The trial of the sepoys who had been taken prisoners when resisting
the detachment sent to disarm them in the fort, and of those also who
attacked the arsenal on May 13, had been proceeding for some time. It
was a general court-martial composed of thirteen officers, presided over
by a Lieutenant-Colonel. Of the prisoners taken, some 100 were singled
out as the ringleaders, the rest being put back for trial till a future
occasion.

The evidence was most clear as to the heinous offences of mutiny and
rebellion with regard to all these men, and they were accordingly found
guilty. Sentence was at once pronounced on fourteen of the sepoys, and
the punishment was death.

Two men of low caste were to be hanged, while the remaining twelve,
comprising Mohammedans and high-caste Hindoos, were to expiate their
crime by that most awful and ghastly penalty, execution by being blown
to pieces from the mouths of cannons.

This terrible punishment had been but seldom inflicted during British
rule in India, the last instance occurring in 1825, when a native
regiment mutinied and refused to cross the sea to take part in the first
Burmese War.

Neither was it from the English that this special death penalty
originated. It had been for hundreds of years the recognized punishment
for mutiny and rebellion throughout Hindostan, and in numberless cases
was carried out by the Mogul Emperors.

With us at this period it was found necessary to strike terror into the