During this confused early phase of the Mutiny the Commissioner did what he thought necessary to maintain order in the division, while at the same time gathering as much intelligence as possible – a process greatly aided by the support of Patna’s deputy magistrate, Dewan MOWLA BAKSH. From Mowla Baksh and a number of petitions sent in anonymously Tayler learned that ‘conferences were held at night, both in mosques, and private houses, though with such secrecy and cunning that proof or capture was impossible. Particular individuals were named again and again by different parties, who concealed their names, but uttered emphatic warnings.’ It seemed quite clear to him that ‘mischief of some sort was brewing’ and that it came from three separate quarters: ‘Firstly, from the Wahabees of the city and the neighbourhood. Secondly, from the Lucknow immigrants and partisans…Thirdly, from the thieves and scoundrels of the city.’ Of the three, Tayler judged the Wahhabis to present the most serious threat, concentrated in the persons of their leaders – ‘several well-known Moulvees of this sect, little shrivelled skin-dried men, of contemptible appearance, and plain manners, but holding undisputed sway over a crowd of tailors, butchers, and low-born followers of every description’. Without hard information Tayler felt unable to act, but he quietly set about turning the house and grounds of his official residence into a fortified defensive position.
Late on 7 June Tayler received the news he had been dreading, contained in a letter handed in by one of the Nujeeb policemen. It had come from the nearby military cantonment of Dinapore and it spoke of the sepoys and the Nujeebs as being of ek-dil or ‘one heart’. It gave notice that the three Bengal Native Infantry regiments stationed at Dinapore planned to rise against their officers that very night, and instructed that when this happened the Nujeeb police battalion should seize the Patna treasury.
Tayler at once implemented the emergency plans he had prepared, sending warning messages to each of his six district headquarters and summoning Captain Rattray to bring his Sikhs in from Arrah. Further summonses went out to every European in Patna telling them to come at once to his residence with as much food and bedding as they and their servants could carry. ‘In less than an hour,’ Tayler recorded a year later, ‘almost every man, woman and child were hurrying helter skelter to our house, followed by a phalanx of beds, clothes, pillows, mattresses and other domestic impedimenta.’
Tayler was a good story-teller and his account of what followed, afterwards published as Our Crisis; Or Three Months at Patna during the Insurrection of 1857, is as lively as the best of the many personal narratives of the Mutiny. ‘It was a lovely night,’ he wrote of this first day of their crisis, ‘and by the time that all were assembled, the moon had risen, and the grounds and garden were lit almost as day.’ Every room in his house was filled with occupants:
In one, a bevy of children of every size, age and disposition, the sleepy, the cross, the silent and the squalling, were stretched in every conceivable attitude on the floor; in another a group of nervous ladies scarcely knowing what to apprehend; strange Ayahs [maidservants] were stealing to and fro with noiseless step, and bearing unintelligible bundles; agitated gentlemen, cool gentlemen, and fussy gentlemen, gentlemen with guns and swords, and gentlemen without guns and swords, were holding consultation in groups; outside the house, a body of the Nujeebs, or local Police Battalion were assembled under the command of Major Nation, while a small party of Holmes’s Troopers were ready mounted near the door; the rattling of carriages, the screaming of children, men’s hoarse voices, servants shouting – all formed on one side of the house a Babel of confusion.
Just before dawn the tramp of marching feet was heard and the alarm was sounded, but it turned out to be Rattray’s Sikhs. Their march had taken them past the military lines at Dinapore, where they had been taunted by the sepoys, ‘accused of being renegades to their faith, and asked whether they intended to fight for the “kafir”, or for their “deen”’. However, the Sikh battalion’s unexpected appearance had also unnerved the conspirators among the sepoys, to the extent that they failed to carry out their planned uprising. The Sikhs took up positions outside the Commissioner’s compound and began to patrol through the city. The immediate crisis appeared to be over.
The one action that Tayler had failed to take was to inform the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Frederick Halliday, of his plans. However, first thing on the morning of 8 June he wrote a report of the steps he had taken. Since the telegraph line to Calcutta was operating only intermittently, he sent this despatch by rider. He then himself rode over to Dinapore accompanied by Rattray and his subedar, Hedayut Ali, to call on Major-General George Lloyd, the commander of the Dinapore cantonment. Lloyd had spent all his adult life in a sepoy regiment. In the words of the first historian of the Indian Mutiny, he ‘had witnessed the fidelity of the native soldier under trying and difficult circumstances, and, fortified by the opinion of the several commandants of regiments, he still clung to his belief in their loyalty’. Despite the evidence of the seized correspondence, Lloyd had just reported to Halliday that his regiments were quiet and would remain so ‘unless some great temptation or excitement should assail them’. He now informed Tayler and Rattray that their fears were groundless, and that the three Bengal Native Infantry regiments under his command were beyond suspicion. One of these three corps was Hedayut Ali’s old regiment, the 8th BNI, in which no fewer than four of his younger brothers were still serving. When he called in on them to renew old acquaintances he found the atmosphere highly charged, and was warned that if he stayed overnight in Dinapore he would pay for it with his life.
The Sikhs guarding the civil lines in Patna now came under intense pressure to desert. ‘The Mahomedans who came to our regiment’, recorded Hedayut Ali, ‘used to say “Thanks be to God that our king has been reinstated on the throne of Delhi.” When I heard them speak so, I immediately informed my Major and Mr W. Tayler, the Commissioner… I then ordered some of the sepoys that if any Hindoo or Mahomedan spoke to them such seditious words they should apprehend him instantly. The townsfolk, learning this, ceased their visits to the Regiment.’ The subedar now set up his own network of informers and learned from them that a number of outsiders had arrived in Patna ‘with the intention of making a row and that they were engaged in hiring men at 2 annas per diem and in polishing and mending their arms. On the 13th June I informed my Commanding Officer of this.’
Hedayut Ali’s intelligence only reinforced what Commissioner Tayler had learned from his own intelligence network. However, this dependence on spies and informers did not go down well with some of Tayler’s civil service colleagues. One of the most critical was the Patna magistrate, J. M. Lewis, who wrote to Tayler on 21 July complaining of his methods: ‘I had come to distrust spies and underhand information, not only from being myself approached by one of your goindas [informers], armed with a per-wannah [warrant] from you… but also from what I learned afterwards of this spy… Much mischief resulted from such powers being placed in the hands of unscrupulous persons.’ The commissioner’s response to these and other concerns was to brush them aside. The situation demanded firm action, and he was not to be deflected from taking such steps as he deemed necessary for the maintenance of law and order in his division. This arrogance cost him dearly.