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Meanwhile the greatest anxiety prevailed with regard to our countrymen and country women at Lucknow and Cawnpore. The Indian government made every effort to relieve them; but the reinforcements which had been despatched from England and China came in slowly, and the demands made for assistance far exceeded the means at the disposal of the government. At this conjuncture Sir Henry Lawrence died from the effects of a wound caused by the bursting of a shell. His death was a great calamity, and rendered the position of the British at Lucknow more critical than ever. Before his decease he desired that this modest epitaph should be placed on his tomb: 'Here lies Sir Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty.' The task of relieving the city was entrusted to the heroic General Havelock, who marched out with a mere handful of men, of whom only 1400 were British soldiers, to encounter a large army and a whole country in rebellion. At Futtehpore, on the 12th of July, he defeated a vastly superior force, posted in a very strong position. After giving his men a day's rest, he advanced again on the 14th, and routed the enemy in two pitched battles. Next morning he renewed his advance, and with a force of less than 900 men attacked 5000 strongly entrenched, and commanded by Nana Sahib. They were outmanoeuvred, outflanked, beaten and dispersed. But for this signal defeat they wreaked their vengeance on the unfortunate women and children who still remained at Cawnpore. On the very day on which the battle occurred, they were massacred under circumstances of cruelty over which we must throw a veil. The well of Cawnpore, in which their hacked and mutilated bodies were flung, presented a spectacle from which soldiers who had regarded unmoved the carnage of numerous battle-fields shrank with horror. Of all the atrocities perpetrated during this war, so fruitful in horrors, this was the most awful; and it was followed by a terrible retribution. It steeled the hearts, and lent a furious and fearless energy to the arms, of the British soldiery. Wherever they came, they gave no quarter to the mutineers; a few men often frantically attacked hundreds, frantically but vainly defending themselves; and never ceased till all had been bayoneted, or shot, or hewn in pieces. All those who could be shown to have been accomplices in the perpetra

tion of the murders that had been committed were hung, or blown from the cannon's mouth.

Though the intrepid Havelock was unable to save the women and children who had been imprisoned in Cawnpore, he pressed forward to Lucknow. But the force under his command was too small to enable him to drive off the enemy. Meanwhile Sir J. Outram, who was now returning from the Persian war, which had been brought to a successful conclusion, was sent to Oude as chief commissioner, with full civil and military power. This appointment was fully deserved; but it had the effect, probably not thought of by those who made it, of superseding Havelock just as he was about to achieve the crowning success of his rapid and glorious career. Outram, however, with a generosity which did him more real honour than a thousand victories would have conferred, wrote to Havelock to inform him that he intended to join him with adequate reinforcements; adding: To you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil capacity as commissioner, placing my military service at your disposal, should you please, and serving under you as a volunteer.' Thus Havelock, after gaining no fewer than twelve battles against forces far superior in numbers to the little band he originally led, was enabled at length, on the 25th of August, to preserve the civilians, the women, and children of Lucknow from the impending horrors of another massacre, which would no doubt have been as fearful as that of Cawnpore. The Highlanders were the first to enter, and were welcomed with grateful enthusiasm by those whom they had saved from a fate worse than death. However, the enemy, recovering from the panic which the arrival of Havelock and his troops had caused, renewed the siege. Sir Colin Campbell, who had assumed the command of the Indian army, had determined to march to the relief of Lucknow. set out from Cawnpore on the 9th of November, but was obliged to wait till the 14th for reinforcements, which were on the way to join him, and which raised the force under his command to 5000-a force numerically far inferior to that which it was to attack. On the 17th of November the relief of Lucknow was effected. The music of the Highland regiments, playing 'The Campbells are coming,' an

He

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SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.

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nounced to their delighted countrymen inside the city that the commander-in-chief himself was with the relieving force. Little time, however, was allowed for congratulations and rejoicings. The ladies, the civilians, and the garrison were quietly withdrawn; the guns, which it was thought not desirable to remove, were burst; and a retreat effected, without affording the enemy the slightest suspicion of what was going on until some hours after the town had been evacuated by its defenders. The retreating force reached Dilhasha on the 24th, without having sustained any serious molestation. There the gallant Havelock sank under the trials and hardships to which he had been exposed, and yielded up the life which was instrumental in preserving so many others from the most terriblo of deaths.

While Sir Colin Campbell was engaged in effecting the relief of Lucknow, intelligence reached Cawnpore that a large hostile army was making towards it. General Windham, who commanded there, unacquainted with the number or the position of the approaching force, marched forth to meet it, in the hope that he should be able to rout and cut up the advanced guard before the main body of the enemy could come to its assistance. But in this expectation he was disappointed. Instead of having to deal with the van, he engaged with the whole rebel army, and his little force, assailed on all sides, was obliged to retire. He at once despatched a letter to the commander-in-chief, requesting him to hasten to his assistance; but it was intercepted by the enemy. Fortunately Sir Colin Campbell, though ignorant of the critical position of his subordinate, came up just at the moment when the danger was at its height. This was on the 28th of November. He was, however, in no haste to attack the foe, and was content for the present merely to hold them in check. His first care was for the safety of the civilians, the women, and the children, which was not secured till the 30th; and he continued to protect them till the 5th of December, when they were all safely lodged at Allahabad. The enemy, unaware of the motive of his seeming inaction, imputed it to fear, and became every day more confident and audacious. On the 6th he at length turned fiercely on them, completely defeated them, and seized their baggage; he then dispersed and

drove away another large force, under the command of Nana Sahib, which was watching the engagement at a little distance. The army entered the residence of Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and took possession of much treasure, which had been concealed in a well. Nearly the whole of the enemy's artillery was captured; and the army, being overtaken as they were in the act of crossing into Oude, great numbers of them were destroyed. Of course, for the moment Lucknow, being no longer garrisoned, had fallen into the hands of the insurgents; but they were not long permitted to retain it. Strong reinforcements arrived, and the Indian government was enabled to send a force against Lucknow sufficient to overwhelm all resistance; and on the 15th of December this important city was in the undisputed possession of the British troops. This final recovery of the capital of Oude decided the reconquest of that country. A struggle was, indeed, maintained for some time longer; innumerable battles were fought; and the final subjugation of the country was effected in the month of June, 1858, when Sir H. Rose issued the following general order, which we copy because it gives a just and striking résumé of the operations of the campaign, which ended in the complete restoration of the British authority in India:

'Soldiers, you have marched more than a thousand miles, and taken more than a hundred guns. You have forced your way through mountain passes and intricate jungles, and over rivers; you have captured the strongest forts, and beat the enemy, no matter what the odds, wherever you met them; you have restored extensive districts to the government, and peace and order now reign where before for twelve months were tyranny and rebellion: you have done all this, and you have never had a check. I thank you with all sincerity for your bravery, your devotion, and your discipline. When you first marched, I told you that you, as British soldiers, had more than enough of courage for the work which was before you, but that courage without discipline was of no avail; and I exhorted you to let discipline be your watchword. You have attended to my orders. In hardships, in temptations, and in dangers you have obeyed your general, and you have never left your ranks. You have fought against the strong, and you have protected the rights of the weak and defenceless, of foes as well as friends:

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I have seen you in the ardour of the combat preserve and place children out of harm's way. This is the discipline of Christian soldiers, and this it is that has brought you triumphant from the shores of Western India to the waters of the Jumna, and establishes without doubt that you will find no place to equal the glory of your arms.'

It is true that after the issue of this order there was a momentary renewal of the struggle; that a large body of the defeated rebels in their retreat from Culpee captured Gwalior and deposed Scindia, who throughout the whole of the revolt had steadily adhered to the British. He now fled to Agra, being unable to withstand this unexpected deluge; but the arrival of the British troops in pursuit of the invaders soon put an end to their brief triumph. Scindia reëntered his capital on the twentieth day of the same month in which he had been driven out of it.

When the news of the mutiny began to reach England, it was generally received with that insouciance which has almost always been displayed with regard to the affairs. of that vast and important part of our empire in which it occurred. It was assumed that the outbreaks had been suppressed, or easily would be; and that the next mail or telegram would announce their complete extinction, and the condign punishment of those who had taken part in them. Few, indeed, were aware of the real gravity of the crisis. And when the mutiny had grown into a revolt, and the revolt into a rebellion, the feeling was still the same; a feeling of perhaps overweening confidence in the force and fortune of England. When one sepoy regiment after another was joining the rebellion; when at one post after another the Europeans were massacred or driven away; when mail after mail brought home news that Delhi was still holding out, that Lucknow was still beleaguered, and that a gigantic effort was being made by the natives of a great portion of India to chase the handful of English out of their country; and above all when accounts of the more and more frightful atrocities practised on our countrymen and country women reached our shores, then a very different feeling arose; not a feeling of fear-for throughout the whole of this critical struggle the English people never realised the greatness of the danger that threatened our government of India-but a cry for vengeance, and an