was, and, we hope, still survives to be, the honoured custodian of the garden which surrounds the monument erected over the well that holds the remains of the victims of the crowning massacre of Cawnpore.

We turn from the contemplation of what Mr. Kaye justly calls the heroism of defeat,' as exemplified in the devoted endurance of the brave men appointed to die at Cawnpore, to the narrative of the energy and courage which first saved the Punjab from the foul treachery of the mutineers, and then culminated in the storming of Delhi. Without the reinforcements so largely contributed by the Punjab, Delhi could not have been taken; unless the Sepoys had been disarmed in the Punjab, the presence of the English regiments, of the Guides, and of other faithful corps, could not have been dispensed with in that province. The first step to this end was taken at Lahore. With what a happy union of prudence and daring this object was effected, Mr. Kaye records in pages which it costs us very sensible self-denial not to transcribe at length. We have space for but a few leading incidents. The disarming of our native regiments, so often and severely tried and found faithful through a long series of eventful years from Plassy to the bloody encounters with the Sikhs, was a very serious and hazardous measure, and one, too, that was well known to be extremely repugnant to the opinions and feelings of their English officers. But the intelligence which the telegraph had brought from Meerut, and what was known of the restless temper of the Sepoys, rendered it clear to Sir Robert Montgomery that the boldest step was also the safest, probably the only safe one. He did not, however, proceed rashly. He sought for trustworthy information :

'On his suggestion,' writes Mr. Kaye, 'Captain Richard Lawrence, Chief of the Police and Thuggee Departments in the Punjab, commissioned the head writer of the Thuggee Office, a Brahmin of Oude, to ascertain the feelings and intentions of the Lahore troops. A better agent could not have been employed, for his were both the country and the caste of the most influential of the Sepoys. He did his work loyally and well. Scrupulous as he was on the score of caste as any Brahmin in the service, he had no sympathy with treacherous machina

numbers was the greatest (the story is very well told in Mr. Trevelyan's 'Competition Walah '), was refused the knighthood of the Bath, on the ground that he had retired from the service before the claim was put forward. As the deed of daring was done in August 1857, and Sir Vincent did not retire till September 1863, one would suppose that there was abundant time in the interval to bestow upon him the cheap ' reward of nations,' so well earned.

tions of men who were eating the salt of the British Government and were under the kindly care of its officers, and he brought back to Richard Lawrence, after brief but satisfactory inquiry, tidings that the regiments at Meean-Meer (the cantonment of Lahore) were ripe for revolt. "Sahib," said the faithful Brahmin, "they are full of fisad "(sedition), they are up to this in it," and he laid his hand upon his throat. It was plain that they were only waiting for information from the countries below to break into open mutiny.'

After much discussion and some hesitation (a middle course of depriving them of their ammunition having been proposed), it was determined to disarm the Sepoys, and a parade for that purpose was ordered to take place on the following morning. A ball was given in the cantonment on that night, and it was attended by all the officers, some few conscious, but the great majority quite unaware, of what was impending; for silence and secresy were essential to success. So they danced on till morning, grumbling, meanwhile, at having to attend an early parade, following close on such a festival."

'But,' writes Mr. Kaye,' when the hours of morning darkness were past, and day had dawned upon Meean-Meer, other thoughts than these took possession of the Sepoy mind. The Brigade assembled on the parade-ground. There was nothing peculiar in the appearance of that assembly, except that Montgomery, Roberts, and others of the chief civil officers from Anarkullee, were to be seen mounted on the ground. Every soldier obeyed the orders that were issued to him. The regiments were drawn up in line of contiguous columns. The Artillery and Eighty-first (not numbering more than two hundred and fifty men) were on the right, the Native Cavalry on the left, and the Infantry regiments in the centre; the white men appearing as a mere dot beside the long line of the blacks. At the head of each regiment was read aloud the Government order disbanding the mutinous Thirty-fourth at Barrackpore. These formal proceedings over, the serious business of the morning commenced. The Native regiments were ordered to change front to the rear, and at the same time the Eighty-first also changed front so as to face the Sepoys; the Artillery, then in the rear, loading their guns unseen by the Native regiments. When this manœuvre, which seemed whilst in execution to be only a part of the brigade exercise of the morning, had been accomplished, a staff officer, Lieutenant Mocatta, Adjutant of the Twenty-sixth Regiment, who could speak the Native languages fluently and correctly, was ordered forward by the Brigadier to read his address to the Sepoys. He did it well in a clear loud voice, explaining to them that now a mutinous spirit having evinced itself in other regiments, and brought many good soldiers to certain destruction, it was better that the distinguished regiments at Meean-Meer, which had done so much good service to the State, should place themselves beyond the reach of temptation by surrendering all means of offence; so they were ordered to "Pile arms." 'Whilst this address was being delivered to the Sepoys, the Eighty

first fell back by subdivision between the guns; and when the word was given to pile arms, the Native regiments found themselves face to face with a long line of Artillery, and a row of lighted portfires in the hands of the English gunners. At the same time the voice of Colonel Renny rang out clearly with the command, "Eighty-first, load!" and then there was the rattle of the ramrods, which told that there was death in every piece. For a minute the Grenadiers had hesitated to obey the order; but thus confronted, they saw that to resist would be to court instant destruction; so they sullenly resigned themselves to their fate, and piled their muskets to the word of command, whilst the Cavalry unclasped their belts and laid their sabres on the ground. The Eighty-first then came forward and removed the arins, for which a large number of carts were waiting near the parade-ground, and the Sepoys went baffled and harmless to their lines. It was a great design executed with consummate skill; and if by a first blow a battle was ever won, the battle of the Punjab was fought and won that morning by Montgomery, Corbett, and Renny.'

There were many other points of peril in the Punjâb, but the chief of these, beyond all comparison, was Peshawur. For not only was a large native force quartered there, but the border tribes, savage, warlike, and predatory, with the Affghans to back them, were known to be ready not merely, as always, for plunder, but to take advantage of any opportunity to recover for the Moslem the territory which Runjeet Singh had wrested from them. Happily this important post was held by men as prompt and bold to confront any emergency, as Montgomery and Corbett; and that is no light commendation. We have already mentioned the worthy names of those upon whom it devolved to determine the course of action, and their several characters and respective careers are well delineated by Mr. Kaye. The odds against them were heavy. Counting up all the components of the troops in the ⚫ valley, it may be said, in round numbers, that there were 2,500 Europeans and 10,000 natives; and that only a tithe of the latter could be trusted by their English officers.' And the vehement opposition of these officers to any decided measure was to be overcome. But the disarming of the Sepoys was felt by the chief political and military authorities to be essential to the safety of the frontier. And so that measure was resolved on, and thus carried out :

It has been stated that the Peshawur force had been wisely cut in two, as a precautionary measure, by Brigadier Cotton. It was now arranged that Edwardes should accompany Cotton to the right wing, whilst Nicholson went to the left with Colonel Galloway of the Seventieth Queens, who stood next in seniority. With the former were her Majesty's Eighty-seventh Fusiliers, with the latter the Seventieth, both with detachments of Artillery to support them. It was a moment of

intense anxiety. The Sepoy commandants were parading their men, and the Queen's regiments were lying in wait to attack them on the first sign of resistance. The suddenness of the movement took the Sepoys aback; they laid down their arms to the bidding of their own officers.'

The immediate and happy result of this step is thus told by Mr. Kaye :

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'The arms surrendered, Brigadier Cotton addressed the regiments, praising them for the readiness with which they had obeyed orders; and they went to their lines. Thus was the work done well and thoroughly-and without the shedding of a drop of blood. The effect upon the minds of the people was magical. They believed that we were strong because we were daring. The old aphorism, that "nothing "succeeds like success was here triumphantly verified. The tribes who had held aloof whilst danger threatened us and the issue was doubtful, now pressed forward eagerly to do homage to the audacity of the English, Without another halt of doubt, or tremor of hesitation, they came forward with their offers of service. "As we rode down to "the disarming," said Herbert Edwardes, "a very few chiefs and yeomen of the country attended us, and I remember, judging from their "faces, that they came to see which way the tide would turn. As we -"rode back, friends were as thick as summer flies, and levies began "from that moment to come in." Good reason indeed had Sir John Lawrence to write to the Peshawur Commissioner, with hearty commendation, saying:-"I look on the disarming of the four corps at "Peshawur as a inaster-stroke-one which will do much good to keep "the peace throughout the Punjab. Commandants of corps are under a delusion, and whilst in this state their opinions are of little value. We are doing well in every district-Beecher famously." This wisely bold course of policy was persistently followed out in the Punjab. A moveable column was formed for the purpose of patrolling the province, and Neville Chamberlain was appointed to command it. With one or two exceptions, the Sepoys were successfully disarmed. Many brave deeds were done, none more worthy of record than that achieved by Mr. George Ricketts, the Deputy Commissioner of Loodiana on the banks of the Sutlej. Two regiments of Native infantry and one of cavalry had mutinied at Jullundhur, and although a regiment of Europeans (the 8th) and a considerable force of artillery were also quartered at that station, the mutineers were allowed to march away to Phillour (where they were joined by a third regiment of Sepoys), en route to Delhi, after wounding several of their officers, with no other loss than that inflicted by two or three rounds of grape, fired on them, without orders, by a troop of Native horse artillery, the only one, we believe, that remained faithful throughout the mutiny. Mr. Ricketts was informed of this outbreak by a

. . . .

telegram from Umballa, and Mr. Thornton, his assistant, who had gone to Phillour with the pay of the Native regiment quartered there, heard enough of what had happened at Jullundhur to lead him to take back the rupees, and to break the bridge of boats over the Sutlej. Mr. Ricketts determined to do his utmost with a most inadequate force (three companies of Rothney's Sikhs, under Lieutenant Williams, some horse and foot of the Rajah of Nabba, and two guns, a six and a nine pounder), to arrest the march of the mutineers until the Europeans and artillery from Jullundhur, whom he believed to be close at their heels, should come up to avenge their misdeeds. On reaching the river, he crossed in the ferry-boat, and walked alone along the bank to Phillour, in order to ascertain what had become of the mutineers. He found that they had proceeded to a ford about four miles up the river, and thither, after recrossing, he led his little force. Owing to the character of the ground, he did not reach his point till past 10 P.M., and then, going forward with Lieutenant Williams to reconnoitre, he was challenged and fired upon by the sentries, and found that fully three-fourths of the mutineers had crossed the river, and were grouped upon the hither bank. They fired wildly in the dark, the horses of one of the guns took fright, and ran off with the limber, and the soldiers, horse and foot, of the Rajah followed their example. Mr. Ricketts brought his remaining gun to bear upon the enemy with grape, the Sikhs poured in a well-sustained fire of musketry; and it was not till Lieutenant Williams and many of his men were hit, and the ammunition of his gun exhausted, that after maintaining the unequal conflict for nearly two hours, in expectation, at every moment, that the pursuers from Jullundhur would appear, he was compelled to retreat to Loodiana, where the brigadier still loitering on the road-he had the mortification of seeing the city looted, the premises of the missionaries burnt, the prisoners let loose, and the rabble triumphant, until the mutineers marched off, unpunished, to Delhi. There, no doubt, a fitting retribution awaited them, while Mr. Ricketts laid a heavy hand upon the shawl-weavers from Cashmere, and the low Mahomedans who had lent their ready aid to the mutineers in the congenial work of devastation and plunder.

It was, under the blessing of God, by such men and such deeds as these, by the victory of the undaunted few over the many who fought under the paralysing pressure of an abiding consciousness that they were false to their solemn oaths and to the salt which they had eaten during long years of kindly