5. Most fortunately for us, at this juncture, there was one equal to the occasion at the capital. I allude to the late Sir Henry Lawrence, who arrived at Lucknow on the 20th of March, 1857. Sir Henry was then only 50 years of age, but he looked an old man, for his face bore traces of many years of toil beneath an Indian sun, and the still deeper marks of a never-ending conflict with self. His eyes, over-hung by massive craggy brows, looked out with an expression in which melancholy was strangely blended with humour; his thin wasted cheeks were furrowed, and this, with a long scanty beard, added to his care-worn look of age. On noticing the state of affairs, Sir Henry actively set about making preparations for the defence of Lucknow, as he was not the man to be an idle spectator of the movements among the native troops then ripe for rebellion.
6. The first thing Sir Henry did was to apply by telegraph to Calcutta, the seat of Government, for unlimited power in the Province of Oudh, of which he was Chief Commissioner; and it was unhesitatingly conferred on him by the Governor-General, Lord Canning, who knew that Sir Henry was not likely to abuse it. This was a step in the right direction, leaving the Chief Commissioner unfettered to cope with any emergency that might arise, as he thought proper, without referring to Head-Quarters, a reference which would otherwise have been necessary.
7.The native regiments at Lucknow were all the while most anxious for some pretext upon which to break out; and an excuse was soon found in the following incident, by which the men tried to make out that the Government intended to destroy their caste and religion. When a feeling of discontent has once taken root, small matters, though not tending to the injury of the discontented, are readily magnified.
8. Dr. Wells, of the 48th Native Infantry Regiment, stationed at Mariaon Cantonments,[1] on the occasion of one of his visits to the regimental hospital, incautiously applied to his mouth a bottle of medicine with a view of testing its contents, and this act was construed into a deliberate attempt to break the caste of the men. The consequence was an outcry among them, and a refusal to touch any of the medicines prescribed for them. A few nights after, the Doctor's bungalow was fired, but he fortunately escaped unhurt with the loss of his property only. It was suspected that the incendiaries were the
- ↑ The old British Military Cantonment, called by the natives Mariaon, was built in the reign of Nawab Sadat Ali Khan, (1798-1814).
