The general turn of the English individuals in India, seems to be a thorough contempt for the Indians (as a national body). It is taken to be no better than a dead stock, that may be worked upon without much consideration, and at pleasure: But beware! that national body is only motionless, but neither insensible, nor dead....There runs throughout our author’s narra­tive, a subterraneous vein of national resentment, which emits vapours now and then, and which his occasional encomiums of the English, can neither conceal nor even palliate; and yet he is himself but a voice that has spoken among a million of others that could speak, but are silent: Nor have signs of this national sullenness been wanting these sixteen years. Living myself in the centre of Moorshoodabad; wearing an Hindostany dress, and making a practice in the evening to walk the streets with only a servant, either to listen to, or to mix with, any company I meet with either there or in the market place; I necessarily get a variety of information, which is often out of the power, and always out of the way, of any other European: for an example of this, I shall appeal to the testimony of Mr. William Wroughton, now Chief at Dacca, a gentleman, to whose person and abilities, no man in Bengal will object. Full fifteen days before government had received any official account of that calamitous event, I wrote him an affecting note about the ferment actually caused in the city of Moorshoodabad, by the defeat at Vargam near Poonah; and expressed a wish that government might receive an early notice of it.

I hope it is admitted on all hands, that small accidental stories, and unpremeditated expressions on an important event, will better point out the national turn of mind, however dormant, than any professed reasoning. The unfortunate affair at Benares with Chëyt-Sing, was repeatedly reported at Moorshoodabad with such woeful circumstances, as seemed to partage the whole Nation:* numbers were deeply affected (and to be affected for an European governor, or indeed for any European at all, is a very novel matter in India) and they used to say: “Pity! a great pity! the father of the Hindostanies is gone,— we shall never see such another man.” But others, and this was the majority, left the person out of the question; and minded only the crisis. “What! are we not men as well as Chëyt-Sing’s People? and what could prevent me from giving a slap to one or two of his chairmen? (the Governor’s) they would have dropped his palanquin, as by a signal, and any man could have killed him with ease. I saw him at Barwa:* he had not an armed man by him; and his chairmen were but a dozen of people; and this would have at once produced a revolution—You talk to me of the Brigade at Behrampore; it is a name only—there are not two thousand men in it; and a full half of them will desert on hearing of his death— well, Sir, and the other half? well, the other half—are they not Hindostanies? and at all events we are such multitudes here—with each a brick-bat in our hands, we could knock them down to a man.” These and the like expressions I heard at that very time in one of the best companies in Moorshoodabad.

Two days after, as a Regiment of Sepoys on its way to Chunar-ghur, was marching through the City at day-break, I went out, and was standing to see it pass by, the Regiment halted; and a few men from the centre ran into a dark lane, and laid hold of a hen and some roots: the people screamed. “Do not make so much noise,” said one of the men in his Bodjpooria Idiom;* “we go to-day with the Frenghees, but we are all servants (tenants) to Chëyt-Sing, and may come back to-morrow with him; and then the question will be not about your roots, but about your wives and daughters.” The street, although the main thorough-fare, could admit but six men in front, and there had been two halts more, in which time I had opportunities of hearing such suspicious words and expressions, that I resolved to write a letter to Colonel Ironside on that subject. But two days having been accidentally spent in determining upon the expediency or propriety of the letter, I thought it better to take counsel from time itself, and I went to pay my respects to that Commander who kept me to dinner. He had a great deal of task with me: “I find no great harm,” said the Colonel, “That now and then, a Governor, with a couple of Colonels or two should make way for others; but what gives me concern is, to hear that we are not liked in the city, and that some disaffection has crept amongst our own Sepahees.” Finding the man upon the right way, I thought it better to drop my own information as it might produce a counter order to the regiment, with some other serious inconveniencies.

What has been just said may serve for a specimen of the turn of genius of the people of Moorshoodabad at that time. Here is a specimen of the temper of the inhabitants of Benares at that critical moment: “Kill that man,” said a young Mogul to Mirza-Saadet-Ally, as they were both marching to Chunar-ghur.—“Kill that man: he is only with another Frenghee in the field yonder, flying for his life; say but one word, and four of us shall go and dispatch them both, and bring you his head; and after that, march down from hence to the very gates of Calcutta, There is not one man in arms from hence to Moorshoodabad, or if there be any, on seeing the head, they will all desert to you; all the Zemindars will join you with a whistle; this day two months I will salute you Lord of Bengal—one word,—say but one word.—Has any amongst you,” said the Mirza, looking to the right and left—“Has any one of you a lancet about him? No,” answered a voice: “A pen-knife? a pen­knife?” replied another, “We? No, to be sure.” “A sharp pishcabz or poniard?” “Yes;—what for, pray?” “Only to let some blood from that man instantly: Do not you see that he is in a high fever? Man, you are very ill certainly; get your­self blooded, or go to the Ganges yonder, and take several plunges, until you are thoroughly cooled and cured: The sun indeed is sultry.”

After so strange an anecdote, (and I have heard of twenty more such stories) the reader has a right to ask me my voucher, as I was not present myself. Here it is: The man himself had been an acquaintance of mine about ten years ago at Moorshoodabad, where I used to make him dine with me some­times, giving him plenty of liquor, whereas I never drink any myself. As he was a handsome young fellow, and in high favour with some Ladies, he, when once in his cups, used not only to mention their names at length, (the very thing for which I sought his company) but he had such a knack at mimicking their particular tones of voices, and some other particulars in a day of engagement, as would have raised a horse-laugh in a dead man. As I was just landed at Benares, and examining the sculptures in a famous Gentoo chapel, in Sevalem, (the very critical spot where the tragedy had been acted but a year before, and where Saadet-Ally himself lived) the man perceived me and came down; and I found that he was in the Prince’s service at a hundred rupees per month, on condition of furnishing four horsemen more at fifty rupees each. He invited me to see his lodgings, a genteel seat, full of sculptures; and, to oblige him, I carried two bottles of liqueurs. As soon as the man was a little heated; he became talkative, and informed me himself of his conversation with Mirza-Saadet-Ally, and of some very curious particulars of the then temper of the citizens of Benares, as well as of the neighbouring Zemindars.

On quitting my drunken Mogul, I went to a large stone Caravan-Sera, where I took up my quarters, waiting for my baggage, when in comes my old toothless broker—“Talvar Khoob Chelaw,” said the man for all salute, and with as emphatical a gesture and tone of voice, as if the massacre had happened but the day before. “The Sabre has worked well,” said again the worthless blockhead, without minding the reprimand I gave him, for his making such a mighty matter of a couple of hundred men cut down by multitudes, whilst they were either preparing their meat or taking their afternoon nap, without any one of them having so much as a ball to his musquet. “And suppose they should have had” broke out the wretch in fury, “Ten Thousands would have been pouring upon them, instead of Ten Hundreds; and the whole city would have risen upon the Frenghees and their adherents.”

I could fill a volume of such and the like stories, either from ny own knowledge or from hearsay. But this is not all: the man (I mean the Mogul,) had been so imprudent in his cups, as to banter Saadet upon his faintness of heart, and the latter having attempted to see the other’s wife, they parted upon bad terms together; so that the man lost his horses as well as his appointment. He came to Lucknow, took service with Assef-ed-doülah, the prince of the country, fell into a course of drinking and gaming, and in one unlucky day, gamed away both his wife and horse, and that too, to a man he was jealous of; insomuch that, rather than submit to the latter for a sum of four hundred rupees, he applied to me; and I took his bond, his horse, and his wife, which remained with me a couple of months. The latter had been a famous singer and an elegant dancer at Benares; and so esteemed by her troop, that but for Saadet-Ally’s interest and support he would have never been able to have carried her away. She was a woman of an agreeable person and much sense; and she not only confirmed to me the above story, but mentioned some other matters, which shew that the disaffection to the English had risen at once to a height all over the country, and amongst the principal men that frequented Saadet-Ally’s court. Two months after, the man came to me wounded, and brought me three hundred and twenty rupees, and I returned him his bond, horse, and wife.