a flag of truce. They were fired on as they swam, and would have been shot on landing, if Gillespie had not made himself known as a freemason to the Governor, who was also a fellow craftsman. While in St Domingo, an attack at night was made on Gillespie’s house by eight men. Awakened by the cries of his servant, who was being murdered, he attacked the assailants with his sword, and killed six of them. The remaining two fled, after inflicting a dangerous wound on him. On exchanging to the 19th, he obtained permission to find his way out to India overland, and travelled through Germany, which was then in the hands of the French, Austria, Servia, Constantinople, where he fought a successful duel with a French Officer who picked a quarrel with him, Aleppo and Baghdad. The journey was a hazardous one at that time, and he had more than one narrow escape. On reaching Arcot, the command of the whole garrison devolved on him, in virtue of his brevet rank. Hardly had he assumed the command, when an event occurred at the neighbouring station of Vellore that will always be associated with Gillespie’s name.
Matters relating to food, dress and other petty details of social life, which in Europe are treated as matters of personal caprice, have, in the East, become so intermingled with religious observances, that they have, in the course of time, come to be regarded as an essential part of the religion of the people, and of paramount importance in the[160] conduct of their lives. Nowhere are these quasi-religious observances so tenaciously held as in India, and nowhere do they relate more to matters which in other countries are held to be of trivial importance. The lesson is one that is continually forcing itself on the notice of Indian administrators, and is continually being forgotten.[56]
After the fall of Seringapatam, in 1799, the strong fortress of Vellore was selected to be the place of residence of the numerous family of Tippoo Sultan. Beyond being required to reside in Vellore, they were under no restraint. They were in receipt of large money allowances from the British Government, and they had gathered around them a swarm of needy followers who were ripe for any mischief. In November 1805, Lieutenant General Sir J. Cradock, who had assumed the command of the forces in Madras a few months earlier, issued an order establishing a new pattern of turbans for the native army. Two months later, a volume of regulations for the army was issued from the Adjutant General’s office, in which Native soldiers were forbidden from wearing caste marks on their faces while in uniform, and the shaving and trimming of beards and mustachios was prescribed, in a manner to assimilate sepoys to English soldiers. In April, made-up patterns of the new turbans were sent to different regiments. The men took it into their heads that these turbans closely resembled the hats worn by half-castes and native Christians; and, connecting this with the orders about caste marks and shaving, leaped to the conclusion that their forcible conversion to Christianity was intended. A sepoy battalion at Vellore at once made known their refusal to wear the turban. The Commander-in-Chief, unable to understand the feelings aroused by his orders,[161] treated the refusal as a mere matter of insubordination. The battalion was sent away from Vellore, another being brought in its place; and a number of non-commissioned officers and men in the battalion were punished. Hardly had this taken place, when it became known that in other places the same objections to the new turban had been manifested. The attention of Government was now roused, but still nothing was done to repeal the obnoxious order. The punishment that had been meted out to the battalion at Vellore only served to confirm the fears of the rest of the native garrison. Meetings were held, at which retainers of the Mysore princes attended, and did their best to foment mischief and increase the fears of the sepoys, while at the same time communications were opened with other sepoys in the different Madras garrisons, encouraging them to combine in resisting the attack on their religion. In the beginning of July, the garrison of the fort consisted of four companies of H.M.’s 69th regiment amounting to 11 officers and 372 rank and file, and a battalion and a half of sepoys, amounting to 35 native officers and 1775 rank and file, with their European officers. A considerable number of the sepoys lived in the pettah, their arms being kept in the fort. The fort and garrison were under the command of Colonel Fancourt of H.M.’s 34th Regt. No suspicion existed that any danger threatened; while the Government departments were still corresponding with each other, and deliberating about the new turban, and the feeling it had caused in the native army, without further warning, the storm burst.
It happened that a field day for one of the sepoy battalions had been ordered for the early morning of the 10th July. It was customary on such occasions for the sepoys, instead of remaining in their huts in the pettah, to sleep inside the fort, in order to get under arms without delay in the morning. The sepoy guards inside the fort[162] were furnished by the other native battalion. So favourable did the opportunity appear to the mutineers, that it led to a premature explosion of the plot that had been formed in concert with sepoys in other stations. At three o’clock in the morning of the 10th, a general attack by the sepoys was suddenly made on the men of the 69th and the European officers in the fort. At the same moment, the guards and sentries were attacked and overpowered, the sick men in hospital massacred, the officers’ quarters surrounded and fired into, while the principal body of mutineers poured volley after volley into the barracks where the 69th were sleeping, and brought two fieldpieces to play on them, obtained from the magazine. The men surprised and shot down in their sleep, and without officers, could do little more than shelter themselves as they best might, and hold the entrance to the barracks. Colonel Fancourt, with several other officers, was shot down at once, and the complete massacre of every European in the fort appeared inevitable. Without waiting for the completion of their work, the mutineers brought out one of the sons of Tippoo, and proclaimed him Sultan, hoisting at the same time a Mysore flag that had been prepared for the occasion.
In the confusion and darkness, a few officers and a sergeant of the 69th, named Brady, managed to meet in the quarters of one of the officers. After maintaining themselves some time, they broke out and forced their way into the 69th barracks, on which a heavy fire was still kept up. Having rallied the survivors, they sallied out through the windows, and gained the adjoining ramparts under a heavy fire. It was now broad daylight, and the men, who had had at the outset only six cartridges each, had scarcely any ammunition left. Nevertheless, they made their way along the ramparts, driving the mutineers before them, till they reached the Magazine which was on[163] the opposite side of the fort. Finding that all the ball ammunition had been already removed by the mutineers, they retraced their steps as far as the work over the main gateway, after pulling down the rebel flag. Here they resolved to make their last stand, their numbers greatly reduced, the only unwounded officers left being two Assistant Surgeons, and the whole party being exposed to a continual fire to which they were scarcely able to respond. They had obtained a few cartridges from the pouches of dead mutineers, with which they still kept up a feeble appearance of defence. In the confusion of making their way along the ramparts to the Magazine, some thirty men of the 69th, with two or three officers, got separated from the main body. Finding a rope suspended from the wall, which had been used to admit mutinous sepoys, they let themselves down by it, and took refuge in a small detached redoubt, where Lt. Colonel Forbes with a few unarmed sepoys who had remained faithful, had taken post. Hopeless as the whole situation appeared at this juncture, help was fast approaching. It happened that Major Coates of the 69th and several of the native infantry officers resided outside the walls. On being aroused by the firing and tumult, and being unable to enter the fort, Coates guessed what had happened, and at once dispatched an officer to Arcot with a letter to Gillespie.
Gillespie had appointed that very morning to ride over to Arcot, to breakfast with Colonel Fancourt. He had mounted his horse at daybreak, and started on his ride, accompanied by Captain Wilson of the 19th, when he was met by Coates’ messenger riding at full speed, who told him that the gates of the fortress were shut, that there was heavy firing and a dreadful noise within. Making at once for the Cavalry lines, Gillespie was in a few minutes hastily galloping along the road to Vellore, at the head of a squadron of the 19th under Captain[164] Wilson, and a troop of the 7th Native Cavalry, leaving orders for the rest of the cavalry and the galloper guns of the 19th to follow as soon as possible, under Lieut. Colonel Kennedy. As the troopers approached the walls, they were seen by the little party who still held out over the gateway. The 69th had been in Jamaica four years before. To Sergeant Bradys astonishment, he beheld at the head of the little band of dragoons the well-known Colonel Gillespie, whom he had seen only a short time before in the West Indies. “If Colonel Gillespie be alive, God Almighty has sent him from the West Indies to save our lives in the East!” he exclaimed. The moment was indeed most critical. The small party over the gateway had fired their last cartridge, and the sepoys, who for a time had dispersed to plunder, were gathering to complete their work. On seeing the relief party advancing, a great number of the mutineers retired to the further ramparts, leaving the gateway and one bastion in possession............