92- Puri falls to the insurgents

एक दुखी परिवार-92

Vellore sepoy mutiny

Even as the British managed to wrest control of Khurda, Puri itself fell to the insurgents led by Bakshi Jagabandhu, and the British were forced to retreat to Cuttack by 18 April. Cuttack remained cut off from the now rebel-held portions of southern Odisha, and therefore the British remained unaware of the fate of the force they had dispatched to Khurda. The force's successes in Khurda allowed the commanding officer, Captain Le Fevere, to pursue the insurgents into Puri. This British party defeated a thousand-strong but ill-equipped force of the Paiks as they marched to Puri, and they retook Puri and captured the Raja before he could escape from the town.

The uprising spread rapidly across Odisha, and there were several encounters between the British and Paik forces, including at Cuttack, where the latter were quickly put down. By May 1817, the British managed to re-establish their authority over the entire province, but it was a long while before the tranquillity finally returned to it.

Vellore sepoy mutiny

The garrison of the Vellore Fort in July 1806 comprised four companies of British infantry from H.M. 69th (South Lincolnshire) Regiment of Foot and three battalions of Madras infantry.

Two hours after midnight, on 10 July, the sepoys in the fort shot down the European sentries and killed fourteen of their own officers and 115 men of the 69th Regiment, most of the latter as they slept in their barracks. Among those killed was Colonel St. John Fancourt, the commander of the fort. The rebels seized control by dawn, and raised the flag of the Mysore Sultanate over the fort. Tipu's second son Fateh Hyder was declared King.

However a British officer escaped and alerted the garrison in Arcot. Nine hours after the outbreak of the mutiny, a relief force comprising the British 19th Light Dragoons, galloper guns and a squadron of Madras cavalry, rode from Arcot to Vellore, covering 16 miles in about two hours. It was led by Sir Rollo Gillespie – one of the most capable and energetic officers in India at that time – who reportedly left Arcot within a quarter of an hour of the alarm being raised. Gillespie dashed ahead of the main force with a single troop of about 20 men.

Arriving at Vellore Gillespie found the surviving Europeans, about sixty men of the 69th, commanded by NCOs and two assistant surgeons, still holding part of the ramparts but out of ammunition. Unable to gain entry through the defended gate, Gillespie climbed the wall with the aid of a rope and a sergeant's sash which was lowered to him; and to gain time led the 69th in a bayonet-charge along the ramparts. When the rest of the 19th arrived, Gillespie had them blow the gates with their galloper guns, and made a second charge with the 69th to clear a space inside the gate to permit the cavalry to deploy. The 19th and the Madras Cavalry then charged and slaughtered any sepoy who stood in their way. About 100 sepoys who had sought refuge in the palace were brought out, and by Gillespie's order, placed against a wall and shot dead. John Blakiston, the engineer who had blown in the gates, recalled: "Even this appalling sight I could look upon, I may almost say, with composure. It was an act of summary justice, and in every respect a most proper one; yet, at this distance of time, I find it a difficult matter to approve the deed, or to account for the feeling under which I then viewed it.

(Cont.  .)