pon; indeed, as in so many other places,
they had to be effaced when the troubles began.

Very early in the day Henry Lawrence commenced his preparations for
the defence of the Residency; he cleared the ground of all cover
in its immediate vicinity, as far as it was possible to do so; he
fortified it, mounted guns, stored ammunition, powder, and firewood;
arranged for a proper supply of water; collected food, which proved
sufficient, not only for the original number of refugees, but for the
3,000 additional mouths belonging to Outram and Havelock's force; in
fact, he did everything which forethought and ingenuity could suggest
to enable the garrison to hold out in what he foresaw would be a long
and deadly struggle against fearful odds. There was no fort, as there
was at Agra, capable of sheltering every European in Oudh, and strong
enough to defy any number of mutineers, nor was there, as at Cawnpore,
a well-stocked and strongly-fortified magazine to depend upon. But
Henry Lawrence was not cast down by the difficulties which surrounded
him; he was fully alive to the danger, but he recognized that his
best, indeed, his only, chance of delaying the inevitable rebellion
until (as he hoped) assistance might arrive, was to show a bold front.

On the 27th May Lawrence wrote to Lord Canning as follows: 'Hitherto
the country has been kept quiet, and we have played the Irregulars
against the line regiments; but being constituted of exactly the same
material, the taint is fast pervading them, and in a few weeks, if not
days--unless Delhi be in the interim captured--there will be but one
feeling throughout the army, a feeling that our prestige is gone, and
that feeling will be more dangerous than any other. Religion, fear,
hatred, one and all have their influence; but there is still a
reverence for the Company's _ikbal_[4]--when it is gone we shall have
few friends indeed. The tone and talk of many have greatly altered
during the last few days, and we are now asked, almost in terms of
insolence, whether Delhi is captured, or when it will be. It was
only just after the Kabul massacre, and when we hesitated to advance
through the Khyber, that, in my memory, such a tone ever before
prevailed.[5]

Feeling all this so strongly, it is the more remarkable that Henry
Lawrence never lost heart, but struggled bravely on 'to preserve the
soldiery to their duty and the people to their allegiance,' while
at the same time he was, as I have