The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857

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Every nation condemns conquest, and every nation with power to enter upon
a career of conquest rushes eagerly upon it. The harshest condemnation
that has visited England because of her Indian successes has proceeded
from nations who have never been backward in seizing the lands of other
nations. She has been stigmatized as a usurper, and as having destroyed the
independence of Indian states. The facts do not warrant these charges. She
has rarely had a contest with any power which was not as much an intruder
in India as herself. The Moghul dynasty was as foreign to India as the
East India Company, or the house of Hanover; and the viceroys sent to
rule over its vast and populous provinces had the same bases of power as
were possessed by Clive, and Hastings, and Wellesley, and Bentinck, and
Ellenborough, and Dalhousie. The Moghuls obtained Indian dominion by
conquests that were rendered easy by Indian troubles; and this is precisely
the history of England's Oriental dominion. What difference there is, is
favorable to England. The Moghuls were deliberate invaders of India; the
founder of that dynasty being an adventurer who sought an empire sword in
hand, and won it by violence which no man had provoked. Baber was to India
what the Norman William was to England. He long contemplated the conquest
of the country, showing a wolf-like perseverance in hunting down his prey.
For two-and-twenty years he had his object in view, and invaded India five
times before he obtained the throne of Delhi. The English were forced to
assume the part of conquerors, and would gladly have remained traders.
They did not commence their military career until the Moghul had become a
mere shadow, and when that potentate was altogether unable to protect them
against the tyrannical practices of his lieutenants. They had to choose
between war and extermination, and they belonged to a race which never
hesitates when forced to make such a choice. Their wars were waged with the
Moghul's viceroys, who were aiming at the foundation of dynastic rule, each
in his own government, or with other princes, who were equally usurpers
with those viceroys, the Mahratta chiefs, for example, and Hyder Ali.
One war led to another, in all of which the English were victorious,
until their power extended itself over all India. In one hundred and six
years--dating from the capture of Madras by the French in 1746, which event
must be taken as the commencement of their military career in India, and
closing with the annexation of Pegu, December 28, 1852,--they had completed
their work. That, in the course of operations so mighty, and relating to
the condition of so many millions of people, they were sometimes guilty of
acts of singular injustice, is true, and might be inferred, if there were
no facts upon which to base the charge. It is impossible that it should
have been otherwise, considering the nature of man, and the character of
many of the instruments by which great enterprises are accomplished. But we
think it may safely be said, that never was there a career of conquest of
such extent accompanied with so little of wrong and suffering to the body
of the people. As against the wrong that was perpetrated, and the suffering
that was inseparable from wars so numerous and long-continued, are to be
set the reign of order and law, under which the mass of the inhabitants
have been able to cultivate their fields in quiet, and with the assurance
that they should reap where they had sowed, undisturbed by the incursions
of robber-bands. The cessation of the Mahratta invasions alone is an ample
compensation for whatever of evil may have marked the course of British
conquest. The stop that has been put to the cruelties of the native rulers
ought not to be forgotten in estimating the amount of evil and of good
which that conquest has brought upon India. The world has been shocked by
the cruelties of which the rebellious Sepoys have been guilty; but they
can astonish no one who is familiar with the history of the races to which
these mutineers belong. An indifference to life, and a love of cruelty for
cruelty's sake, are common characteristics of most of the Orientals, and
are chiefly conspicuous in the ruling classes. The reader of Indian history
sickens over details compared with which all that is told of the horrors
of the Black Hole of Calcutta is tame and common-place. The English have
prevented repetitions of those outrages on humanity, wherever it has been
in their power to coerce the princes. They have pared the claws and drawn
the teeth of these human tigers. They have acted humanely; yet it may be
doubted if they would not have consulted their own immediate interests more
closely, if they had acted the part of tyrants rather than of protectors.
By ruling through the princes, and allowing them to act as "middle-men,"
they would have been less troubled with mutinies, and could have amassed
greater sums of money. It is to their credit that they have pursued
the nobler course; nor ought they to repent of it even in the midst of
disasters brought upon them, we are firmly convinced, as much by the
mildness of their rule as by any other cause that can be mentioned.

It is yet too early to attempt to account for the rebellion of the Bengal
army. That rebellion took the world by surprise, and nowhere more so, it
would seem, than in England. A remarkable proof of this is to be found in
the tone and language of the debate that took place in the British House of
Commons on the 27th of July, in which Mr. Disraeli, Lord Palmerston, Lord
John Russell, Mr. Whiteside, Mr. T. Baring, Sir T.E. Perry, Mr. Mangles,
Mr. Vernon Smith, and others, participated. That debate was most lively and
interesting; and the reading of the ample report in the "Times" revives the
recollection of the great field-days of the English senate. Mr. Disraeli's
speech is a masterpiece, and would have done honor to times when eloquence
was far more common than it is now. Yet the conclusion to which the careful
reader of the report must come is, that neither Mr. Disraeli, nor the
Premier, nor the President of the Board of Control, nor the Chairman of
the Directors of the East India Company, nor any other of the speakers,
had a definite idea of the cause of the sudden mutiny of the Sepoys. It
is impossible not to admire Mr. Disraeli's talents, as displayed in this
speech; and equally impossible is it to find in that speech anything that
an intelligent observer of Indian affairs can regard as settling the
question, Why did the Sepoys of the Bengal army mutiny in 1857? Everything
that he brought forward as a cause of the mutiny was distinctly proved not
to be worthy of the name of a cause. Yet the men who could show that he had
failed to clear up the mystery could themselves throw no light upon it. The
government was especially ignorant of all that it should have known; and
there is something almost ludicrous in the tone of the speech made by the
President of the Board of Control.

It is not for us to speak authoritatively as to the cause of the Sepoy
mutiny, but we venture to express our concurrence with those who have
regarded it as, in considerable measure, of Mahometan origin. The Mahometan
rule was displaced by the British rule. The Mahometans were for centuries
the aristocracy of India, standing to the genuine Indians in pretty much
the same relation that the Normans held to the Saxons in England; only
it is but justice to them to say, that they rarely bore themselves so
offensively towards the Indians as the Normans were accustomed to bear
themselves towards the English. They have never lost the recollection of
their former _status_, or ceased to sigh for its restoration. Nor is the
time so very remote when they were yet great in the land. Old men among
them can recollect when Tippoo Saib was treated as an equal by the English,
and have not forgotten how powerful was his father, Hyder. Some few
aged Mussulmans there may be yet living who heard from their sires or
grandsires, who saw it with their mortal eyes, of the glories of the
magnificent Aurungzebe, ere the Persian, or the Affghan, or the Mahratta
had carried fire and sword into Shahjehanabad. Two not over-long lives
would measure the whole interval of time between the punishment of the
English by Aurungzebe and the mutiny at Meerut. Time enough has not yet
elapsed to cause the Mahometans to forget what they have been, or to cease
to hope that they may yet surpass their fathers. They are not actuated by
anything of a sentimental character, but desire to win back, and to enjoy
at the expense of the Indian races, the solid advantages of which they
have been deprived through the ascendency of a Christian people in the
East. "Mahometans in India sigh for the restoration of the old Mahometan
_regime_," says Colonel Sleeman, "not from any particular attachment to the
descendants of Tymour, but with precisely the same feelings that Whigs and
Tories sigh for the return to power of their respective parties in England;
it would give them all the offices in a country where office is everything.
Among them, as among ourselves, every man is disposed to rate his own
abilities highly, and to have a good deal of confidence in his own good
luck; and all think, that if the field were once opened to them by such a
change, they should very soon be able to find good positions for themselves
and their children in it. Perhaps there are few communities in the world,
among whom education is more generally diffused than among the Mahometans
in India. He who holds an office worth twenty rupees a month commonly
gives his sons an education equal to that of a prime-minister." [Footnote:
_Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official_, Vol. II. pp. 282,
283.--Colonel Sleeman's work is one of the best ever published on
India,--learned, liberal, and philosophical. It has been highly praised
by so competent a judge as Mr. Grote.] This very capability for rule must
render them not only all the more desirous of obtaining it, but exceedingly
dangerous as seekers after it. They are not an ignorant rabble, but men who
have an intelligent idea of what they want, and rational modes of effecting
its realization. Colonel Sleeman adds, "It is not only the desire for
office that makes the educated Mahometans cherish the recollection of
the old _regime_ in Hindostan; they say, 'We pray every night for the
Emperor and his family, because our forefathers ate of the salt of His
forefathers,'--that is, our ancestors were in the service of his ancestors,
and consequently were of the _aristocracy_ of the country. Whether they
really were so matters not; they persuade themselves or their children that
they were." In this way the idea of superiority has been kept up among the
Mahometans of India; and they have continued to hope for the restoration
of their old political supremacy, as pious Jews dream of the rebuilding of
Zion. That they were at the bottom of the Meerut mutiny may be taken for
granted. That they took for their leader the heir of the Moghul shows the
Mahometan nature of the outbreak. At the same time, we believe that if
it had not been for the imbecility of Hewitt, who commanded at Meerut,
the mutiny never would have occurred, or the mutineers would have been
promptly put down. Even after they had escaped from Meerut, Delhi never
could have fallen into their hands, if that city--so important, morally
and geographically, as well as in a military point of view--had not
been without a garrison. That a station of such consequence, stored so
abundantly with all the munitions of war, should have been left in an
utterly defenceless condition, is a fact that creates inexpressible
astonishment, notwithstanding all that happened during the Russian war. Mr.
Whiteside, in the debate of the 27th of July, stated that the late General
Sir C.J. Napier "said of Delhi, that to guard against surprise, considering
its position, its treasures, and its magazines, it should always be
defended by twelve thousand picked men." From all that appears, there were
not twelve hundred men, or anything like that number, of any kind, in
Delhi, last May, to protect either the inhabitants or the stores there
deposited. Such another instance of neglect it would be impossible to find
in history, after due warning given. Long ago, Albany Fonblanque said, "The
sign of the fool with his finger in his mouth, and the sentiment, 'Who'd
have thought it?' is the precise emblem of English jurisprudence." The same
sign would seem to be applicable to some other branches of the English
public service, as well as to that of the law. Perhaps it was because
of the warning that nothing was done,--that being the usual course with
governments; while it was thought a duty to treat with a sort of spiteful
neglect every warning that came from Sir C.J. Napier, because he had a
rough, fiery way of expressing his opinion of the folly of those who are
perpetually giving occasion for warnings which they never heed,--as if in
all ages roughness and fire had not been especial characteristics of the
prophetic office.

AKIN BY MARRIAGE.

CHAPTER I.

The railway traveller, journeying between Springfield and Hartford along
the banks of the fair Connecticut, sees from the car window, far away to
the eastward, across the broad level of intervening plains, a chain of
purple hills, whose undulating crest-line meets the bending sky and forms
the distant horizon. Just beyond the loftiest hummock of this range a
fertile valley lies concealed; and near its centre, upon the smooth summit
of a gently swelling ridge, which, extending north and south for miles,
divides the valley lengthwise, stands Belfield, the shire town of the rural
county of Hillsdale. Its fourscore white dwellings, scattered unevenly
along the shady margins of a straight and ample street, are mostly large,
substantial granges, each with its little suburb of dependencies making
a hamlet by itself. But where the broad avenue, at midway, spreads still
wider, forming a spacious square, are thickly clustered the public
buildings of the town and county,--together with the meeting-houses, the
taverns, the bank, the shops, and a few handsome dwellings, whose large
dimensions and ornate style show them to be the abodes of people of wealth
and consideration.

The greensward in the middle of this square contains two or three elms of
immemorial age, besides many thrifty trees of a later planting. The wooden
barrier by which it is enclosed was once adorned with a coat of white
paint, now nearly worn off. The topmost rails and post-heads of this fence
have been so notched and gnawed by the jackknives of whittling idlers
and the teeth of cribbing horses, that their original size and shape are
matters concerning which the present generation are informed only by
tradition.

This square was long ago named "The Green"; a pleasant title, by which, in
course of time, the village itself came to be known and called. Instead of
going "to town," the farmers of the remote school districts talk of going
"to the Green," to meeting and to market; and in all that region the
guideboards point the way "To BELFIELD GREEN." This spot was the site of
the old blockhouse and stockaded fort, within whose rude but safe defences
the early colonists of Belfield, with their wives, children, and cattle,
used to huddle at night, through all the time of King Philip's War. Here,
with much labor, the settlers dug a deep well, fed by never-failing
springs, to provide a sure supply of water, in case of siege, for all the
garrison. And now, as if it were a monument raised to commemorate those
dismal times, there stands, at a point where all the crossing footpaths
meet, a huge town-pump, near ten feet high, carved and painted, with
a great ball upon its top, and an iron ladle chained to its nose. In
the torrid summer-days, from early morning till late at night, the old
pump-handle has but little rest; for, though in a season of drought the
neighboring wells are apt to run low, the ancient pump, like a steadfast
friend, never fails at such a time of need.

Near at hand, in the centre of a foot-worn circle, a stout wooden post
stands by itself, which, in spite of its homely aspect, may well be termed
a Pillar of the State. It is one of the institutions of the Commonwealth,
established by an act of the General Assembly. Here, with torn corners
fluttering in the wind, hang weather-stained probate notices, mildewed
town-meeting warnings, and tattered placards of sheriff's sales; for no
estate can be settled, no land set off or chattel sold on execution, no
legal meeting of the voters or freemen holden, without previous notice on
the sign-post. It used to be known by another name, and marks the spot,
where, whilom, petty thieves, shiftless vagrants, and other small offenders
against the majesty of the law, were wont to suffer a shameful penalty for
their vile misdeeds.

On the western side of the square, on the summit of the grassy slope,
stands the Presbyterian meeting-house, flanked on one side by the academy,
and on the other by the court-house. There are, besides, two other places
of worship in the village; but neither is built upon the square; and when,
at Belfield, the meeting-house is mentioned, the speaker is understood to
indicate by that title the edifice which stands between the academy and
the court-house, and not the plain, square structure, with neither steeple
nor bell, in which the Baptists assemble for worship, nor the little
white Methodist chapel in the lane, with green blinds to its windows, and
a little toy of a turret, scarcely bigger than a martin-box, upon its
shingled roof.

The quaint style and old-fashioned aspect of Belfield meeting-house attest
its venerable age. For more than a hundred years its slender spire has
glowed in the ruddy beams of early dawn, and cast at sunset its lengthening
shadow across the village green. A century ago, the mellow tones of its
Sabbath bell, echoing through the valley, summoned the pious congregation
to their austere devotions. Before the worn threshold of the great
double-leaved door, in the broadside of the building, lies a platform,
which was once a solid shelf of red sandstone, but now is cracked in twain,
and hollowed by the footsteps of six generations. In the very spot where it
now lies it has lain ever since the first framed meeting-house was built
in Belfield, in the reign of good King William III. There, gathered in a
little knot, on Sundays and public days, the forefathers of the settlement
used to talk over the current news; how the first Port Royal expedition had
failed; or how New England militiamen, without aid from home, had captured
the great fortress of Louisburg, after a brief and glorious siege. There,
still later, the sons of these men rejoiced at the news of Wolfe's victory,
and sorrowfully related the sad intelligence of Braddock's shameful defeat.
There stood their grandsons, a flushed, excited throng of hardy yeomen,
clinching their fists unconsciously, and breathing hard and fast, as they
listened to the tidings of the fight at Concord Bridge. Here, during the
war that followed, when troops were mustered before marching off to camp,
the roll used to be called upon this very stone. No town of its size in all
New England contributed a larger number to the ranks of the Continental
army than did Belfield. One hot summer, all the unwonted toils and
unbefitting cares of haying and harvest fell upon the little boys and women
and a few old gray-haired men, whose aged limbs had long before earned the
right to rest. In all Belfield there was not a male able to bear arms who
was not gone to camp. Some war-worn veterans lived to return; and many a
Sunday noon, in later years, sitting here, upon the broad doorstone of
the meeting-house, they used to tell over the stories of their battles
and campaigns, until the sound from the belfry overhead, and the sight of
the minister approaching from the parsonage, with stately pace and solemn
aspect, would check the flowing current of their talk, and recall their
thoughts to subjects more in keeping with the holy Sabbath-day. But some
of the friends and comrades of these brave men never came home; their
bones lie mouldering beneath the turf at White Plains, at Saratoga, at
Brandywine, and at Princeton. Some perished with cold and hunger at Valley
Forge; some died of fever in the horrible Old Sugar-house; some rotted
alive in the Jersey prison-hulk; some lie buried under the gloomy walls of
Dartmoor; and some there were whose fate was never known.

It was the custom, formerly, to hold all meetings for the transaction
of public business in the sanctuary. None, not even the most piously
fastidious parson or deacon, ever thought of being shocked at what in these
degenerate times would seem like a gross desecration of the house of God.
There were fewer Pharisees in Belfield a hundred years ago than now. To
the Puritans, and to all their descendants, until of late, their places
of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the
stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been
deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly
of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones,
carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by an empty rite
of consecration.

On these week-day occasions, therefore, no part of the house was kept
sacred from the world. Even the pulpit itself would have been given up to
secular uses, but that, being so lofty, it was found to be an inconvenient
position for the moderator's chair. So this important functionary was
accustomed, from time immemorial, to take his place in the deacons'
seat, below, with the warning of the meeting, the statute-book, and the
ballot-boxes arranged before him on the communion-table, which in course of
time became so banged and battered, by dint of lusty gavel-strokes, that
there was scarcely a place big enough to put one's finger upon which was
not bruised and dented. For, in the days of the fierce conflict between the
Federalists and Democrats, the meetings were often noisy and disorderly;
and once, even, at the memorable election of 1818, two hot-headed partisans
from sharp words fell to blows, and others joining in the fray, the
skirmish became at length a general engagement. The recurrence of a scene
like this, upon the same stage, is never to be expected. The meeting-house
has been set apart for religious uses exclusively, since its interior was
thoroughly altered and remodelled, the tall pulpit replaced by one of
modern style, the sounding-board removed, the aisles carpeted, and the
square, old-fashioned pews changed for cushioned slips.

In the rear, a little way off, is a row of ugly sheds, yawning towards the
street, where, on Sundays, the farmers who come from a distance tie their
beasts, each in his separate stall. In hot days, in the summer time, when
all the doors and windows of the meeting-house are set wide open, the
hollow sound of horses' stamping mingles with the preacher's drowsy tones,
and sometimes the congregation is startled from repose by the shrill squeal
of some unlucky brute, complaining of the torture inflicted by the sharp
teeth of its ill-natured mate or vicious neighbor; or, perhaps, the flutter
of fans is suspended at the obstreperous neigh by which some anxious dam
recalls the silly foal that has strayed from her side; or the dissonant
creaking of a cramped wheel makes doleful interludes between the verses of
the hymn. Here naughty boys, escaped from the confinement of the sanctuary,
are wont to lounge in the wagons during prayer and sermon time, munching
green pears and apples, devouring huge bunches of fennel, dill, and
caraway, comparing and swapping jackknives, or striving, by means of
cautious hems and whispers, and other sly signals, to attract the notice of
their more decent fellows sitting near the open gallery-windows.

When the black doors of the little dingy building not far from the south
end of the horse-sheds are seen standing open, it is a pretty sure sign
that somebody lies dead in the parish. In this gloomy place the sexton
keeps his dismal apparatus,--the hearse, with its curtains of rusty sable,
the bier, the spades and shovels for digging graves; and in a corner lies
a coil of soiled ropes, whose rasping sound, as they slipped through the
coffin-handles, while the bearers lowered the corpse into the earth, has
grated harshly on many a shuddering mourner's ear. The leaves of the
hearse-house door are fastened together by a hasp and pin, so that any one
may enter at will. But there is no need of bolts and bars. The boys, at
play, in the evening, at "I spy" or "hide and seek," never go there for
concealment, although their smothered whoops may be heard issuing from
every other dark corner in the neighborhood.

The narrow space between the hearse-house and the sheds forms a short lane
or passage-way, through which all the funeral processions pass from the
street into the burying-ground, lying behind the sheds, on the western
slope of the ridge upon which the village stands. This ancient cemetery
was laid out by the early settlers, when they made the first allotments
of land. It is a square area of two acres in extent, inclosed by a mossy
picket paling, so rickety that the neighbors' sheep sometimes leap through
the gaps from the adjacent pastures, and feed among the graves upon the
long grass and nettles.

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