him to this conviction,
so great was his influence with Natives--perhaps by reason of that
knowledge--that he was able to delay the actual outbreak at Lucknow
until his measures for the defence of the Residency were completed,
and he persuaded a considerable number of sepoys, not only to continue
in their allegiance, but to share with their European comrades the
dangers and privations of the siege--a priceless service, for without
their aid the defence could not have been made.

[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIR HENRY LAWRENCE, K.C.B.
_From a photograph taken at Lucknow._]

In no part of India was there greater need for the services of a
strong, enlightened, and sympathetic Ruler and Statesman. Difficult as
were the positions in which many men in authority were placed in
1857, none was more difficult than that in which Henry Lawrence found
himself when he took over the Chief Commissionership of Oudh in the
spring of that year. His colleagues in the administration were at
feud with each other, and by their ignorance of the proper methods of
dealing with the people they had succeeded in alienating all classes.

While Lawrence was engaged in pouring oil on these troubled waters,
and in earning the gratitude of the people by modifying the previous
year's undue assessment, signs appeared of the disaffection, which
had begun amongst the troops at Barrackpore, having spread to the
cantonments in Oudh. Sir Henry met this new trouble in the same
intelligent and conciliatory spirit as that in which he had dealt with
his civil difficulties. He summoned to a durbar some Native officers
who had displayed a very proper feeling of loyalty by arresting
several fanatics who had tried to tamper with the soldiery, and he
liberally rewarded them, pointing out at the same time in forcible
language the disgrace to a soldier of being faithless to his salt. But
while doing everything in his power to keep the Natives loyal, and
with a certain amount of success, he did not neglect to take every
possible precaution.

When first he heard of the outbreak at Meerut, he telegraphed to the
Governor-General advising him to send for British troops to China and
Ceylon, and to call on the Nepalese to assist; at the same time
he applied to Lord Canning for, and obtained, the rank of
Brigadier-General, which gave him military as well as civil control--a
very necessary measure, for none of the senior military officers in
Oudh were men to be relied u