Nainital Besieged

Today Khan Bahadur Khan sent about a thousand of his soldiers with two guns to attack Haldwani on the road to Nainital.

Khan Bahadur Khan, has been ruling over Rohilkhand from its capital Bareilly as the Viceroy of the Mughal Emperor at Delhi since May 31, 1857, which marked the downfall of the British rule in Bareilly.

Though his troops were repulsed by a small contingent of Gurkhas, Khan nevertheless managed to effectively cut off supplies thus besieging Nainital where the English fugitives from Bareilly were holed up.

Cartoon in Punch magazine about the Mutiny ; The Asiatic Mystery

D’Israeli, British prime minister as Sepoy.

The Asiatic Mystery

As Prepared by Sepoy D’Israeli

Mr. Disraeli had spoken upon the Indian Mutiny, and was thought to have exaggerated the difficulty. The mismanagement of the Directors of the late East India Company was considered to have produced the state of affairs in India.

Punch, 33 (8 August 1857), page 55.

Situation in Patna : Government by the Gallows

Yesterday, about 200 men with guns displaying green banners of Islam broke into the Roman Catholic Mission in Patana and destroyed some property. Dr Lyell, an assistant to the opium agent proceeded to the spot with an escort. In the melee that followed Dr Lyell was killed.

However Rattray’s Sikhs, a police battalion, soon arrived and dispersed the crowd and saved the situation for the British. The retribution was swift and thirty men, suspected to be involved in the outbreak, were tried by the Commissioner Mr Tayler and fourteen of them including Peer Ali, a Muslim bookseller of Patna, who is said to have shot Dr Lyell were sentenced to death and were executed the very same day! The rest were sentenced to imprisonment.

This is what British rule looks like now ” “Government by the Gallows”.