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

THE ERUPTION
magistrate. Nana Sahib gave strict orders that Holas
Singh should protect the citizens from disorderly Sepoys
or bandit villagers. The work of supplying provisions
to the army was entrusted to a citizen, called Mullah. A
court was appointed to settle civil and criminal disputes.
Jwala Prasad, Azimullah Khan, and others were made
judges and Baba Sahib was made the President. From
the few documents of this court that are extant, it is
abundantly clear that those guilty of oppression or dis-
order were severely punished and that great care was
bestowed on the maintenance of order. A man convicted
of a very heinous theft had his right hand cut off. A
Mahomedan butcher was given the same punishment for
killing a cow. Vagabonds without any profession and peo-
ple convicted of small thefts were publicly disgraced in the
streets on the back of a donkey.⁵ Like the Committee of
Public Safety established during the French Revolution,
this court gradually encroached upon all the other depart-
ments. To supply ammunition in case of shortage, to
supply clothes to the army, to try the arrested English
scouts, to punish rogues who wanted to escape—all these
were done by this court. It also gave rewards to those
who discovered English refugees.
The attack of the Revolutionaries on the English fort took
place on the 12th. Rather than take it by a general
assault, the general plan of the Revolutionaries was to
reduce it by harassing the English on all sides by artillery.
They also directed assaults now and then. After both
sides had lost some men the Revolutionaries would retire.
The vigour and courage of the artillery was not equalled
by the cavalry and the infantry. This fault will also be
prominently noticed in the sieges of Delhi and Lucknow;
but, in the siege of Cawnpore also, more importance was
attached to the artillery than to hand-to-hand fight. Not
that the Sepoys were, at all, afraid of death. The valour
5. Thomson's Cawnpore.
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