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utterly to disprove; but, for the moment accepting them as true, and even in their most exaggerated form, I would ask the Committee to put them in contrast with the following deliberate record of the proceedings of the civil power aided by the military in their protracted endeavours to suppress the revolt of 1817.

"It would be difficult to give the English reader," says Davy, "an accurate idea of the manner in which, during the rebellion, hostilities were carried on on either side. It was a partizan warfare which, from its very nature and circumstances, was severe and irregular, particularly when at its height, and after lenient measures had been tried in vain, When a district pronounced, one or more military posts were established in it, martial law was pro- claimed, the dwellings of the resisting inhabitants were burnt, their fruit-trees were often cut down, and the country was scoured in every direction by small detachments, who were authorized to put to death all who resisted or were found with arms in their hands. The natives, on their part, never met us fairly and boldly in the field; they had recourse to stratagems of every kind, and took every possible advantage of the difficult nature of their country, and of their minute knowledge of the ground. They would waylay our parties, and fire on them from inaccessible heights, or from the ambush of an impenetrable jungle; they would line the paths through which we had to march with snares of different kinds, such as spring guns and spring bows, deep pits lightly covered over and armed with therns, spikes, &c., and in every instance that an opportunity offered, they showed no mercy and gave no quarter. Such a system of warfare, of which the outline has been already given, had better not be given in detail. The sufferings and miseries inflicted and endured on both sides while the con- flict lasted, will merit notice no more than the details of the warfare. We suffered most from the harassing nature of the service, from fatigue and privation, and from the effects of these and of night marches, and of an unwholesome climate pro- ducing disease. The sufferings of the natives ware of a more severe kind and complicated nature. In addition to the horrors of war in its most appalling shape, they had to encounter those of disease, want, and famine, without a chance of

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relief. Our loss from disease alone amounted to nearly one-fifth of our whole force employed, and altogether to more than a thousand men. The loss of the natives killed in the field, or executed, or that died of disease or famine, can hardly be calculated, but it was probably ten times greater than ours."

Thus, whilst the rebellion of 1817 cost 11,000 lives, that of 1848 was put down by Lord Torring- ton without the loss of 100, including both those killed in action or those executed by sentence of courts-martial.

This protracted predatory warfare and devasta- tion extended from October 1817 to February 1819, during the whole of which the population, men, women, and children lived in the woods and tops of the mountains, their villages burned, their cattle destroyed, and the whole country unculti- vated for two years.

The cause of this prolongation is properly traced to the failure of lenient measures in the first instance; and its eventual termination is distinctly ascribed to the operation of martial law, however tardily resorted to. The results of the courts- martial were as follows:

47 sautmond to death. Of whom there were

Brocuted

Bankshed for life

Died Pardoned

·

Damished for life

for shorter periods

28

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7

I can have Hétle doubt that an evil of the same maguitude, if not actually organised, was very fir from improbabla, now, and looking to the respective proceedings and comparative results of the two crives, I cannot hesitate to suribe the early sup- pression of the revolt of 1868 to the promptitude of Lord Torrington in resorting, in the first in- sienos, to the rigorets maestres which delay would have compelled him to adopt in the and, bud in ha aggrumied form, and afðir sovumulieď minckiefs had occurred.

The mesocomion of the rebellion of 1817 was fo igned not by vindictive baŭ by mild and cósoflíktory

F

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO