It is a singular
fact, which I know to be true, that during the great mutiny of our
native troops at Barrackpore in 1824, the chief leaders bound
themselves by a solemn oath not to suffer any European lady or child
to be injured or molested, happen what might to them in the collision
with their officers and the Government. My friend Captain Reid, one
of the general staff, used to allow his children, five in number, to
go into the lines and play with the soldiers of the mutinous
regiments up to the very day when the artillery opened upon them;
and, of above thirty European ladies then at the station, not one
thought of leaving the place till they heard the guns.[4] Mrs.
Colonel Faithful, with her daughter and another young lady, who had
both just arrived from England, went lately all the way from Calcutta
to Ludiana on the banks of the Hyphasis, a distance of more than
twelve hundred miles, in their palankeens with relays of bearers, and
without even a servant to attend them.[5] They were travelling night
and day for fourteen days without the slightest apprehension of
injury or of insult. Cases of ladies travelling in the same manner by
_dak_ (stages) immediately after their arrival from England to all
parts of the country occur every day, and I know of no instance of
injury or insult sustained by them.
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