under the shelter of the garden walls that surround Delhi, was the leading reason why the English could not manage them. Had they come out and fought in the open field, the General would gladly have met them, even with his so much smaller force, and a single day would probably have decided the whole contest. Besides, they found it made a great difference to them whether they were led by English officers or by officers of their own race.
Our provisions were now becoming more and more scarce and dear. Instead of one hundred eggs for sixty-two and a half cents, as it used to be, we had now to pay five cents for a single egg, and all other things rose in value about in the same proportion. Just in our extremity, and quite unexpectedly to us, the Nawab of Rampore, a territory in the plains on the south of our position, sent up a confidential messenger to inquire what he could do for us? This was a great surprise, as he was a Mohammedan and governed a Mohammedan State, and we supposed that he would have gone with the Delhi conspirators. But, in the hour of decision, he remembered that he owed his throne to the justice of the English Government, which refused to carry out the will of the former sovereign of Rampore, one of whose wives induced him to arrange so as to cut off the rightful heir in favor of her little son. The English declined to commit this wrong, but, instead, confirmed the present Nawab; and now, when he was appealed to by the Delhi faction to join them, he declared that, come what might, he would never draw his sword against a people whose justice had defended his rights. He quietly withstood all their persuasions and threats, even at personal hazard, and was faithfully sustained in his resolution by his Minister and the Commander-in-chief of his little army—two men whom I had afterward the satisfaction of seeing publicly rewarded for their fidelity.
This was a great providence for us. Had the Nawab proved hostile, especially as our south pass touched his territory, our position would have been probably untenable for a single week. But he quietly covered our danger on that side, and left our defenders more free to watch our Bareilly foes on the east pass. What he
