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Sepoys of his own regiment, but as no proof could be obtained, punishment could not be inflicted.

9. It now became apparent that the regiment was disaffected. The men were suspected of intriguing with: the relatives of the ex-King, residing in the city, and tampering with men of the military police, but the officers of the regiment refused to credit these reports and rejected all suspicion of the disaffection of their men. It seems strange on looking back that these many warnings should, have passed unheeded, and there should have been no suspicion amongst the officers serving with native regiments that discontent was universal amongst the sepoys, and that a mutiny of the whole Bengal Army was imminent. But at that time the reliance on the fidelity of the native troops was unbounded, and officers believed implicitly in the contentment and loyalty of their men. Their faith in them was extraordinary. Even after half the native army had mutinied, and many of the officers had been murdered, those belonging to the remaining regiments could not believe that their own particular men could be guilty of treachery. Seeing this state of things, Sir Henry vigorously applied himself to concentrate his military resources, which, at the time of the first occupation of the province by the British, had to be located in buildings that were found the best available for the accommodation of troops; but, unfortunately, these places were widely apart and inconveniently situated.

10. The Chief Commissioner's head-quarters were at the Residency. About the Residency were closely clustered several buildings which formed the residences of, and afforded accommodation for, the offices of the Judicial and Financial Commissioners, the Civil Surgeon, and others. The Treasury was also located here, and a Company of the 48th Native Infantry guarded it and the Residency. The sepoys occupied a curved line of buildings outside the principal gate leading to the Residency, to which the name of "Baillie Guard" was given.[1] About a mile and a half eastward was placed the only European Infantry in Oudh, Her Majesty's 32nd Regiment.


  1. When Nawab Asuf-ud-daula, after transferring the seat of Government from Fyzabad to Lucknow (1775), resided in his palace, the Daulat Khaua, the Resident was accommodated in one of the buildings attached to it, but when Sadat Ali Khan made the Farhat Buksh his own dwelling-place, he built the Residency close to it. At first no military guard was attached to the Residency, but when Colonel Baillie was Resident in Oudh, a guard of honor was appointed, and a house built for it by Sadat Ali, close to the gate of the Residency enclosure, which thus obtained its world-famed name of tho "Baillie Guard," the name by which the natives called our intrenchment.