THREE EAST INDIA WAR MEDALS.

BY W. WYON, ESQ. R.A.

THE first of these medals is that on the victorious conclusion of our first war with the Sikhs, and was struck generally for the Army of the Sutlej." This particular medal commemorates their triumph at "Feroseshuhur, 1845."

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In a preceding part of this volume (see page 105) I have noticed my endeavour to obtain from the ruling powers that this medal should either record the reality of the British soldier conquering the Sikh warrior, or, if we must have allegory, to select the illustration from the poetry of the Hindoos. There is in their Pantheon an Avatár or Incarnation of Vishnu, the preserving deity, in which the God bursts forth from the heart of a tree, and destroys a giant, who is oppressing an unoffending people, which I thought exactly suited to the unprovoked aggression and consequent humiliation of the Sikhs; and which would also have been "A B C" to our Indian troops and people. Entirely concurring in my suggestions, Mr. Wyon applied for permission from the "Chairman" of the honourable John Company to carry them out, but met a most imperative" Shall not."-Indian ideas found no favour in Leadenhall Street. We were too Oriental for the East India Direction. Mahogany looked down upon Teak. It was too much of the shop. Figs to a grocer. Lollypops to a confectioner. The penny roll and ha'porth of treacle of the five-year urchin, to the mulligatawny and curry of the fifty-year director. And so the Hindoo was sent to beg of the Greek that the Sepoy might figure as a Lacedemonian, or that Vishnu might appear in petticoats! Fortunately, the inter

cessor was William Wyon. And when did that pet-child of genius sue to high art unavailingly?

"Claim kindred there, nor have his claims allowed ?"

Aye, when? At all events, certainly not on the present application. A winged female stands in profile, a palm-branch in her left hand, her right extended forward, conferring the laurel wreath; at her feet a dismounted cannon and a trophy of Sikh arms and standards. This figure of Victory is gracefully and beautifully characteristic of the event it commemorates. A stand-up struggle and a hard-fought contest, where nerve and mind contended for superiority, in resolute determination; with the consciousness of how it must be attained, and the might, and the exertion, by which only it could be achieved. And all this is well expressed in the firm attitude, powerful frame, and calm countenance, combined with the beauty of the general outline, of the arms and the bosom, and the high finish of the wings and draperies.

The second is the medal conferred for all services from 1799 to 1826, and here, where the compliment must be general, the design is equally happy and significant. Victory at rest, subsiding into peace. A winged female seated on a cube which is nearly concealed by the drapery flowing from the lower part of the figure: the left arm hanging downwards with a wreath in its hand; the right resting on her knee, upholding an olive-branch; and in front, on the ground, and beneath a palm-tree loaded with fruit, a trophy of native oriental arms. Nothing can exceed the rich exquisite beauty of this personification, the grace of its attitude and outlines, the truthful delicacy of its anatomy, and the happy, characteristic loveliness of expression in the countenance. Inscription, "To the Army of India, 1799-1826."

Let us now direct our attention to the third of these India War medals. In a few years after the peace of 1845 the Sikhs equally forgot the defeats they had sustained, and the lenity with which their perfidy had been treated by their conquerors. They again burst into our territories, with a formidable army and magnificent park of artillery; and for a while fortune rather favoured them. But on the 21st February 1849, Lord Gough having united the different divisions of the Anglo-Indian army, obtained the triumphant victory of Goojerat, almost annihilating the Sikh

army, and capturing most of their artillery, tents, baggage, &c. The retreating wreck of the Sikh forces was pursued by General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, with 15,000 troops, who overtook them on the 9th March, and on the 14th March 1849, Chutter Singh, Shere Singh, Aota Singh, and thirteen other chiefs, surrendered themselves with forty-one cannon, (in addition to about 120 previously captured.) 16,000 Sikh soldiers also laid down their arms and delivered themselves up to British mercy. To each a sum of money was given, to carry him to his home; and on the 29th March, a proclamation was issued, annexing the Sikh states to the British territories. The medal before us records the termination of the war, and when I called on Mr. Wyon at the Mint on the 17th April, 1851, I had the gratification of seeing first detachment" of 4000 medals going off for India, designed on the principle I had so long and so unavailingly inculcated, and recording the plain historical fact. The obverse has the usual splendid bust of Her Majesty. Reverse, on the right of the field of the medal (the spectator's left), the Sikh army, in line, are laying down their arms, standards, &c. before the English General, who is on horseback; behind whom stand the English army, with colours flying, also in line, the perspective of which is admirable. The ground rises in the distance, and the hill is surmounted with a clump of palm-trees, appropriately and picturesquely introduced. The engraving of these numerous subjects is surprisingly minute and highly finished. The face of the General seems a perfect portrait, and the charger has received equal attention. "His head is true to nature, and lifelike in expression: the neck is pretty and swanlike; he stands well, his legs very good, more particularly the near foreleg: all the anatomy being powerful and correct.”—(G. K.)

We talk much and truly of the wonders of painting, where miles of space are concentrated within yards of canvass, and an endless perspective appears on a flat surface. Yet what are the labours and the wonders of a picture to those of a medal? Now before us in the compass of one inch and two tenths, without the aid of colour, with scarcely the help of shadow, and the effects worked out by cutting into a block of steel a representation to be produced in relief, we have this event of the surrender of the Sikh army as clearly presented to the eye, and as forcibly impressed on

the understanding, as if the pencil of the painter, or the chisel of the sculptor, had exerted their greater facilities to place it before us, on whatever scale of extent they might have pleased to represent it.

To the same knowledge of nature, and of appreciation of beauty, correctness of taste, and faculty of combination, must be added in the medal-engraver the power of compression, in a degree almost painful to think of, by those who know and remember the exertion requisite to effect it. One gratifying circumstance indeed may occur to the recollection of the medallic engraver. He has looked upon the works of brother artists, who gave them to the world 2500 years ago, in as perfect preservation as the day they were coined. And the reflection may have invigorated the hand and cheered the mind of William Wyon, when with declining health he was engraving the dies of this medal, that his humble and earnest efforts were exerted to record to periods, thousands of years hereafter, and to countries tens of thousands of miles distant from these islands, the might and majesty, the power and extent of dominion, in the year A.D. 1849, of " Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, and India."

Cork, 18 May, 1853.

R. S.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH GILBERT, BART.

[From The Times, May 12, 1853.]

The announcement of the death of Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, Bart. G.C.B. and Member of the Council of India, will be received by the entire body of the Indian army, and by the portion of her Majesty's forces which served recently in the East, with deep sorrow. This sentiment will be largely shared by Sir Walter Gilbert's late commanders, Lords Hardinge and Gough.

Sir Walter Gilbert had attained the age of 68; yet his death is regarded by his comrades as premature. So brilliant a soldier was he that no one could hold him to be other than young.

Sir Walter Gilbert entered the Bengal army in 1800, and in the following year was posted to the 15th Regiment of Native Infantry, commanded

by Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Macdonald, of the Bengal army. With this distinguished corps he was present at the defeat of General Perron's brigades at Coel, at the siege and capture of Allyghur, at the battle of Delhi, and capture of 68 pieces of heavy artillery, 13 tumbrils, and 11 standards, taken from General Louis's force; at the storming of Agra; and at the memorable battle of Laswaree, where 70 pieces of cannon, with the whole of the enemy's ammunition and baggage, were captured. In this battle the 15th Native Infantry was particularly distinguished. He was present at the battle of Dieg, in which the enemy lost 87 pieces of artillery and all their ammunition; at the subsequent fall of the fortress of Dieg; and at the desperate, but unsuccessful, assaults on Bhurtpore, under the personal command of Lord Lake, who highly esteemed the young soldier for his gallantry. In all these arduous services Lieutenant Gilbert exhibited the same heroism which later in life induced him to dismount when he found that his horse would not approach a huge boar which threatened the life of his friend, and charge the enraged animal on foot with his single spear.

As Captain, Major, and Colonel he was subsequently employed in various responsible offices; but it was on the Sutlej and in the Punjab that the public notice became fixed on Sir Walter Gilbert as a first-rate commander. Lord Gough, in describing these heroic and noble services, said,

"I want words to express my gratitude to Major-General Gilbert. Not only have I to record that in this great fight (Ferozeshah) all was achieved by him which, as Commander-in-chief, I could desire to have executed; not only on this day was his division enabled by his skill and courageous example to triumph over obstacles from which a less ardent spirit would have recoiled as insurmountable, but since the hour when our leading columns moved out of Umballah I have found in the Major-General an officer who has not merely carried out my orders to the letter, but whose zeal and tact have enabled him, in a hundred instances, to perform valuable services in exact anticipation of my wishes."

And thus it was at Moodkee, at Sobraon, at Chilianwallah, at Goojerat; wherever Gilbert was, there you were sure to find successful bravery. No wonder that such conduct should elicit from Sir Robert Peel "envy of the profession of a soldier."

His last crowning act finished the campaign in the Punjab, 16,000 old and tried Sikh soldiers having grounded their arms to him.

I annex an official memorandum of the killed and wounded in this

war: