A Man Who Conquered Disappointments
The Story of Sir Henry Havelock
He was nicknamed “Phlos”—short for philosopher—even when at school. Havelock and a few companions at Charterhouse met together for devotion, and of course came in for a large amount of jeering from some of the other boys. But it was useless to call him “Methodist” and “hypocrite”; he had learnt from his mother the value of Bible reading, and possessed sufficient character to care little what his companions said.
He knew the right, and did it—thus early he was a philosopher in a small way.
It had been intended that Havelock should follow the law as a profession; and he was studying with this end in view when his father stopped the necessary supplies of money, and he had to turn to some other occupation for a living.
He had always had a leaning towards a military life, and by his brother’s aid obtained a commission as second lieutenant in 1815, being then twenty years old.
Unlike Colin Campbell, who was in the thick of the fight within a few months of joining his regiment, it was some years before Havelock had a chance of distinguishing himself; but meantime he set to work to study military history and tactics both ancient and modern.
Not content with this, he learnt Persian and Hindostanee; and thus when he went to India in 1823 he was equipped as few young men of his day were.
Havelock’s faith, strong though it was, had to undergo a time of severe trial. Doubts arose in his mind, and made him miserable while they lasted. But on board ship he came across Lieut. Gardner, to whom, with others, he was giving lessons in languages; and as a result of his intercourse with this man he became again the same simple loving believer that he had been when he learnt to read the Bible at his mother’s knee, or braved the taunts of his school-fellows.
During the two months he was at Calcutta he held religious meetings, to which the soldiers were invited. At these, not only did he preach the Gospel of Christ, but he made a point of telling the men the blessings of temperance; and it was by his influence that later on a society was formed in the regiment, and various attractions were placed before the men to keep them from intemperance.
Now came the chance of active service for which he had been longing. An expedition was planned against the Burmese, and Havelock was one of the members. But a great disappointment was in store for him. The ship in which he sailed was delayed, and did not arrive at Rangoon till the town was taken. Still, though there was no glory to be gained, there was much good work to be done in looking after his men’s comfort and well-being; and this he did to the utmost of his power. He also held simple services, such as the men could appreciate, in one of the Buddhist temples.
Though there was not a great deal of fighting to do, there were great losses of men through disease; and Havelock himself was ere long so ill that he was told a voyage to England was the only thing to save his life.
This, however, he objected to; and after a stay at Bombay he was sufficiently restored to rejoin his regiment.
During this war a night attack was made by the enemy on an outpost; and the men ordered to repulse it were not ready when summoned.
“Then call out Havelock’s saints,” said the commander-in-chief. “They are always sober, and can be depended upon, and Havelock himself is always ready.” And, surely enough, “Havelock’s saints” were among the enemy in double quick time, and soon gave them as much steel and lead as they had any wish for!
“Every inch a soldier, and every inch a Christian,”—that was an exact description of this man.
Even the day he got married to Hannah Marshman, the missionary’s daughter, he showed that he was a soldier before all else. For, having been suddenly summoned to attend a military court of inquiry at twelve o’clock on his wedding day, he got married at an earlier hour than he had previously arranged, took a quick boat to Calcutta, returning to his bride when his business of the day was finished.
Time passed on, and the leader of “the saints” was still but a junior lieutenant, though he had been seventeen years in the army. Thrice were his hopes of promotion raised, and thrice doomed to disappointment.
Still he murmured not. “I have only two wishes,” he would say. “I pray that in life and death I may glorify God, and that my wife and children may be provided for.”
Heavy trials befel him. Death laid its hand on his little boy Ettrick, and another child was so burnt in a fire that happened at their bungalow that he died also, whilst his beloved wife narrowly escaped the same fate. Yet he bore all this with patience.
Stern commander though he was, his men loved him so much that they wanted to give him a month of their pay to assist him in the loss of means occasioned by the fire.
Though their offer was refused, yet Havelock could not but be thankful for the kind feeling which prompted it.
At length, after over twenty years’ service, he became a captain.
In the Afghan war Havelock was with General Sale at Jellalabad at the time that Dr. Brydon brought the news of the massacre of our men by the Afghans; and during the anxious time that followed he was able to render good service in the field and at the council table.
He fought in the battles of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, and Sobraon. At the first-named he had two horses shot under him; and in all he distinguished himself by coolness and bravery.
When the terrible mutiny broke out in India in the year 1857, the hour of dire emergency had come, and with it had come the man. “Your excellency,” said Sir Patrick Grant, presenting Havelock to Lord Canning, “I have brought the man.”
That was on 17th June, 1857.
Two days later Havelock was appointed to the command of the little army. His instructions were that, “after quelling all disturbances at Allahabad, he should not lose a moment in supporting Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, and Sir Hugh Wheeler at Cawnpore; and that he should take prompt measures for dispersing and utterly destroying all mutineers and insurgents”.
A large order that to tell a commander with 2000 men, to take a dozen fortified places defended by ten times the number of his own force!
Not a moment was to be lost, for both cities were in deadly peril.
Alas! Early on the 1st July came news of the terrible massacre of the Cawnpore garrison,—men, women and children slain in one wanton, heartless slaughter, which still makes the blood run cold to read about.
Out of the 2000 men under Havelock’s command 1400 only were British soldiers. But in that force every man was a hero. Notwithstanding the scorching heat of an Indian summer,—in spite, too, of the fact that a number of the men were obliged to march in heavy garments utterly unsuited to the climate; though death, disease, and a thousand perils lay in front of them,—not a man of Havelock’s “Ironsides” but was impatient to push onward to death or victory.
The general himself was full of humble trust in the Lord, and was in good spirits notwithstanding—perhaps because of—the perils before him. For it is written of him that “he was always as sour as if he had swallowed a pint of vinegar except when he was being shot at,—and then he was as blithe as a schoolboy out for a holiday”.
Sour he was not, but he kept splendid discipline among his troops.
“Soldiers,” he said as they set out, “there is work before us. We are bound on an expedition whose object is the supremacy of British rule, and to avenge the fate of British men and women.”
The first battle fought was at Futtehpore. Writing to his wife on the same night, Havelock said: “One of the prayers oft repeated throughout my life has been answered, and I have lived to command in a general action…. We fought, and in ten minutes’ time the affair was decided…. But away with vain glory! Thanks to God Almighty, who gave me the victory.”
Day, after day, the men fought and marched—marched and fought. Battle after battle was won against foes of reckless daring, carefully entrenched, amply supplied with big guns, and infinitely superior in numbers.
His men were often half famished. For two whole days they had but one meal, consisting of a few biscuits and porter!
Hearing that some of the women and children were still alive, having escaped the massacre of 27th June, Havelock pressed on with his wearied little army. “With God’s help,” said he, “we shall save them, or every man die in the attempt.”
Nana Sahib himself barred the way to Cawnpore. His 5000 men were well placed in good positions; but they were driven from post to post before the onset of the British.
“Now, Highlanders!” shouted Havelock, as the men halted to re-form after one of their irresistible onslaughts; “another charge like the last wins the day!”
And again the Scots scattered the enemy, at the bayonet’s point.
The sun was far towards the western horizon before the battle was finally over. The mutineers were brave men; and, though beaten, retreated, reformed, and fought again.
The enemy had rallied at a village; and Havelock’s men, after their day’s fight, lagged a little when, having gone over ploughed fields and swamps, they came again under fire.
But their general rode out under fire of the guns, and, smiling as a cannon ball just missed him by a hairsbreadth, said:—
“Come, who is to take that village—the Highlanders or the 64th?”
That was enough: pell-mell went both regiments upon the enemy, who had a bad quarter of an hour between the two.
Cawnpore was won; but, alas! the women and children had been slain whilst their countrymen had been fighting for their deliverance. And Lucknow was not yet to be relieved.
For after advancing into Oude Havelock found that constant fighting, cholera, sunstroke and illness had so reduced his numbers that to go on would risk the extermination of his force.
He therefore returned to await reinforcements. By the time these arrived, Sir James Outram had been appointed general of the forces in India; but he generously refused to accept the command till Lucknow had been relieved, saying that, Havelock having made such noble exertions, it was only right he should have the honour of leading the troops till this had been done.
So he accompanied the army as a volunteer; and again the men fought their way, this time right through the mutineers, accomplishing their object by the first relief of Lucknow.
On the evening of 28th September, the soldiers reached the Residency, where the British had been shut up for so long face to face with death. The last piece of fighting was the worst they had had to face. Fired at from roof and window by concealed foes, they marched on with unwavering courage, and those who reached the Residency had a reward such as can come to few in this life.
As the women and children frantic with joy rushed to welcome their rescuers the stern-set faces of the Highlanders changed to joy and gladness; hunger, thirst, wounds, weariness—all were forgotten as they clasped hands with those for whom they had fought and bled.
“God bless you,” they exclaimed; “why, we expected to have found only your bones!”
“And the children living too!”
Women and children, civilians and soldiers, gave themselves up to pure gladness of heart, and in that meeting all thought of past woes and dangers faded away.
After a series of the most thrilling incidents the world has known, Lucknow was finally relieved by Sir Colin Campbell.
When Havelock came from the Residency to meet the troops the men flocked round him cheering, and their enthusiasm brought tears to the veteran’s eyes.
On the 17th November Lucknow was relieved, and on the 24th Havelock died. “I have,” he said to Outram in his last illness, “for forty years so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear.”
A Friend of Prisoners
The Story of John Howard
In St. Paul’s Cathedral there stands a monument representing a man with a key in his right hand and a scroll in his left, whilst on the pedestal from which he looks down are pictured relics of the prison life of the past. The man is John Howard, who travelled tens of thousands of miles, and spent many years in visiting gaols all over England and the Continent, and in endeavouring to render prison life less degrading and brutalising. Wherever he went prison doors were unlocked as if he possessed a magic key; and by his life and books he did more to help prisoners than any other man.
It is only just over a hundred years since John Howard died; yet in his day persons could be put to death for stealing a horse or a sheep, for robbing dwellings, for defrauding creditors, for forgery, for wounding deer, for killing or maiming cattle, for stealing goods to the value of five shillings, or even for cutting a band in a hop plantation. And many persons who were innocent of any offence would lie in dungeons for years!
At his father’s death John Howard came into possession of a good property; and, marrying a lady some years older than himself, settled down on his estate and passed three years of quiet happiness.
Then a great grief came to him. His wife died, and Howard was bowed down with sorrow.
But the distress brought with it a longing to be a comfort to others; and he set out for Lisbon, which had just been visited by the great earthquake of 1755, with the hope of assisting the homeless and suffering.
France and England were then at war, and on his way thither he was captured by a French vessel and thrown into prison. He was placed in a dark, damp, filthy dungeon, and was half starved. For two months he was kept a prisoner, and as soon as he was free he set about obtaining the release of his fellow captives.
Some years later he became a sheriff of Bedford, and began visiting the prisoners in the gaol where John Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim’s Progress.
From the inquiries he made during the course of his visitations he was astonished to find that the gaolers received no salary, and that they lived on what they could make out of the prisoners. As a result it often happened that those who had been acquitted at their trial were kept in prison long afterwards, because they were unable to pay the fees which the gaoler demanded.
Horrified at the state in which he found the prison and at the abuses of justice that prevailed, John Howard determined to find out what was done in other parts of the kingdom, and visited a number of gaols throughout the country. And fearful places he found them to be! Boys who were taken to gaol for the first time were put with old and hardened criminals; the prisons were dirty and ill-smelling; the dungeons were dark and unhealthy; and, unless prisoners could afford to pay for comforts, they were obliged to sleep on cold bare floors, even delicate women not being exempted from such cruel treatment.
At Exeter he found two sailors in gaol, having been fined one shilling each for some trifling offence, and owing £1 15s. 8d. for fees to the gaolers and clerk of the peace. When he visited Cardiff he heard a man had just died in prison after having been there ten years for a debt of seven pounds. At Plymouth he found that three men had been shut up in a little dark room only five and a half feet high, so that they could neither breathe freely nor stand upright.
Hundreds of cases as bad or worse than these did he discover and bring before public notice.
He gave evidence before the House of Commons of what he had seen. Then Acts of Parliament were passed, providing that gaolers should be paid out of the rates, that prisoners who were found not guilty should be set at liberty at once, that the prisons should be kept clean and healthy, and the prisoners properly clothed and attended to.
Determined that these Acts should not remain a dead letter, he went about the country seeing that what Parliament required was actually carried out.
Not contented with what he had already done, he travelled abroad, inspecting the prisons of France, Russia, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries, in order to see how they compared with those in Great Britain.
Strange to say, he discovered that in a number of cases they were in many ways better; and the prisoners, unlike their fellows in Britain, were generally employed in some useful manner.
When he was in London on one occasion he heard that there had been a revolt in the military prison in the Savoy. Two of the gaolers had been killed, and the rioters held possession of the building. Howard set off for the prison, though he was warned that his life would not be safe if he ventured inside. Nothing daunted, he went amongst the prisoners, and soon persuaded them to go back to their cells peaceably, promising to bring their grievances before the authorities.
At Paris he was unable for a long time to get into that great prison house which then existed called the Bastille. Try as he would, he could gain no admittance. One day when he was passing he went to the gate of the prison, rang the bell and marched in. After passing the sentry he stopped and took a good look at the building, then he had to beat a hasty retreat, and narrowly escaped capture; but by that time he had partly accomplished his object.
When Howard was in Russia the empress sent a message saying she desired to see him; but he returned an answer that he was devoting his time to inspecting prisons, and had no leisure for visiting the palaces of rulers.
At Rome, however, he was prevailed on to go and see the Pope, on the express understanding that he should not be obliged to kiss his holiness’s toe; and he came away with a very pleasant remembrance of the Holy Father.
At Vienna the Emperor Joseph II. specially requested an interview. Howard refused at first to meet the emperor’s wishes; but, on the English ambassador representing good might come of the visit, Howard went to see his majesty, and remained with him two hours in conversation, during which time he made the emperor acquainted with the bad state of some of the Austrian prisons. Once or twice the emperor was angered by Howard’s plainness of speech, but told the ambassador afterwards that he liked the prison reformer all the better for his honesty.
Having made up his mind to see the quarantine establishment at Marseilles, Howard made his way through France, though he was so feared and disliked by the Government that he was warned if he were caught in that country he would be thrown into the Bastille.
He disguised himself as a doctor, and after some narrow escapes arrived at Marseilles and visited the Lazaretto (or place of detention for the infected), though even Frenchmen were forbidden to do so. He took drawings of the place, and then went on a tour to many southern cities. He was at Smyrna while fever was raging with fury, and went amongst the sick and fever-stricken, fearless of the consequences.
In the course of his travels the ship in which he was a passenger was attacked by pirates, and John Howard showed himself as brave in actual battle as he was in fighting abuses; for he loaded the big gun with which the ship was armed nearly up to the muzzle with nails and spikes, and fired it into the pirate crew just in time to save himself and his companions from destruction. The books in which he gave an account of his experiences were eagerly read by the public, and produced a profound effect.
His last journey was to Russia. At Cherson he received an urgent request to visit a lady who had the fever. The place where she lived was many miles off, and no good horses were to be obtained. But he was determined not to disappoint her; so he procured a dray horse and started for his destination on a wintry night, with rain falling in torrents. As a result of this journey he was stricken down by the fever, and died 20th January, 1790.
Howard was a very hard worker, and a man of most frugal habits. He was often up by two o’clock in the morning writing and doing business till seven, when he breakfasted. He ate no flesh food, and drank no wine or spirits. He had a great dislike to any fuss being made about him personally; and, though £1500 was subscribed during his life to erect a memorial, it was, at his earnest desire, either returned to the subscribers or spent in assisting poor debtors.
But after his death a memorial was put up in St. Paul’s, and quite recently a monument has been erected at Bedford, where he first began his labours on behalf of the prisoners.