Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎463v] (51/238)

264 Lord Canning and Lord Milner.
and right.” The thoughtful official from Allahabad said
despondingly : “ No longer are we to dwell among the
people like parents among their children. I hey have all
—we have all—tasted blood. We hate them, and they
hate us to the death.” We see now that it was Lord
Canning’s calmness and justice which has falsified this
augury.
Lest I should seem too partial to the civilians, I gladly
turn to the generous prompting which Canning received
from the Commander-in-Chief, that great soldier, Lord
Clyde, then Sir Colin Campbell. His views were as
prudent as they were merciful ; and as our policy in South
Africa has been so different, I will give Clyde’s counsels
in his own words. In a letter of December 22, 1857,
to Canning, he told him that our British regiments, engaged
in fighting ever since the hot months of May and June,
were “ reduced to skeletons, and the men are in much
need of rest.” Again on March 17, 1858, the day after he
had recaptured Lucknow, with the loss of 1,100 men, he
urged the Viceroy to save his forces from the effects of the
burning winds, pressing him “ that some notice should
issue to the Sepoys Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. , which may have the effect of dissolving
the confederacy between the mutinous regiments,” in order
to prevent “ a serious business all through the hot weather,
which would break down our troops and be never-ending.”
He saw clearly that, if we went on executing every rebel
Sepoy Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. we caught, the area of the war would increase ; the
mutineers had no choice but to cling together, because if
they went home to their villages they would be caught
and hanged. In a letter of July 24, 1858, to the Duke of
Cambridge, Clyde wrote as follows: “ It appears to me
that if these wretched criminals be not reassured, guilty
though they be, it will be impossible to predict any term to
the general struggle, which has already assumed formidable
proportions in a very wide area, and may be extended
indefinitely, viz., wherever the mutineers may be driven to
carry fire and sword with them. It therefore seems to me