१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

ALIGARH AND NASIRABAD
place instantly, they would be indiscriminately massacred.
In this terrible plight, the English took their wives and
children with them and ran wherever they found a way !
Mr. Hume himself, profiting by the magnanimity of the
Sepoys, disguised himself as an Indian woman and ran
away.¹ When Hume ran away, it was proclaimed by beat
of drum that Itawa was independent, and all the Sepoys
went away to join the chief division of the regiment
marching towards Delhi.
Thus the regiment rose like one man. In places so far
apart as Aligarh, Boland, Minpur, and Itawa, the pro-
gramme was perfectly carried out—looting the treasury,
announcing freedom, sparing the life of the English when
at the mercy of the sword, and after securing a good sup-
ply of provisions and ammunition, marching to Delhi.
The regiment which the English thought would be the
last to rise, thus rose sword in hand long before the
others. The English, thereafter, could not feel them-
selves secure of anything !
There is a small town called Nasirabad about twelve miles
from Ajmere. In this town there was a company of Eng-
lish soldiers and the 30th native infantry, besides the
artillery. There were, also, the 1st Bombay Lancers and
the 15th regiment which had been lately brought from
Meerut. In the last regiment, the hatred of the English
and the desire for driving them out were strongest. And
it would have been a wonder, if the thousand political
preachers from Meerut would have let go this opportunity
of explaining personally to the Nasirabad Sepoys the
resolutions of the Secret Society at Meerut. Excepting
some men of the Bombay Lancers, the whole Sepoy army
was unanimous, and resolved only to wait a suitable op-
portunity. This came on the 28th of May, for, on that
day, the discipline in the artillery was very lax. Thus, at

1. Red Pamphlet, part II, page 70.
   165