This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FALL OF DELHI EXPECTED
179

shelter. Criticism has been directed to one or two minor incidents which do not call for any notice in these pages.

As to the first point, it is beyond doubt that the three men on whom the storm broke, John Colvin, John Lawrence, and Henry Lawrence, looked to the immediate attack upon Delhi, to nip the Mutiny in the bud. 'Unless Delhi and its magazine are recovered,' wrote Sir John Lawrence on May 13 to the Commander-in-Chief, 'the insurrection will assuredly spread. ... By decisive measures at once we should crush the mutineers, and give support to the well-affected or timid. Time in such matters seems to be everything.' On May 23 Sir John[1] 'still thinks that no real resistance at Delhi will be attempted. ... My impression is that on the approach of our troops the mutineers will either disperse, or the people of the city rise and open their gates.' He even touches on the measures of military reform to be taken later. On May 27 Sir Henry wrote[2], 'In a few weeks, if not days, unless Delhi be in the interim captured, there will be one feeling throughout the army. ... Once Delhi is recaptured, the game will again be in our hands.' 'A victory at Delhi is the secret of all effect,' wrote Mr. Colvin on the 25th. Two days before, he had written to Mr. Mangles, 'Everything depends on the Commander-in-Chief's attack.' All three counted on that, and on that only. But of

  1. Life of Lord Lawrence, by Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 15, 33.
  2. Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 327.