Chapter II (3)

On the 10th, I had written to Captain Bird to mention the distinction which he appeared to have overlooked in his zeal to get the fiddlers removed. The offence with which these persons stood charged in this case was a personal affront to the King, or an affront to his understanding, and not any interference with the administration of the Government; and the first Assistant was requested by the Resident to wait upon his Majesty, merely with a view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to banish them, and to offer his aid in doing so should his Majesty manifest any wish to have it; and not to demand their punishment on the part of the British Government. In the one case, if the King promised to punish the offenders and relented and forgave them, we could only regret his weakness; but in the other, if he promised to punish them and failed to do so, we should consider it due to the character of our Government to insist upon the fulfilment of his promise. On the evening of the 11th I got the above report of his interview with the King from Captain Bird; and, on the 12th, I wrote to tell him, that I considered him to have acted very indiscreetly; that he had brought this vexation and mortification upon himself by his overweening confidence in his personal influence over the King; that he ought to have waited for instructions from me, or at least for a reply from me to his letter, regarding the former interview at Court; that I could not now give him the support he required, as I could neither demand that his requisitions should be complied with, nor tell the King that I approved of them that he had been authorized by me to act on his own discretion in any case of great emergency, but this could not be considered of such a character, for no evil or inconvenience was to be apprehended from a day or two's delay, since the question really was, whether his Majesty should have a dozen fiddlers or only ten.

In the beginning of September 1850, the King became enamoured of one of his mother's waiting-maids, and demanded her in marriage. See was his mother's favourite bedfellow, and she would not part with her. The King became angry, and to soothe him his mother told him that it was purely out of regard for him and his children that she refused to part with this young woman; that she had a "_sampun_," or the coiled figure of a snake in the hair on the back of her neck. No man, will purchase a horse with such a mark, or believe that any family can be safe in which a horse or mare with such a mark is kept. His mother told him, that if he cohabited with a woman having such a mark, he and all his children must perish. The King said that he might probably have, among his many wives, some with marks of this kind; and that this might account for his frequent attacks of palpitation of the heart. "No doubt," said the old Queen Dowager; "we have long thought so; but your Majesty gets into such a towering passion when we venture to speak of your wives, that we have been afraid to give expression to our thoughts and fears." "Perhaps," said the King, "I may owe to this the death, lately, of my poor son, the heir- apparent." "We have long thought so," replied his mother. The chief eunuch, Busheer, was forthwith ordered to inspect the back of the necks of all save that of the chief consort, the mother of the late and present heir-apparent. He reported that he had found the _fatal mark_ upon the necks of no less than eight of the King's wives, Nishat-mahal, Koorshed-mahal, Sooleeman-mahal, Huzrut-mahal, Dara Begum, Buree Begum, Chotee Begum, and Huzrut Begum. The chief priest was summoned, and the divorce, from the whole eight, pronounced forthwith; and the ladies were ordered to depart with all that they had saved while in the palace. Some of their friends suggested to his Majesty, that Mahommedans were but unskilful judges in such matters, and that a Court of Brahmins should be assembled, as they had whole volumes devoted exclusively to this science. The most learned were accordingly collected, and they declared that though there were marks resembling in some degree the _sampun_, it was of no importance; and the evil it threatened might be averted by singeing the head of the snake with a hot iron. The ladies were very indignant, and six of them insisted upon leaving the palace, in virtue of the divorce. Two only consented to remain, the Buree Begum and Chota Begum.

_December_ 14, 1849.--Came on twelve miles to Gonda. The country well studded with groves and fine single trees; the soil naturally fertile, and water near the surface. Cultivation good about Gonda, and about some of the villages along the road it is not bad; but there is nowhere any sugar-cane to be seen beyond a small garden patch. The country is so wretchedly stocked with cattle that little manure is available for tillage.

The Bulrampore Rajah, a lively, sensible, and active young man, joined me this morning, and rode along by the side of my elephant, with the capitalist, Ramdut Pandee, the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, and old Bukhtawar Sing, the brother of the late Dursun Sing, whom I have often mentioned in this Diary. Rajah Bukhtawar Sing is the King's Mohtamin, or Quartermaster-General of the Resident's' camp. The Rajah of Toolseepore also, who has been ousted by his son from his estate, joined me last night; but he was not well enough to ride with me. Dogs, hawks, and panthers attend for sport, but they afford little or no amusement. Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport. A person must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it. The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks. I have ordered all these hunting animals to return to Lucknow.

Although the personal character of the Toolseepoor Rajah is not respected, that of his son is much worse; and the Bulrampoor Rajah and other large landholders in the neighbourhood would unite and restore him to the possession of his estate, but the Nazim is held responsible for their not moving in the matter, in order that the influential persons about the Court may have the plucking of it at their leisure. The better to insure this, two companies of one of the King's regiments have been lately sent out with two guns, to see that the son is not molested in the possession. The father was restored to his estate in 1850, and the son fled again to the Goruckpoor district. He became reconciled to his father some months after, through the mediation of the magistrate, Mr. Chester, and returned to Toolseepoor. The father and son, however, distrusted each other too much to live long together on amicable terms, and the son has gone off again to Goruckpoor.

The Toolseepoor estate extends along from east to west for about one hundred miles, in a belt of from nine to twelve miles wide, upon the southern border of that part of the Oude Tarae forest which we took from Nepaul in 1815, and made over to the Oude Government by the treaty of the 11th May 1816, in lieu of the one crore of rupees which our Government borrowed from Oude for the conduct of that war. The rent-roll of Toolseepoor is now from two to three lacs of rupees a- year; but it pays to the Oude Government a revenue of only one lac and five thousand, over and above gratuities to influential officers. The estate comprises that of Bankee, which was held by a Rajah Kunsa. Dan Bahader, the father of the present Rajah of Toolseepoor, attacked him one night in 1832, put him and some two hundred and fifty of his followers and family to death, and absorbed the estate. Mahngoo, the brother of Kunsa, escaped and sought redress from the Oude Durbar; but he had no money and could get no redress; and, in despair, he went off to seek employment in Nepaul, and died soon after. Dan Bahader, enriched by the pillage of Bankee, came to Lucknow, and purchased permission to incorporate Bankee with his old estate of Toolseepoor.

Khyreeghur and Kunchunpoor, on the western border of that forest, were made over by us to Oude at the same time, as part of the cession. They had been ceded to our Government by the treaty of 1801, at an estimated value of two hundred and ten thousand, but, up to 1816, they had never yielded to us fifty thousand rupees a-year. They had, however, formerly yielded from two to three lacs of rupees a- year to the Oude Government, and under good management may do so again; but, at present, Oude draws from them a revenue of only sixteen thousand, and that with difficulty. The rent-roll, however, exceeds two hundred thousand, and may, in a few years, amount to double that sum, as population and tillage are rapidly extending.

The holders of Khyreegur and Kunchunpoor are always in a state of resistance against the Oude Government, and cannot be coerced into the payment of more than their sixteen thousand rupees a-year; and hundreds of lives have been sacrificed in the collection of this sum. The climate is so bad that no people from the open country can venture into it for more than four months in the year--from the beginning of December to the end of March. The Oude Government occasionally sends in a body of troops to enforce the payment of an increased demand during these four months. The landholders and cultivators retire before them, and they are sure to be driven out by the pestilence, with great loss of life, in a few months; and the landholders refuse to pay anything for some years after, on the ground that all their harvests were destroyed by the troops. The rest of the Tarae lands ceded had little of tillage or population at that time, and no government could be less calculated than that of Oude to make the most of its capabilities. It had, therefore, in a fiscal point of view, but a poor equivalent for its crore of rupees; but it gained a great political advantage in confining the Nepaulese to the hills on its border. Before this arrangement took place there used to be frequent disputes, and occasionally serious collisions between the local authorities about boundaries, which were apt to excite the angry feelings of the sovereigns of both States, and to render the interposition of the paramount power indispensable.

It was at Bhinga, on the left bank of the Rabtee River, in the Gonda district, and eight miles north-east from Bulrampoor, that Mr. George Ravenscroft, of the Bengal Civil Service, was murdered on the night of the 6th May, 1823. He had been the collector of the land revenue of the Cawnpore district for many years; but, having taken from the treasury a very large sum of money, and spent it in lavish hospitality and unsuccessful speculations, he absconded with his wife and child, and found an asylum with the Rajah of Bhinga, on the border of the Oude Tarae, where he intended to establish himself as an indigo planter. Strict search was being made for him throughout India by the British Government, and his residence at Bhinga was concealed from the Oude Government by the local authorities. The Rajah made over to him a portion of land for tillage, and a suitable place in a mango grove, about a mile from his fort, to build a house upon. He built one after the Hindoostanee fashion, with bamboos and grass from the adjoining jungle. It consisted of a sitting-room, bed- room, and bathing-room, all in a line, and forming one side of a quadrangle, and facing inside, with only one small door on the outside, opening into the bathing-room. The other three sides of the quadrangle consisted of stables, servants' houses, and out-offices, all facing inside, and without any entrances on the outside, save on the front side, facing the dwelling-house, where there was a large entrance.

PLAN OF MR. RAVENSCROFT'S HOUSE.

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| Sitting Room. | Bed Room. Room. |
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| O S |
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| t | | a |
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| f | | e |
| f | | s |
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| c |
| e |
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| | Entrance | |
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The Rajah, Seo Sing, was a worthy old man. He had four sons, Surubjeet Sing, the eldest, Omrow Sing, Kaleepurkas Sing, and Jypurkas Sing. The eldest was then married, and about the age of twenty-five; the other three were still boys. The old man left the management of the estate to the eldest son, a morose person, who led a secluded life, and was never seen out of the female apartments, save twice a-year, on the festival of the hooley and the anniversary of his marriage. Mr. Ravenscroft had never seen or held any communion with him, save through his father, brothers, or servants; but he was in the habit of daily seeing and conversing with the father and his other sons on the most friendly terms. The eldest son became alarmed when he saw Mr. Ravenscroft begin to plant indigo, and prepare to construct vats for the manufacture; and apprehended that he would go on encroaching till he took the whole estate from him, unless he was made away with. He therefore hired a gang of Bhuduk dacoits from the neighbouring forest of the Oude Tarae to put him to death, after he had been four months at Bhinga. During this time Mrs. Ravenscroft had gone on one occasion to Cawnpoor, and on another to Secrora, on business.

Bhinga lies fifty miles north-east from Secrora, where the 20th Regiment of Native Infantry, under the command of Colonel Patton, was then cantoned. On the 6th of May 1823, Ensign Platt, of that corps, had come out to see him. In the evening, the old Rajah and his second and third sons came to visit Mr. Ravenscroft as usual, and they sat conversing with the family on the most friendly terms till nine o'clock, when they took leave, and Mrs. Ravenscroft, with her child and two female attendants, retired to the sleeping-room in the house. Ensign Platt went to his small sleeping-tent outside the quadrangle, under a mango-tree. This tent was just large enough to admit his small cot, and a few block-tin travelling-boxes, which he piled away inside, to the right and left of his bed. Mr. Ravenscroft slept on a cot in the open air, in the quadrangle, a few paces from the door leading to Mrs. Ravenscroft's sleeping-apartment. He that night left his arms in the sitting-room, and Ensign Platt had none with him. Mr. Ravenscroft was the handsomest and most athletic European gentleman then in India, and one of the most expert in the use of the sword and shield.

His servants had been accustomed to stand sentry, by turns, at the entrance of the quadrangle, and it was his groom Munsa's turn to take the first watch that night. He was to have been relieved by the chowkeedar, Bhowaneedeen; but, in the middle of his watch, he roused the chowkeedar, and told him that he had been taken suddenly ill, and must go to his house for relief. The chowkeedar told him that he might go at once, and he would get up and take his place immediately; but he lay down and soon fell asleep again.

About eleven o'clock the whole quadrangle was filled by a gang of about sixty dacoits, who set their torches in a blaze, and began to attack Mr. Ravenscroft with their spears. He sprang up, and called loudly for his sword and shield, but there was no one to bring them. He received several spears through his body as he made for the door of Mrs. Ravenscroft's apartment, calling out to her in English to fly and save herself and child, and defending himself as well as he could with his naked arms. Mosahib, a servant who slept by his cot, got to Mrs. Ravenscroft's room and assisted her to escape, with her child and two female attendants, through the bathing-room to the outside. A party had been placed to stab Ensign Platt with their long spears through the sides of his small tent; but they passed through and through the block-tin boxes, and roused without hurting him. He rushed out and attempted to defend himself by seizing the spears of his assailants; but he received several of them through his arms. He made for the entrance to the quadrangle, and there, by the blaze of the torches, saw Mr. Ravenscroft still endeavouring to defend himself, but covered with blood, which was streaming from his wounds and mouth.

On seeing Ensign Platt at the entrance, he staggered towards him, but the dacoits made a rush at Ensign Platt with their spears at the same time. He saved himself by springing over a thick and thorny hedge on one side of the quadrangle, and ran round behind to the small door leading into the bathing-room, which he reached in time to assist Mrs. Ravenscroft to escape, as the dacoits were forcing their way through the screen into her bed-room from the sitting-room. As soon as he saw her under the shade of the trees, beyond the blaze of the torches, he left her and her child, and the two female attendants, to the care of Mosahib, and went round to the entrance in search of her husband. He had got to a tree, outside the entrance, into which Deena, Ensign Platt's servant, had climbed to save himself as soon as he saw his master attacked, and was leaning against it; but, on seeing Ensign Platt, he again staggered towards him, saying faintly _bus, bus_--enough, enough. These were the last words he was heard to utter, and must have referred to the escape of his wife and child, of which he had become conscious. By this time the gang had made off with the little booty they found. On attacking Mr. Ravenscroft at first, some of them were heard to say, "You have run from Cawnpoor to come and seize upon the estate of Bhinga, but we will settle you." Mrs. Ravenscroft, her infant, and female attendants, remained concealed under the shade of the trees, and her husband was now taken to her with eighteen spear wounds through his body. The Rajah and his two young sons soon after made their appearance, and in the evening the survivors were all taken by the old man to a spacious building, close outside the fort, where they received every possible attention; but the eldest son never made his appearance. Out of the twenty-nine men who composed the party when the attack commenced, seven had been killed and eighteen wounded. Mr. Ravenscroft died during the night of the 7th, after great suffering. He retained his consciousness till near the last; but the blood continued to flow from his mouth, and he could articulate nothing. On the morning of the 8th, he was buried in the grove, and Ensign Platt read the funeral service over his grave. Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child were taken to Colonel Patton, at Secrora, and soon after sent by him to Lucknow.

On the 10th, he reported the circumstances of this murder to the Resident, Mr. Ricketts; and sent him the narratives of Mosahib and Deena; and his report, with translations of these narratives, was submitted by the Resident to Government on the 12th of that month. But in these narratives no mention whatever was made of a British officer having been present at the murder and the burial of Mr. Ravenscroft. This suppression arose, no doubt, from the apprehension that Government might be displeased to find that the military authorities at Secrora had become aware of Mr. Ravenscroft's residence at Bhinga without reporting the circumstance to Government; and still more so to find, that he had been there visited by a British officer, when search was being made for him throughout India.

In acknowledging the receipt of the Resident's letter on the 23rd of May, the Secretary, Mr. George Swinton, observes, that the Governor- General in Council concludes, that he shall receive a more full and satisfactory report on the subject from Colonel Patton than that to which his letter had given cover, since he considered that report to be very imperfect; that one of the narrators, Mosahib, states, that he himself conducted Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child to a neighbouring village, and yet he brought no message whatever from that lady to Colonel Patton at Secrora; that none of the wounded people or servants of the deceased, except Deena, appear to have found their way to Sacrora, though four days had elapsed from the date of the murder to that of the despatch of the report; that the body seemed to have been hastily interred by the people of the village, without any notice having been sent to the officer commanding the troops at Secrora; that such an atrocious outrage as that described in these narratives, on the person of a subject and servant of the British Government, demanded the exertion of every effort to ascertain the real facts of the case by local inquiry; yet it did not appear that any person had been despatched to the spot to verify the evidence of the two men examined by Colonel Patton, or to clear up the doubts to which all these circumstances must naturally have given rise; nor did it appear that the defects in Colonel Patton's report had occurred to the Resident, or that he had directed any further inquiry to be made.

The Resident was, therefore, directed to instruct Colonel Patton, to depute one or more officers to the place where the murder was said to be perpetrated, with orders to hold an inquiry on the spot in communication with the King of Oude's officers, to take the evidence of the wounded men, and that of any other persons who might have been witnesses to any part of the transaction, and to the burial of Mr. Ravenscroft; and to examine the grave in which the body of the deceased was said to have been deposited; and further, to call upon Colonel Patton to state whether any information had previously reached Secrora of Mr. Ravenscroft's actually residing at Bhinga, or at any other place within the dominions of the King of Oude. "His Lordship in Council was," Mr. Swinton says, "satisfied, from the known humanity of Colonel Patton's character, that every possible aid and comfort had been extended to Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child; and the information which that lady and her attendants must have it in their power to give, could not fail to place the whole affair in its proper light." Extracts from this letter were sent by the Resident to Colonel Patton, on the 2nd of June, with a request that he would adopt immediate measures to carry the orders of Government into effect; and reply to the question whether any information of Mr. Ravenscroft's residing at Bhinga had previously reached him.

A committee of British officers was assembled at Bhinga on the 11th June, and their proceedings were transmitted to the Resident on the 18th of that month; but the committee, for some reasons stated in the report, did not examine "the grave in which the body of the deceased was said to have been deposited." Though in this committee Ensign Platt stated that he was present when the murder was perpetrated; that he attended the deceased till he died the next night, and performed the funeral ceremonies over the body on the morning of the 8th; still he seemed to narrate the circumstances of the event with some reserve, while there was a good deal of discrepancy in the evidence of the other eye-witnesses, as recorded in the report, seemingly from the dread of compromising Ensign Platt.

The Resident did not, therefore, think that Government would be satisfied with the result of this inquiry; and, on the 20th of June he directed Colonel Patton to reassemble the committee at Bhinga, and require it to hold an inquest on the body, and take the depositions of all the witnesses on oath. On the same day the Resident reported to Government what he had done. The second committee proceeded to Bhinga, and, on the 13th of July, Colonel Patton transmitted its report to the Resident, who submitted it to Government on the 17th of that month. The committee had taken the evidence of the witnesses on oath, and held an inquest on the body; but, in doing so, it had been necessary to dig through the tomb which Mrs. Ravenscroft had, in the interval, caused to be erected over the remains of her husband; and, at the suggestion of Colonel Patton, this tomb was rebuilt and improved at the cost of Government, who were perfectly satisfied with the result.

But in its reply, dated the 31st July, Government very justly remarks, that all the unnecessary trouble which had attended this investigation, as well as the very painful step of having the body disinterred, which the Resident found himself compelled to adopt in obedience to its orders, arose from a want of those obvious precautions in the first instance which ought to have suggested themselves to Colonel Patton. Had he made the requisite inquiries at Secrora, he must have learnt that an English officer belonging to his own regiment, who had been present at the interment, had been wounded when Mr. Ravenscroft was murdered, and, for a time, rendered unfit for duty. The facts since deposed to on oath by Ensign Platt might have been elicited, and his testimony, if necessary, might have been confirmed by the evidence of the widow of the deceased; and had such conclusive evidence been submitted to Government in the first instance, the doubts excited by the extraordinary circumstances of the whole affair would never have existed. When ordered on the inquiry to Bhinga, had Ensign Platt at once declared at Secrora that he could there afford all the information required as to the fact of the murder and interment of the body, the necessity of further inquiry on the spot would have been obviated. He had apparently been deterred from doing this by the apprehension of compromising both himself and his commanding officer. Colonel Patton had no knowledge of Mr. Ravenscroft being at Bhinga, though he had heard a rumour of his being somewhere in the Oude territory; and, in his application for a few days' leave, Ensign Platt made no mention of him or of his intention to visit him. This is stated in a subsequent letter from Colonel Patton to the Resident, dated 27th of August 1823.

The opinion that the Rajah had nothing whatever to do with the murder, and that the gang was secretly hired for the purpose by his eldest son, Surubjeet, has been confirmed by time, and is now universal among the people of these parts. He died soon after of dropsy, and the people believe that the disease was caused by the crime. He left an only son, Krishun Dutt Sing. The Rajah, Seo Sing, survived his eldest son some years; and, on his death, he was succeeded by Krishun Dutt Sing, who now leads precisely the same secluded life that his father led, and leaves the management of the Bhinga estate entirely to his only surviving uncle, Kaleepurkas Sing, the youngest of the two boys who visited Mr. Ravenscroft on the evening of the murder. The other three sons of the old Rajah are dead. The actual perpetrators of the murder were never punished or discovered. Mrs. Ravenscroft afterwards became united in marriage to the Resident at the time, Mr. Mordaunt Ricketts, and still lives. Her child, a boy, was drowned at the Lucknow Residency some time after his mother's marriage with the Resident. He had been shut up by his mother in a bathing-room for some fault; and, looking into a bathing- tub at his image in the water, he lost his balance, fell in, and was drowned. When the servants went to let him out they found him quite dead.

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