“Old Davis,” as he was called—he lived to a very great age, and had children rather late in life—was a real character, and one of the bravest of little men. He was father of the present Sir Francis Davis, late Governor of Hong-Kong, and of Mrs. J. F. Lyall, who has been mentioned in connection with Lord Hardinge and his generous doings.
I know not how far back it was in the last century that Davis went out to India in the Civil Service; but when my
dear friend the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone went to
the same country and service, Davis was well up the tree of promotion.
This was in the year 1797-98. Elphinstone was at that time little more
than a mere schoolboy, having not yet counted his seventeenth summer. He was at once placed
under Davis, who took him into his own house, and looked after him
with all the solicitude of a father, while Mrs. Davis acted the part
of a mother towards the interesting youth—for interesting
| CHAP. XVII] | DAVIS AND ELPHINSTONE | 171 |
In his old age I have often heard him attribute his success in life to the fact of his having been at once put under the care and guidance of these excellent people. Only a few weeks ago, at his pleasant retirement in Hookwood Park, he returned to the subject. “I do really believe,” said he, “that I owe more to good old Davis and his wife than to anyone else, or to all else, in the world. But for them, I might have gone into dissipation and excess, like so many other youths at that period. They kept me at home, and kept me employed. You may fancy that I had had but a very imperfect scrambling education. Besides, what can a boy of seventeen really know? Davis was well-informed, very clever as a man of business, and rather fond of literature as well as of art. He had good books, and we soon obtained more. I then took seriously to educating myself, and in Davis’s family I may be said to have laid the foundation of such knowledge as I possess, or have possessed. I could not be too grateful to them.”
Mr. and Mrs. Davis returned to England many years before Mr. Elphinstone, but when he came home he renewed his friendship, and he treated them as his most valued, best friends, until their deaths, only a few years since.
According to Mr.
Elphinstone’s account, while he was with him Davis was a spare, wiry, strong, but very small man. At
times he was rather choleric and peppery in his temper; but this was natural enough, seeing
that he was a Welshman, and was living in burning Bengal. He was very active, very capable
of enduring excessive fatigue, and he had nerve enough for anything that might be done or
borne by mortal man. The heroism he displayed in defending his house and family at the time
of the revolt of Vizier Ali, and the massacre of
Benares
| 172 | MR. DAVIS | [CHAP. XVII |
The little book is as true as it is interesting; few narratives can have higher claim to implicit credit.
Vizier Ali and his band of assassins, after butchering
Mr. Cherry, Captain Conway, and Mr.
Evans, made a dash at Mr.
Davis’s house, situated outside the town. A single sentry, stationed
about fifty yards from the door, was shot down. The Judge sent Mrs.
Davis, her two children, and all the servants, to the terrace on the top of
the house, and then ran for his firearms, which unfortunately were below. But the
murderers, about two hundred in all, were already in possession of the lower part of the
house; and the only weapon which Mr. Davis could reach was an Indian
pike or spear, which chanced to be upstairs. This pike, according to his son, Sir Francis, was one of those used by running footmen in
India. It was of iron, plated with silver, in rings, to give a firmer grasp, rather more
than six feet in length, and had a long triangular blade of more than twenty inches. With
this weapon, and single-handed, the Judge defended himself like a valiant soldier, and
saved his own life, the lives of his wife and children, and of many others. Taking his
station on the terrace, on one knee, just over the trap-door of the staircase, he waited
for the assault. He was favoured by the steepness and narrowness of the staircase, which
allowed only a
| CHAP. XVII] | VIZIER ALI | 173 |
“I believe,” says Mr.
Elphinstone, “that, at that time, little Davis with his fifteen
Sepoys would not have hesitated to attack a thousand of the rabble
insurgents.” The vile gang went off at score to plunder and burn other English
houses, and to murder, which they did, three more Englishmen. In a brief space of time a
small advance party of cavalry from
| 174 | MR. DAVIS | [CHAP. XVII |
The insurgents appeared to be determined to make a stand, to plunder Benares, and then to set fire to the four corners of the city. In marching through one of the suburbs our troops suffered considerably by a hot fire from the houses, and both of General Erskine’s orderlies were shot at his side. But they reached the Nabob’s strongly-walled and fortified palace, blew open the gate with some field pieces, and obtained admission to the principal court and then into every part of the edifice, garden, and grounds. They searched there, but in vain, for the dastardly conspirator and assassin, Vizier Ali. He had fled northwards towards Betaul, accompanied by all his well-mounted horsemen.
In his early days, some time before the great French Revolution of 1789,
Mr. Davis, then passionately fond of drawing and
landscape-painting, travelled on the Continent and resided a considerable time in Paris,
where he attracted some attention as an amateur artist. Some drawings he exhibited at Paris
were highly admired and much talked of at the time. He continued to cultivate this taste in
India. Being at an up-country station near to the ruins of Gaur, one of the ancient Hindu
capitals, he set out alone, and on foot, one cool morning, to make sketches of those
remains. He was intent on his work, carrying his eye from the ruins to his sketchbook, from
his sketch-book to the ruins, and looking at nothing else, when all at once he heard a
rustling noise, and a heavy tread. Looking sharply round, he saw, close on his right flank,
a huge surly-looking bear, staring at him round the corner of a ruin. The only weapon he
had with him was a penknife to cut his pencils. But he did not lose heart or nerve; he
closed his sketch-book with a slap, raised a shout, and stood still with his open penknife
in hand. Bruin
| CHAP. XVII] | A BRAVE JUDGE | 175 |
I first had this bear story from Mr. Elphinstone, but I have since heard it repeated as a family tradition by old Davis’s daughter, Mrs. J. F. Lyall.
Mr. E.’s modesty never allows him to make himself the hero of his own stories. As he had so much to do with the preparation of Sir Francis Davis’s Benares narrative, the fact is, of course, not mentioned there; but I have grounds for believing that it was through the courage, activity, and hard riding of my friend, who chanced to be in the town when the insurrection broke out, that the native police-officer and the sepoys were hurried to the Judge’s house, and the cavalry and field-pieces were brought up so quickly and so very opportunely.
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