anic that had taken
possession of the European mind when it was still largely in ignorance
of the actual facts. For most Europeans had at once rushed to the
conclusion that the outbreak in the Punjab, in which no single Sepoy
ever took part, was or threatened to be a reproduction of the Mutiny. In
the first days, as a measure of precaution, European women and children
had been hurriedly collected into places of refuge lest the horrible
excesses perpetrated by the Indian mob at Amritsar might prove the
prelude to a repetition of Cawnpore. The hardships and anxiety they
underwent and the murderous outrages actually committed on not a few
Europeans moved most of their fellow countrymen and countrywomen to
unmeasured resentment, and not until they gained at last a fuller
knowledge of all the facts so long allowed to remain obscure did a
gradual reaction set in against the belief which was genuinely
entertained by most Europeans, non-official and official in India, and
which spread from them to England, that General Dyer's action and the
rigours of martial law alone "saved India."

What drove the iron into the soul of India more than the things actually
done in the Punjab, for which many Indians admit the provocation, was
the reluctance of her rulers to look them in the face, and the tardiness
and half-heartedness of the atonement made for them. Not till nearly
half a year after the troubles had occurred did the Government of India
announce the appointment of the Hunter Committee of Inquiry, and this
announcement was coupled with the introduction of a Bill of Indemnity
for all officers of Government engaged in their repression, which wore,
in the eyes of Indians, however unreasonably, the appearance of an
attempt to shelter them against the possible findings of the Committee.
Again nearly half a year passed before the report of the Committee was
made public, and the bloom had already been taken off it for most
Indians by the report of a Commission instituted on its own account by
the Indian National Congress which, partisan and lurid as it was, never
received full refutation, as the witnesses upon whose evidence it was
based were, for technical reasons, not heard by the Hunter Committee.
The complete surrender of civil authority into military hands first at
Amritsar, and then, under orders from Simla, at Lahore and elsewhere,
was, as His Majesty's Government afterwards acknowledged, a disastrous
departure from the best tradi