over, defective. Outram had enlisted, both in the police and in the army, sepoys who had been in the service of the king of Oudh. Elements, therefore, there were in abundance portending trouble. And so, while Dalhousie was complacently reporting that all was well in Oudh, want of tact, want of sympathy, were making it impossible that all should be well.

For the moment, indeed, Lawrence's energy averted disaster. The 7th Native Infantry was disarmed, and authority was restored by an act of vigour. But the future could hardly be regarded without anxiety. In 1857 Lucknow ranked after Calcutta as the largest and finest of Indian cities; 2 and Lucknow, with its 700,000 inhabitants, and only a weak British force, was teeming with disbanded mercenaries, disappointed landowners, and hungry, nay, starving dependents of the late Government. News of the Meerut rising was plainly calculated to excite a discontented population; and Lawrence, conscious of his own difficulties, thought it necessary to provide for the safety of the European inhabitants. He decided on holding two separate points-one the Residency, the other an old Sikh fort, which, "from some emblematic figure on its exterior," was known as the Fish Tower. The inconvenience likely to result from the separation of the Europeans into two distinct buildings, unconnected with one another, was in his judgment worth encountering for the sake of showing that the British were not dismayed, and were still confident of maintaining their authority.

And so, thus preparing for the coming storm, Lawrence waited throughout May, and on the last day but one of this month the sepoys in Lucknow rose. Attacked by the small European force which Lawrence was able to bring against them, they retreated from the city, and, streaming northwards, joined other insurgents at Delhi. For the next few weeks, so far as Lucknow was concerned, Lawrence had to face a discontented city rather than an insurgent soldiery. But he had the anxiety of knowing that forty miles south of him, at Cawn

1 See ante, p. 297.

3 Ibid., p. 564.

2 Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 558. 4 Ibid., p. 560.

Their fate, more

For he saw that

pore, another handful of Europeans were exposed, in an even more critical situation, to a graver danger. over, he knew was interlinked with his own. the fall of Cawnpore would inevitably lead to the siege of the Residency at Lucknow.

Cawnpore.

Cawnpore, a city of 100,000 people, lies on the Ganges, in a hot dusty plain. In 1857 Wheeler, who was in command of the garrison at that place, had under him four Native regiments and about threescore European soldiers. A large civilian population, accompanied with many ladies and their children, was living at the station. Wheeler foresaw that, amidst an insurrection which was becoming universal, Cawnpore would be attacked; and accordingly, early in May he took steps to avert the coming danger. He drew a hasty and wide entrenchment round the barrack, whither he decided that the Europeans in case of need might withdraw. On the night of the 21st of May the whole British population withdrew into this temporary fortress. Slender reinforcements—the forerunners, it was hoped, of further aid-raised the number of its garrison to 210 men. Officers of other regiments, women and children, raised the population of the fortress to nearly 1000 souls.1

It was inevitable that such a population, crowded together in such buildings, should be exposed to discomforts almost fatal in their character. The European who passes a June in India takes special precautions to protect himself from the heat; and in these crowded buildings, surrounded by the hot dusty plain, the heat was excessive, and precautions were impossible. It was inevitable, too, that a weak band of Europeans, isolated amidst a mutinous army in a rude earthwork, should regard the future with anxiety: yet the anxiety was alternated with hope. Officers of Sepoy regiments, inmates of the fortress, relied to the last on the fidelity of their men. Their commander, though not sharing their confidence, trusted to the sufficiency of his preparations. He did not contemplate the possibility of a siege. He thought that the regiments, if 1 Cf. Red Pamphlet, p. 130, with Holmes's Indian Mutiny, p. 239.

they rose, would hasten to withdraw to the centre of insurrection at Delhi, and it would thus be with himself at Cawnpore as it was with Lawrence at Lucknow.

Nana Sahib.

There was another reason, moreover, which diminished Wheeler's anxiety. There was staying at Cawnpore in May 1857 a native—a Mahratta—who was living on the friendliest terms with the British residents. Joining their sports, sharing their hospitality, mingling with them in the smoking-room and at the billiard-table, this Mahratta had won the confidence of British officers. He was a man, moreover, in whom it seemed generous to confide. For this agreeable Mahratta youth had been the adopted heir of the last Peishwa of Berari; and Dalhousie, strong in asserting the right of lapse, had refused to continue to him the pension. guaranteed to the Peishwa and his successors. It is not in the nature of Englishmen to speak harshly to those whom British policy degrades, and the Mahratta youth had been fêted in London, when he had journeyed thither to plead his claims, and had been hailed as good fellow in India when he travelled through Oudh in the autumn of 1856 and the spring of 1857. His smooth manners, his winning talk, commended him to society in Oudh, as it had already won him an entrance to society in London. Even Wheeler, distrusting his own men, decided on asking him to take charge, with his armed retinue, of the treasury. And thus, while he watched and waited with his thousand companions in the hot and dusty barracks to which he had retreated for safety, he was able to reflect that British treasure was safe in Mahratta keeping. Safe! The story of that protection will last as long as the most solid building in Cawnpore. The name of that Mahratta will be remembered when the names of Wheeler and his comrades are forgotten. For that smooth Mahratta youth was to do a deed of blood such as this world of bloodshedding has not often seen, and the name by which he is commonly known is the Nana Sahib.

Watching and waiting, the Europeans remained within their slender entrenchment. On the 4th of June the crisis

VOL. VI.

U

for which they had watched and waited came.

The rising at Cawnpore.

The sepoys

rose. Making common cause with the Mahratta's retinue, they joined them in plundering the treasury. Seeking a leader, they asked the young

Mahratta himself to take the command. And, rich with spoil, they set out on the 5th of July to swell the crowd of insurgents at Delhi. But the Nana had other thoughts than those which were precipitating his new followers on Delhi. Instead of helping to restore the Mogul Empire, why should he not carve a kingdom for himself at Cawnpore, out of the vast possessions of the Company? Instead of leading his troops to Delhi, he persuaded them to return, attempt to overwhelm the feeble British cantonments, and assert his and their authority at Cawnpore. The sepoys

listened to his smooth talk as the British had listened before. They listened and he prevailed; and on the evening of the 6th of June the siege of Cawnpore began.

On the story of that siege it is unnecessary to dwell. Other pens have told how the thousand souls, their numbers constantly lessening, without hope, almost without food, fought and endured for twenty days. On the twentieth day the sorely tried garrison was tempted to surrender by a promise from the Nana of a safe passage to Allahabad for all who had not been connected with the acts of Dalhousie.1 Beguiled by this assurance, on the 27th of June the survivors of the siege evacuated their entrenchments and moved to the Ganges to embark on the boats which the Nana had prepared for them. But their embarkation was only the signal for massacre. A sepoy force, held in ambush, opened on them with artillery and musketry. Crowded in boats which were aground on the shore, the British proved an easy mark for their enemies. Only one boat succeeded in pushing off into the stream. Its crew, without oars, without rudder, without food, was followed on the banks by a crowd of sepoys who poured upon it their fire, and ultimately brought back all the survivors, except four, captives to Cawn1 Holmes's Indian Mutiny, p. 245.

The massacre at the boats.

The murder

pore. Thither the survivors from the other boats had already been carried by the Nana's orders. There in a miserable house, enduring a captivity worse than death, these unfortunate individuals lingered till the 15th of July. of the surOn that day they were butchered by the Nana's orders, and, on the following morning, their bodies, some still alive, were thrust into an adjacent well.1

vivors.

Lawrence had foreseen that the capture of the entrenchments at Cawnpore would increase his own difficulties. And his anticipations proved correct. Twenty miles from Lucknow an army of mutineers were waiting tidings from the Nana; and, at the end of June, when the Nana's work was done, they closed on Lucknow. Instead of waiting a siege, Lawrence was persuaded to move out of his fortress and attack The sortie at the enemy. But the sortie led to disaster. The Lucknow. Native troops who had till then remained faithful behaved badly. Lawrence's small force was outflanked and forced to retreat, leaving five guns with the enemy. Thenceforward the English at Lucknow, abandoning the Fish Tower, were closely besieged in the Residency. But worse was still in store for them. On the second day of the siege, a chance shot, finding its way into the exposed room in which Lawrence was resting, inflicted on him the terrible wound which, after thirtysix hours' suffering, caused his death. With him died one of the noblest and truest of the many noble and true men who have laid down their lives for India.

2

Thus, at the commencement of July, the North-West and Oudh were for the time lost to Britain. In the North-West, a feeble descendant of the Mogul Emperors had, with sepoy aid, re-established his authority at Delhi. In Oudh the most treacherous and bloodthirsty of Indians was revelling in blood at Cawnpore. In the North-West, Colvin was maintaining a feeble authority at Agra. In Oudh a small body of Europeans, closely besieged, were deploring the loss of their great leader. The Empire of the Company seemed crumbling to

1 For this account see, inter alia, Holmes's Indian Mutiny, pp. 232-253; Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. ii. p. 286 et seq; Red Pamphlet, Pt. ii. pp. 130-143. 2 Life of Sir H. Lawrence, pp. 598-613.