* *

_P.S._--The following memoranda, more or less connected with points
noticed in the preceding paper, but received later, seem to merit
attention:--

1. As to the strength of our army before Delhi, it seems, from better
accounts, to be hardly less than 5000 men, of which one-half are
British infantry; and the besieged seem, by the closest inquiries, to
reach at the least 22,000 men.

2. Colonel Edwardes, so well known in connection with Moultan, has
published an important fact--namely, that the sepoys _did_ rely, in a
very great degree, upon the whole country rising, and that their
disappointment and despair are consequently proportionable.

3. A great question arises--How it was possible for the
sepoys--unquestionably not harbouring the smallest ill-will to the
British--suddenly and almost universally to assail them with
atrocities arguing the greatest. Even their own countrymen, with all
their childish credulity, would not be made to believe that they
really hated people with whom they had never had any but the kindest
and most indulgent intercourse. I should imagine that the solution
must do sought in two facts--first, in the deadly ennui and _taedium_
of sepoy life, which disposes them to catch maniacally at any opening
for furious excitement; but, secondly, in the wish to forward the ends
of the conspiracy under Mahometan misleading. Hence, in particular,
the cruelties practised on women and children: for they argued that,
though the British _men_ would face anything in their own persons
before they would relax their hold on India, they would yet be
appalled by the miseries of their female partners and children.

4. It is most unfair, undoubtedly, to attack any man in our present
imperfect state of information. But some neglects are unsusceptible of
after excuse. One I have noticed, which cannot be denied or varnished,
in Lord Canning. Another is this:--Had he offered 10,000 rupees (L1000
sterling) for the head of Nena Sahib, he would have got it in ten
days, besides inflicting misery on the hell-kite.

III.

SUGGESTIONS UPON THE SECRET OF THE MUTINY.

(_January, 1858._)

The first question arises upon the true originators, proximate and
immediate, of the mutiny--who were they? This question ploughs deeper
than any which moves under an impulse of mere historic curiosity; and
it is practically the main question. Knowing the true, instant,
operative cause, already we know something of the