When Lord Lake was in India, fighting the Mahrattas, there was a Sergeant W----, of the artillery, who served in nearly all the battles of his illustrious chief. This sergeant owned a Hindoo slave, belonging to the lowest dregs of the pariahs; but through the earnest labours of a Baptist missionary, she was converted to Christianity, and the sergeant made her his wife. She accompanied him in all his campaigns, and followed him into battle. When he was tired, she would lend a hand at the guns. In one action the sergeant was struck down by a bullet which passed through his shako and struck his forehead just above the temple carrying in its course the brass hoop from the shako and forcing it into his skull. He fell, to all appearance, dead; but his wife, determined not to leave his body to the tender mercies of the foe, seized it up, and bore it from the field, amidst a rain of bullets.
The principal leaders in the terrible Indian Mutiny were Nana Sahib, Tantia Topee, and the Ranee of Jhansi. They were equally ferocious: they detested the British, and the motives which induced them to rebel were almost precisely similar. According to the laws and usages of Hindostan, a native prince, in default of sons, could adopt a strange boy and make him his heir; seldom was a dissentient voice raised against the succession of the adopted child till within the last thirty-five or forty years, when the East India Company constituted itself heir-apparent to all the thrones in the country.
The city of Jhansi is situated in Bundelcund, to the south of the river Jumna. Previous to 1857, it was the strongest and most important place in the entire of Central India. The people were nearly all Brahmins, a religion held in common with their rajahs. In the days when the Peishwa was still a person of importance in Hindostan, the ruler of Jhansi was merely a wealthy zemindar, or land-owner, and he rendered such good service to the British that Lord William Bentinck (Governor-General from 1828 to 1835), raised him to the position of Rajah. On the death of this man, he was succeeded by his brother, Gungadhur Rao. The latter, having no children, made a will some weeks before his death, publicly adopting a little boy nearly related to himself, and at this time six years old. Lukshmi Baee, the Rajah's wife, was to be the guardian of this boy and Regent of Jhansi till he had attained his eighteenth year. Gungadhur gave due notice of this to the British Governor-General; and in presence of the British Resident and his assembled subjects, took the child in his lap, as a public declaration of adoption.