instructed Colonel Kennedy to follow him with the rest of the cavalry, leaving a detachment to protect the cantonment and to keep up the communication. When Colonel Gillespie arrived at the Vellore Fort at a.m., he thought it prudent to await the arrival of the guns, since there was continuous firing. Soon the cavalry under Kennedy came from Arcot. It was about o’Clock.
The gate was blown open with the galloper guns of the th dragoons under the direction of Lieutenant Blakiston. The troops entered the place, headed by a squadron of the cavalry under Captain Skelton. The Gillespie’s men were met by a severe crossfire. In the ensuing battle, Colonel Gillespie himself suffered bruises.
The sepoys retreated. Hundreds escaped over the walls of the Fort, or threw down their arms and pleaded for mercy. Then the cavalry regiment assembled on the parade ground and resolved to pursue the fleeing soldiers, who were exiting towards the narrow passage of escape afforded by the sally port. A troop of dragoons and some native horsemen were sent round to intercept the fleeing soldiers.
According to J. Blakistan, an eyewitness to Gillespie's atrocity, more than bodies were carried out of the fort. In W.J. Wilson's estimate were jailed for involvement in the revolt; were considered implicated but not imprisoned.
Based on depositions before the Court of Enquiry, the Court Martial awarded death punishment and banishment to select individuals, which were carried out by the commanding officer of Vellore on September . (Source: W.J. Wilson, History of the Madras Army , vol. III, - ).
XI History - Lesson - - Early Resistance to British Rule to suppress the revolt. The repressive measures restored peace for about twenty years, but then the Mappillas rose again in and the events followed a similar course. Some of the rebellions in pre- India were of the tribals whose autonomy and control over local resources were threatened by the establishment of British rule and the advent of its non-tribal agents. The tribal people, spread over a large part