be ruinous to the British Empire-that the Punjab, hitherto peaceful, would rise, and every discontented man in India believe that the fortune of England had failed her. At early dawn on the 14th of September the three storming columns began their advance. With desperate fighting Nicholson forced his 1857] THE SIEGE of delHI 317 way through the Cashmere breach, and Jones at the Water Bastion not only forced the breach but unexpectedly stormed a part of the wall itself, and once upon the ramparts proceeded to clear them as far as the extreme north-west corner, and there to Great assault. hoist the British flag upon the Cabul Gate. Meanwhile Sept. 14. the third column, preceded by its explosion party, advanced to the Cashmere Gate. Lieutenant Home and four men, each carrying a bag of twenty-five pounds of powder, pushed straight on to the gate, laid their bags ready for the explosion, and jumped into the ditch unhurt. The other engineer, Salkeld, likewise succeeded in laying his bags, but fell back shot through both arm and leg. The fusee was still unlighted; two sergeants in turn seized the porte-fire only to fall back mortally wounded. A third snatched it up, but finding that the fusee was already alight, sprang into the ditch at the very moment that the gate was shattered by the explosion. The signal was then given, and the third column, led by the 52nd, crossed the bridge just as the other breaches were taken, and pushed forward into the very heart of the city. Yet the success was not decisive. Major Reid's party, assaulted outside the wall, had been unable to make good its entrance. Nothing in fact but the northeastern line of ramparts was in the hands of the English, and Colonel Campbell was obliged to seek safety by falling back. It was necessary, if the city was to be taken, that something should be done to make up for Reid's failure, and to open an access on the western face. Nicholson regarded the capture of the Lahore gate as necessary. He swept round inside the ramparts, but found that the approach to the gate was through a narrow lane with houses on both sides strongly manned. He would listen to no argument in favour of delay; he ordered the position to be at once assaulted. It was too strong, his men were driven back. A second time the attempt was made. The General rushed forward to rally his men and bring them again to the assault, and fell mortally wounded. The Lahore Gate at that time proved impregnable. But at least a firm hold had been laid on a part of the city, and a solid base established for further operations. Even yet, it is said, such had been the heavy loss of his troops, General Wilson was thinking of withdrawing to the Ridge. The fatal design, if it was really formed, was frustrated by the eager remonstrances of Baird Smith and of Neville Chamberlain, the Adjutant-General. It was determined to work into the city chiefly by means of burrowing through the houses. For days this process went on. Still, though the English Fall of Delhi. constantly advanced, the Lahore Gate, which led to the great central street of the town, could not be forced. A gallant effort made on it under the command of Greathed failed. But at length, upon the 19th, five days after the original assault, Alexander Taylor, the chief engineer under Baird Smith, obtained permission to bore through the neighbouring houses and gain a bastion known as the Burn Bastion, which commanded the Lahore Gate. The work was done, and with it the capture of the city may be said to have been completed. The next day the palace upon the river-side was taken, and the king and the rebel troops fled from the city. king's sons. The English victory was followed here as elsewhere by acts of bitter and cruel revenge. The city was pillaged by the Sikh soldiers, and martial law, carried out with little discrimination, hurried hundreds to the gallows. Of these but little was heard. One deed of ill-judged Murder of the and uncalled-for severity stained the reputation of the conquerors. The old king, betrayed by his chief advisers, fell into the hands of Hodson, a man of the greatest dash and bravery, but of somewhat reckless and unscrupulous character. Having pledged himself to spare the king's life he unwillingly kept his word. But to the king's sons he would give no such pledge; and bringing them towards the city from the tomb of Humayoun, where they had taken refuge, he caused them to descend from their palanquins, and pistolled them with his own hands. General view of the state of affairs in September. The close of September thus saw the success of the English arms at Delhi and Lucknow, the two great centres of rebellion. But the mutiny and the widespread national revolt which had accompanied it were by no means suppressed. While the fate of Delhi still hung in the balance, and day by day the chances of the English success were apparently growing smaller, insurrections, postponed awhile either by fear or by the skilful management of English administration, had been breaking out in all directions. With difficulty George Lawrence had succeeded in saving the arsenal at Ajmeer, and in keeping the Rajput Princes in outward loyalty. In the Central Provinces, Sindia and Holkar themselves had been true to the English, but the troops at Indore had mutinied, and the line of communication with the Nerbudda had only been kept open by the advance of a column from Bombay. The Gwalior contingents, scarcely restrained by the authority of Sindia, were threatening to throw off his allegiance and attack Agra and Cawnpore, in the first of which Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor, occupied the fort, and was still exercising some authority over the city, while the second, 1857] SIR COLIN CAMPBELL'S ADVANCE 319 the most advanced point of the unbroken English dominions, was of the last importance, not only as the base of all operations for the succour of Lucknow, but as the centre from which the force for the permanent reconquest of the revolted Provinces must advance. Fortunately, Mr. William Tayler had been able to retain Patna, and Frederick Gubbins and Neill had restored order at Benares, so that it was possible to send troops without interruption upwards from Calcutta. When Sir Colin Campbell had reached India in August to take up his duties as Commander-in-Chief things were at their very worst. Delhi was still untaken, Lucknow still unrelieved, while the policy of trusting the Sepoy regiments outwardly as far as possible, though secretly feeling the deepest mistrust of them, compelled the Government to keep in the Lower Provinces such European regiments as it had, and prevented the despatch of reinforcements. The Commander-in-Chief had therefore to spend much time in organising such an army as should insure success. Not only had he to await the arrival of troops, but also to establish means of transport, and to supply nearly everything that was necessary for an army in the field. During September and the beginning of October he was incessantly employed in sending troops to the front, and though Delhi had now fallen, the partial relief of Lucknow had but added to his difficulties by locking up a considerable body of troops which would otherwise have been available. Sir Colin At length, with every man he could procure, including a naval brigade under the command of Captain Peel, on the 27th of October Sir Colin Campbell set out for Allahabad. On the 3rd of November he reached Cawnpore. Thither, pushing down Campbell's from Delhi, a column had arrived after defeating the campaign. enemy at Agra, and now under the command of Sir Hope Grant was some way upon the road towards Lucknow. The final relief of the garrison there was the first task which Sir Colin Campbell set himself. It was attended with extreme danger. For the Gwalior contingent had on the fall of Delhi thrown off all allegiance to their Prince, had combined with the troops under the Ranee of Jhansee, and had placed themselves under the able command of Tantia Topi, the right-hand man of Nana Sahib. With the exception of the Moolvee at Lucknow, Tantia Topi was almost the only man among the insurgents who exhibited military capacity. He at once threatened Cawnpore. It was thus, with his base of operations left in imminent danger, that the Commander-in-Chief had to make his advance. On the 12th he arrived at the Alambagh. This strongly fortified enclosure was occu He rescues the garrison at Lucknow. Nov. 17. pied by upwards of 900 men detached from Outram's forces. When they were incorporated with the advancing troops they raised the number of Sir Colin Campbell's army to about 5000. An Englishman of the name of Kavanagh had made his way out of Lucknow with information which induced the Commander-in-Chief to determine to make his assault upon the suburbs of the city lying along the river, instead of forcing his way straight inwards as Havelock had done. His unexpected flank movement somewhat disordered the enemy; but a series of large buildings, palaces, and mosques, each of which had been turned into a powerful fortress, made the advance extremely difficult. Even by the evening of the 16th it was only after the storming of a mosque called the Shah Najif, an action described by Sir Colin Campbell as almost unexampled in war, that the relieving force felt that its success was certain. Nor was it till the following day that the residency was actually reached. There still remained the difficult task of bringing off the helpless convoy of women and children. Under cover of a bombardment, which drew away the attention of the enemy, the garrison so long imprisoned was withdrawn behind the outposts arranged to cover its retreat. No disaster attended the movement, except the death of General Havelock. A man of deeply religious and enthusiastic temperament, his advance in the army had been slow, and he had but just reached the great object of his ambition, the command of an army in the field. When his career was thus prematurely closed, he had lived long enough to show that he possessed all the best qualities of a general. Sir James Outram was left behind with a force to hold the Alambagh; and not without anxiety as to what might be happening in his rear, Sir Colin Campbell hurried back towards Cawnpore. As he approached it the sound of guns warned him that his arrival was none too soon. During his absence Tantia Topi and the Gwalior contingent had come down upon General Windham in Cawnpore and had cut off his communications with Sir Colin Campbell. Left to himself, he adopted the determination to attack rather than to await an attack. But he was not strong enough to withstand an enemy so superior in numbers. He found himself forced back upon his entrenchments, and the town was again in the hands of the rebels when Sir Colin Campbell's returning troops His victory at appeared just in time to prevent complete disaster. The convoy being at once despatched to Allahabad, a battle was fought, in which the most dangerous part of the enemy, the Gwalior contingent, was entirely broken up, and but for |