was approached, the followers and bystanders slunk away, being unwilling to confront the British troops. The captain rode on a few paces ahead, and ordered the Lahore Gate to be opened. 'Who have you there in the palanquin?' asked the officer on duty. Only the King of Delhi,' was the reply. The guard were all enraptured, and wanted to greet Hodson with a cheer; but he said the king would probably take the honour to himself, which was not desirable. On they went, through the once magnificent but now deserted Chandnee Chowk; and the daring captor, at the gate of the palace, handed up his royal prisoners to the civil authorities.

Captain Hodson's work was not yet finished; there were other members of the royal family towards whom his attention was directed. Early on the following morning, he started to avail himself of information he obtained concerning three of

of monstrous deeds which rendered them worthy of instant death. He went with a hundred of his troopers to the Tomb of Humayoon, where the princes were concealed. After accepting 'king's evidence,' bribing, threatening, and manoeuvring, Hodson secured his prisoners, and sent them off with a small escort to the city. Entering the tomb, he found it filled with an enormous number of palace scum and city rabble, mostly armed; but so thoroughly cowed were they by his fearless demeanour, that they quietly obeyed his order to lay down their arms and depart. The captain and his men then moved warily off to the city; and at a short distance from the gate, he found the vehicle containing the princes surrounded by a mob, who seemed disposed to resist him. What followed must be given in the words of an officer who was in a position to obtain accurate information. This was no time for hesitation or delay.

Hodson dashed at once into the midst-in few but energetic words explained "that these were the men who had not only rebelled against the government, but had ordered and witnessed the massacre and shameful exposure of innocent women and children; and that thus therefore the government punished such traitors, taken in open resistance" -shooting them down at the word. The effect was instantaneous and wonderful. Not another hand was raised, not another weapon levelled, and the Mohammedans of the troop and some influential moulvies among the bystanders exclaimed, as if by simultaneous impulse: "Well and rightly done! Their crime has met with its just penalty. These were they who gave the signal for the death of helpless women and children, and outraged decency by the exposure of their persons, and now a righteous judgment has fallen on them. God is great!" The remaining weapons were then laid down, and the crowd slowly and quietly dispersed. The bodies were then carried into the city, and thrown out on the very spot where the blood of their innocent victims still stained the earth. They remained there till the 24th, when, for sanitary reasons, they were removed from the Chibootra in front of the Kotwallee. The effect of this just retribution was as miraculous on the populace as it was deserved by the criminals.' Thus were put to death two of the old king's sons, Mirza Mogul Beg, and another whose name is doubtful, together with Mirza's son.

What was done to restore order in Delhi after its recapture; who was appointed to command it; what arrangements were made for bringing to justice the wretched king who was now a prisoner; and what military plan was formed for pursuing the mutinous regiments which had escaped from the city-will more conveniently be noticed in subsequent pages.

The country did not fail to do honour to those who had been concerned in the conquest of the imperial city. The commander of the siege-army was of course the first to be noticed. Although he had no European reputation, Archdale Wilson had served as an artillery officer nearly forty years in India. He was employed at the siege of Bhurtpore in 1824, and in many other active services; but his chief duties confined him to the artillery depôts. It is a curious fact that most of the guns employed by him at the siege of Delhi, as well as those used by the enemy against him, had been cast by him as superintendent of the gun-foundry at Calcutta many years before, and bore his name as part of the device. He held in succession the offices of adjutant-general of artillery and commandant of artillery. At the commencement of the mutiny, his regimental rank Heutenant-colonel of the Bengal artil

was

I as brigadier at Meerut, and was ed to the rank of major-general. November, raised him to the ade him a Knight Commander

of the Order of the Bath; and thus the artillery officer had risen to the rank of 'Major-general Sir Archdale Wilson, K.C.B.' The East India Company, too, sought to bestow honour-or something more solid than honour-on the victorious commander; the court of proprietors, on the suggestion of the court of directors, voted a pension of £1000 per annum to Sir Archdale Wilson, to commence from the day when his troops entered Delhi.

What honours Brigadier Nicholson would have earned, had his valuable life been spared, it would be useless to surmise. He was an especial favourite among the soldiers in the Indian army-more so, perhaps, than some whose names are better known to English readers; and his death withinside the walls of Delhi was very generally deplored. He had not yet attained his 35th year-a very early age at which to obtain brigade command, either in the Company's or the Queen's armies. Nothing but the unbounded confidence of Sir John Lawrence in the military genius of Nicholson would have justified him in making so young a man, a simple regimental captain (brevet-major), brigadier of a column destined to fight the rebels all the way from the Punjaub to Delhi; yet even those seniors who were superseded by this arrangement felt that the duty was intrusted to one equal to its demands. He had seen hard service during the Afghan and Punjaub campaigns, as captain in the 27th Bengal native infantry; and had, instead of idling his time during a furlough visit to England, studied the armies and military organisation of continental Europe. An officer who served with him during the mutiny said: 'He had a constitution of iron. The day we marched to Murdan he was twenty-six hours in the saddle, following up the mutineers.' The Queen granted the posthumous dignity of Knight Commander of the Bath upon Brigadiergeneral John Nicholson; and as he was unmarried, the East India Company departed from their general rule, by bestowing a special grant of £500 per annum upon his widowed mother, who had in earlier years lost another son in the Company's service.

One among many civil servants of the Company who fell during the siege was Hervey Harris Greathed, a member of a family well known in India. After filling various official situations in the Punjaub, Rajpootana, and Meerut, he became chief-commissioner of Delhi, after the foul murder of Mr Simon Fraser on the 11th of May. Serve or remain in Delhi itself he could not, for obvious reasons; but he was with Wilson's army in the expedition from Meerut to Delhi, and then remained with the siege-army on the heights, where his intimate knowledge of India and the natives was of essential value. He died of cholera just before the conclusion of the siege. His brothers, Robert and George Herbert, had already died in the services of the Company or the crown; but two others, Edward Harris and William Wilberforce Harris, survived to achieve fame as gallant officers.

Another of those who fell on the day of the

He

assault was Lieutenant Philip Salkeld, of the Bengal engineers. He was the son of a Dorsetshire clergyman, and went to India in 1850, in his twentieth year, in the corps of Sappers and Miners. He was employed for four years as an engineer in connection with the new works of the grand trunkroad, in Upper India; and was then transferred to the executive engineers' department in the Delhi division. His first taste of war was in relation to the mutinies; he was engaged in all the operations of the siege of Delhi, and was struck down while gallantly exploding the Cashmere Gate. lingered in great pain, and died about the 10th of October. The Rev. S. G. Osborne, in a letter written soon after the news of Salkeld's death reached England, said: "This young officer has not more distinguished himself in his profession by his devotion to his country's service of his life, than he stands distinguished in the memory of those who knew him for his virtues as a son and brother. His father, a clergyman in Dorsetshire, by a reverse of fortune some years since, was with a large family reduced, I may say, to utter poverty. This, his soldier sen, supported out of his own professional income one of his brothers at school, helping a sister, obliged to earn her own bread as a governess, to put another brother to school. Just before his death he had saved a sum of £1000, which was in the bank at Delhi, and was therefore lost to him, and, more than this, it was lost to the honourable purpose to which, as a son and brother, he had devoted it. In his native county it has been determined to erect a monument to his memory by subscription. Cadetships having been given to two of

his young brothers, it is now wisely resolved that while the memorial which is to hand down his name to posterity in connection with his glorious death shall be all that is necessary for the purpose, every farthing collected beyond the sum necessary for this shall be expended as he would have desired, for the good of these his young brothers.'

Lieutenant Duncan Home, another hero of the Cashmere Gate, was not one of the wounded on that perilous occasion; he lived to receive the approval of his superior in the engineering department; but his death occurred even sooner than that of his companion in arms, for he was mortally wounded on the 1st of October while engaged with an expeditionary force in pursuit of the fleeing rebels. It was on that day, a few hours before he received the fatal bullet, that he wrote a letter to his mother in England; in which, after describing the operations at the Cashmere Gate, he said: 'I was then continually on duty until the king evacuated the palace. I had never more than four hours' sleep in the twenty-four, and then only by snatches. I had also the pleasure of blowing in the gate of the palace; luckily no one fired at me, there being so few men left in the palace.'

Salkeld and Home received the 'Victoria Cross,' a much-coveted honour among the British troops engaged in the Indian war. As did likewise Sergeant Smith, who so boldly risked, yet saved, his life; and also Bugler Hawthorne of the 52d, who blew his signal-blast in spite of the shots whistling around him. Poor Sergeant Carmichael and Corporal Burgess did not live to share in this honour; they fell bullet-pierced.

HERE were events that made a deeper impression on the minds of the English public; military exploits more grand and comprehensive; episodes more fatal, more harrowing; trains of operation in which well-known heroic names more frequently found place-but there was nothing in the whole history of the Indian mutiny more admirable or worthy of study than the defence of Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis and the British who were shut up with him in the Residency. Such a triumph over difficulties has not often been placed upon record. Nothing but the most resolute determination, the most complete soldierly

obedience, the most untiring watchfulness, the most gentle care of those who from sex or age were unable to defend themselves, the most thorough reliance on himself and on those around him, could have enabled that gallant man to bear up against the overwhelming difficulties which pressed upon him throughout the months of July, August, and September. He occupied one corner of an enormous city, every other part of which was swarming with deadly enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant death at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble; no friends could succour him, seeing that anything less than a considerable military force would have been cut off ere it reached the gates of the Residency; no food or drink, no medicines or

comforts, no clothing, no ammunition, in addition to that which was actually within the place at the beginning of July, could be brought in. Great beyond expression were the responsibilities and anxieties of one placed in command during eightyseven of such days-but there was also a moral grandeur in the situation, never to be forgotten.

In former chapters of this work,* much has been said concerning Lucknow, its relations towards the British government on the one hand, and the court of Oude on the other, and the operations which enabled Havelock and Neill to bring a small reinforcement to its British garrison towards the close of September; but what the garrison did and suffered during the three months before this succour could reach them, has yet to be told. The eventful story may be given conveniently in this place, as one among certain intermediate subjects between the military operations of Sir Henry Havelock and those of Sir Colin Campbell.

Let us endeavour, by recapitulating a few facts, to realise in some degree the position of the British at Lucknow when July commenced. The city is a little over fifty miles from Cawnpore-exactly fifty to the Alum Bagh, fifty-three to the Residency, and fifty-seven to the cantonment. Most of its principal buildings, including the Residency, were on the right or southwest bank of the river Goomtee. There was a cantonment Residency, and also a city Residency, at both of which, according to his daily duties, it was the custom of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence to dwell, before the troubles of the mutiny began; but it is the city Residency which has acquired a notoriety that will never die. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the mere official mansion called the Residency bore but a small ratio to the area and the buildings now known to English readers by that name. This ambiguity is not without its inconveniences, for it denotes a Residency within a Residency. Understanding the Residency to mean English Lucknow, the part of the city containing the offices and dwellings of most of the official English residents, then it may be described as an irregular quadrangle a few hundred yards square, jutting out at the north corner, and indented or contracted at the west. Within that limit were numerous residences and other buildings, some military, some political or civil, some private. The word 'garrison' was applied after the defence began, to buildings which had previously been private or official residences; if, therefore, the reader meets in one map with 'Fayrer's House,' and in another with Fayrer's Garrison,' he must infer that a private residence was fortified as a stronghold when the troubles began. In this chapter we shall in most instances denominate the whole area as the intrenchment or enclosure, with the Residency itself as one of the buildings; and we shall furthermore retain the original designation of house, rather than garrison, for each of the minor residences. The northeast

Chap. vi., pp. 82-96. Chap. x, pp. 163-165. Chap. xv., pp. 247-263.

side of the whole enclosure was nearly parallel with the river; and the north corner was in near proximity to an iron bridge carrying a road over the river to the cantonment.

How the British became cooped up within that enclosure, the reader already knows; a few words will bring to recollection the facts fully treated in the chapters lately cited. We have there seen that there were burnings of bungalows, and cartridge troubles, as early as April, in the cantonment of Lucknow; that on the 3d of May some of the native troops became insubordinate at the Moosa Baghi, a military post three or four miles northwest of the Residency; that the 3d Oude infantry was broken into fragments by this mutiny and its consequences; that Sir Henry Lawrence sought to restore a healthy feeling by munificently rewarding certain native soldiers who had remained faithful under temptation; that towards the close of the month he attended very sedulously to various magazines and military posts in and near the city; that he fortified the English quarter by placing defence-works on and near the walls by which it was already three-fourths surrounded, and by setting up other defences on the remaining fourth side; that he brought all the women and children, and all the sick, of the English community, into the space thus enclosed and guarded; that on the last two days of the month he had the vexation of seeing most of the native troops in Lucknow and at the cantonment, belonging to the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, march off in mutiny towards Seetapoor; and that of the seven hundred who remained behind, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single hour. Next, under the month of June, we have seen that nearly all the districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents, increasing at every stage the difficulties which beset Sir Henry as civil and military chief of the province; that he knew the mutineers were approaching Lucknow as a hostile army, and that he looked around in vain for reinforcements; that he paid off most of the sepoys still remaining with him, glad to get rid of men whose continuance in fidelity could not be relied on; that he greatly strengthened the Residency, and also the Muchee Bhowan, a castellated structure northwest of it, formerly inhabited by the dependents of the King of Oude; that all his letters and messages to other places became gradually cut off, leaving him without news of the occurrences in other parts of India; that he stored the Residency with six months' provisions for a thousand persons as a means of preparing for the worst; and that on the last day of the month he fought a most disastrous battle with the mutineers at Chinhut, seven or eight miles out of Lucknow. Then, when July opened, we have seen the British Lawrence in a critical and painful situation. having lost many of his most valued troops, could no longer garrison the Muchee Bhowan, the cantonment, the dâk bungalow, or any place beyond