From Major-General J. B. Hearsey to Colonel R. J. H. Birch on his suspicions of the sepoys, 21 February 1857

From Major-General J. B. Hearsey, C.B., Commanding the Presidency Division, to Colonel R. J. H. Birch, C.B., Secretary to the Government of India, in the Military Department, Fort William--dated Barrackpore, 21st February 1857.

        I deem it my duty to forward the accompanying letters to be laid before the Governor-General of India in Council, being very desirous that every matter connected with the ill-feeling or discontent of the sepoys of the Barrackpore brigade should be laid before Government.

        It is evident to me that having failed in the first attempt, a second is being or is about to be made on the men to induce them to misbehave.

        Who the authors are I can only suspect, but my suspicion leads to the followers of the King of Oudh.

From: Selections from the Letters Despatches and other State Papers preserved in the Military Department of the Government of India, 1857-58.  Edited by George W. Forrest.  Calcutta: Military Department Press 1893, 40.