OREALD.COM - An Old Electronic Library
eng: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Chapter XLIX, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 2


Pages: 1 <2> 3

In the Protestant north of Ireland the judgment was, as might have been expected, as greatly applauded as it was condemned elsewhere; while in England, although few attempted to defend the taste and manner of Judge Keogh's great delivery, it was felt that the general position taken up by him could not be too strongly supported. English opinion found emphatic expression in the debate on the subject in the House of Commons, provoked by Mr. Butt's motion for the removal of Mr. Justice Keogh from the Irish bench, where, after a crowded and brilliant debate, Mr. Butt's motion was negatived by an overwhelming majority.

On the afternoon of the 12th of February, London was startled and dismayed by a telegram from India which, reached the India Office at half-past one, and the contents of which became very soon generally known in the city. It bore the name of Mr. Ellis, a member of the Indian Council, and ran as follows: -

" I have to announce, with the deepest regret, that the Viceroy was assassinated by a convict at Port Blair on the 8th instant, at seven in the evening. The Viceroy had inspected the several stations of the settlement, and had reached the pier on his way to the boat to return to the man-of-war Glasgow, when a convict, under cover of darkness, suddenly broke through the guard surrounding the Viceroy, and stabbed him twice in the back. The Viceroy expired shortly afterwards. The assassin was arrested at once, and is being tried. His name is Shere Ali, a resident in foreign territory beyond the Peshawur frontier. He was convicted of murder by the Commissioner of Peshawur in 1867, and sentenced to transportation for life. He was received in the settlement in May, 1869."

This most melancholy news was announced in the evening to both Houses of Parliament, by the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Gladstone, and was received with deep and real regret. Lord Mayo, as Govern or-General of India, had served his country well, and had won that general respect from all persons qualified to criticise him which is the truest reward of weight and honesty of character. It was in no spirit of empty eulogy that the Duke of Argyll spoke of him in the House of Lords. " This House," lie said, " is full of Lord Mayo's personal friends. I believe no man ever had more friends than he, and I believe that no man ever deserved better to have them. I may say with perfect truth that no Governor-General who ever ruled India was more energetic in the discharge of his duties, or more assiduous in performing the functions of his great office; and, above all, no Viceroy that ever ruled India had more at heart the good of the people of that vast empire."

Public sympathy with the bereaved wife and children was real and warm; and when fuller news came, and the tragic story was told in greater detail, its various points were for a time in everybody's mouth. It was not till March 11th that the anxiously expected Calcutta mail arrived with full particulars. It appeared that the news which reached London on the 12th February was only known in Calcutta on that day, and that all knowledge of the event was for some time confined to a few high officials, and to the near relatives of Lord Mayo. The news was telegraphed to Major Bourke, the brother of the Viceroy, in cypher, and he, thinking it was a mere ordinary confidential communication, took it to Lord Mayo's private secretary to decypher.

When the first shock of the revelation was over, came the inevitable cry, " Why were not greater precautions taken? The desperate character of the Port Blair convicts is well known; ought not so valuable a life to have been better guarded in their midst? " But the answer to this natural question was that the Viceroy himself had always steadily refused to surround himself with anything like a personal guard. " My brother," said Major Bourke, "very much disliked the attendance of an escort, and during all our tours I had to take measures privately for the protection of his person."

The Andaman Islands, where Lord Mayo met his death, are a group of islands on the east side of the Bay of Bengal. Till 1857 they had been thinly peopled by a few dark-skinned and barbarous inhabitants, from whose hands the rich and fertile soil received the very slightest cultivation which would suffice to supply their few and primitive needs. They were but little known, except to the coral-fishers, and any European landing upon their densely-wooded shores found it hard to believe that he was but a few miles from the vast and crowded Indian empire, so remote and primeval was their whole aspect. But in 1857 the Indian Government, looking round for a suitable place for a great penal settlement, bethought them of the Andaman Islands, and a committee was sent to explore and report upon them. The committee reported favourably, and recommended Port Blair as a convenient site for the first settlement. The Government closed with their recommendation, building was begun immediately, and in 1858 the first batch of convicts landed at Port Blair. The settlement gradually increased in size, and other islands were made use of. At the time of the Viceroy's visit, there were convict settlements on Ross Island, Viper Island, and Chatham Island, the worst and most desperate characters being confined on Viper Island. The Viceroy was led to visit the settlement by reports of certain irregularities which had occurred there, and of various outbreaks on the part of the convicts, which had put no small strain on the strength and discretion of the authorities. He landed at Ross Island on the morning of February 8th, and began a careful inspection of the different settlements. Before his arrival at the island, however, Major Burne, his private secretary and faithful friend, had taken precautions which the Viceroy would never have taken for himself. He had written to Major-General Stewart, the officiating superintendent of the settlement, suggesting the provision of an escort and some other measures of protection, which seemed to him reasonable and necessary. The Viceroy, however, in his inspection of Ross Island, discovering the care which was being taken of him, seemed rather annoyed by it, and several times told his escort to keep back. The day passed off very well. The Viceroy went to all three islands, inspecting, consulting, and advising; there were many convicts in sight, both within and without the buildings, pursuing their different works, and occasionally one or two of them were allowed to present petitions to the Viceroy, to which he promised attention, but all were quiet and orderly in demeanour, and though constant precautions were observed by those surrounding the Viceroy, there seemed little or no reason for them. In the evening, when the fierce heat of the day was over, and the Viceroy had done his work, it was proposed that the whole party should take advantage of the cool brief tropical twilight to climb to the top of Mount Harriet on Ross Island and get a general view of the Andaman group. The Viceroy entered heartily into the plan, a boat manned by stout sailors pulled the party swiftly to the foot of Mount Harriet, and just about sunset the Viceroy and his companions reached the top of the hill. There they rested, scarcely heeding the gathering darkness in their enjoyment of the wide rich view and freshened atmosphere. When at last the party descended the hill it was growing rapidly dark. The Viceroy was as usual closely surrounded by his party, and as they neared the landing-stage a few torch-bearers met them, whom Lord Mayo, however, sent on to the front, as he disliked the smoke and smell of the torches. Close to the landing-stage the party noticed a line of men drawn up under the care of a prison superintendent.

General Stewart explained that they were bearers who> were to carry Lady Mayo up Mount Harriet on the following morning. The Viceroy passed on to where the Glasgow boat lay waiting for him by the side of the pier; he was just about to step into it when, to quote Major Burne's words, "in an instant a rushing noise was heard, and a man was seen fastened like a tiger on the Viceroy's back. The whole occurrence was momentary, and took place almost in total darkness. The assassin, who was a tall, muscular Khyberee Afreedee, seemed to have the Viceroy in some manner immovably in his grasp, and inflicted the wound so instantaneously as not to give him time to turn round and defend himself. The whole party rushed on the assassin and instantly secured him; alas! not till he had inflicted two mortal wounds. The Viceroy ran a few paces forward, turned to his left, and fell over the pier into some shallow water. I left the assassin and immediately ran to his help as lie was struggling in the water."

Alas! it was soon found that help of any kind was of no avail. The Viceroy was lifted into the boat, and his companions urged the sailors to make all possible speed for the ship. But before five minutes had passed those hanging over him knew that all was over. The blow had been neither a chance nor a weak one; it had done its fatal work only too well. A few indistinct words escaped the Viceroy's lips immediately after the attack, but he made no sign of consciousness in the boat, and his actual death was so quiet that it was difficult to say at what moment he passed away. Of the feelings of his friends, of the agony of poor Lady Mayo, awaiting her husband's return on board the Glasgow, this is no place to speak. As soon as the news became known in India, the warmth and depth of public sympathy spoke volumes for the general character of Lord Mayo's administration.

The question then so warmly debated still remains to be discussed. What was the motive of the murderer? Was the crime a political one - to be taken as evidence of a wide-spread Mohammedan conspiracy against English government in India - or not? Shere Ali, the assassin, had been sentenced to transportation for life five years before this date, for the murder of a relation in consequence of a " blood feud." That he was a Mussulman was certain, and that he belonged to the fanatical Wahabee sect among the Mussulmans, a sect well known for their fierce hostility to English rule, was strongly suspected. The murder of the Chief Justice of Bengal only a few months earlier by a native assassin had given point to the anxiety with which this sect was commonly regarded. It began to be discovered that, not only upon the Afghan frontier, but throughout Northern India, Wahabee missionaries were stirring up the faithful and preaching a Crescentade. A brilliant writer, Mr. W. W. Hunter, of the Bengal Civil Service, published a book a short time afterwards - a book whose very title made Englishmen feel uncomfortable. " Our Mussulman subjects: are they bound in conscience to rebel against the Queen?" - such was the alarming question asked on Mr. Hunter's title-page. And although he decided, on grounds of Mohammedan law, that Mussulmans were not bound to rebel, he drew a picture of actual Wahabee feeling which, if we were to take it literally, would appal us. Mr. Hunter believes, as do many others with him, that the hatred to English rule is so deep- seated in the minds of many millions of Mussulmans that it has become a part of their religion; that it is an article of their creed that the first duty of the faithful is to displace the infidel from power; and that he who contributes to this, by successful war or by assassination, gains paradise by the very fact. These doctrines, according to Mr. Hunter, start from the mountaineers of Afghanistan, but find their way downwards along the course of the Ganges till they infect the very air of Bengal. The prophets of Wahabism, he maintains, preach in every town and village in Northern India, and make innumerable converts to Mohammedanism from the low-caste Hindoos. These men, accustomed all their life to a state of social subjection that has no parallel in Western countries, find themselves suddenly addressed in passionate accents by preachers of the doctrine which has always been at the root of Mussulman success - the doctrine of social equality. So from a religion which made outcasts of them they fly by thousands to a religion which " sets them with princes," and makes paradise depend upon action and not upon status. It is probable that Mr. Hunter's account of the success and the bitterness of the propaganda is much exaggerated; but though he most likely overrated the number of converts, he certainly did not overrate the intensity of the Wahabee fanaticism itself. And although it is not proved, it is at least an open question whether or no Shere Ali murdered Lord Mayo from fanatical motives. It is true that up to the time of his execution, which took place a short time afterwards in Calcutta, he never gave any clue to his reasons for the crime; lie owned that he had had no accomplice "except God." The exception is significant, and sounds like the words of a fanatic; but there is no proof positive. The common reason given was, that Shere Ali, who was a moody man, had brooded on the supposed injustice of his being punished for killing a man in consequence of a "blood feud" - which, of course, is an act recognised by the customs of his native country, and indeed of most barbarous peoples.

It may be added that Lord Mayo was succeeded by Lord Napier and Ettrick, Governor of Madras, as temporary Governor-General; and, in the course of the summer, by Lord Northbrook. A pension was also voted by Parliament to Lady Mayo.

At Pisa, on March 10th in this year, died Giuseppe Mazzini; a man whose career had been of such European importance, and who had lived and worked so much in England, that a short notice of his life is not out of place in a History of England. He was born at Genoa, in what year precisely is uncertain, but probably in 1808. He spent a happy and well-cared for childhood and youth under the guardianship of parents who are said to have themselves possessed, and to have impressed upon their son, that passion for social reform and that vivid interest in social problems which were always so eminently characteristic of Mazzini. Before he was twenty his head was full of dreams of a regenerated Italy, and his pen was ready enough to set them forth in any Genoese journal which was courageous enough to print them. At twenty-one he became a member of the famous secret society of the Carbonari, an association based upon principles at once anti-papal and anti-monarchic. Young Mazzini's passionate convictions and rich natural gifts soon made him a power among his new associates, and his name and opinions began to be unpleasantly known to the Piedmontese authorities. It was felt that strong measures must be taken with a man who so early in life threatened to become formidable to the powers that were, and a very short time after his entrance into the ranks of the Carbonari, Mazzini's movements and utterances were tracked by a Government spy; he was arrested and sent for six months to the fortress of Savona. At the end of that time he was released on condition that he quitted Italy. It may easily be imagined with what zeal Mazzini returned to his old plans and dreams after this taste of martyrdom. From Marseilles, where he established the famous journal of The Young Italy, and whence he diffused a passionate republican literature over Italy in spite of all that police and censorship could do, he watched and regulated the movements of the party which was rapidly coming to regard him as their leader. During 1833 and 1834 he made his head-quarters in Switzerland, whence he launched two unsuccessful expeditions against the Sardinian kingdom. Both attempts failed, and the Swiss Government dared not continue to countenance him. They recommended him to go to England, the common refuge of the political exile, and to England Mazzini came. While living in London he earned his livelihood by keeping a school, and by writing, his dignified and independent bearing winning respect from those most opposed to him in politics. In 1844 he came out of the comparative seclusion in which he had lived and worked for nearly ten years, to bring forward an indignant complaint against the English Post Office authorities, for having, as he declared, opened his letters and made their contents known to the Italian Government. It was a mysterious and discreditable affair, and excited a painful interest in England. That there were grounds enough for the accusation was only too clearly proved by the course taken by the Neapolitan Government, who, acting upon information which, according to Mazzini, they could only have got at by the help of the English Post Office authorities, inflicted sudden an d terrible vengeance upon some of Mazzini's friends in Naples, whose names were mentioned in the opened letters.

<<< Previous page <<< >>> Next page >>>
Pages: 1 <2> 3

Pictures for Chapter XLIX, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 2


Home | Privacy Policy | Copyright | About