convulsion?
Individual opinions on this question, and such as could plead a weight
of authority in regard to experience, to local advantages for
conjecture, and to official opportunities for overlooking intercepted
letters, there have been many; and at first (say from May 10 to the
end of June), in the absence of any strong counter-arguments, some of
these were entitled to the full benefit of their _personal_ weight
(such weight, I mean, as could be drawn from the position or from the
known character of him who announced the opinion). But now--namely,
on the 15th of December (or, looking to India, say the 10th of
November)--we are entitled to something weightier. And what _is_ there
which generally would be held weightier? First, there are the
confessions of dying criminals;--I mean, that, logically, we must
reserve such a head, as likely to offer itself sooner or later.
Tempers vary as to obduracy, and circumstances vary. All men will not
share in the obstinacy of partisan pride; or not, by many degrees,
equally. And again, some amongst the many thousands who leave families
will have favours to ask. They all know secretly the perfect
trustworthiness of the British Government. And when matters have come
to a case of choice between a wife and children, in the one scale, and
a fraternity consciously criminal, in the other, it may be judged
which is likely to prevail. What through the coercion of mere
circumstances--what through the entreaties of wife and children,
co-operating with such circumstances--or sometimes through weakness of
nature, or through relenting of compunction--it is not to be doubted
that, as the cohesion of party begins rapidly to relax under
approaching ruin, there will be confessions in abundance. For as yet,
under the timid policy of the sepoys--hardly ever venturing out of
cover, either skulking amongst bushy woodlands, or sneaking into
house-shelter, or slinking back within the range of their great
guns--it has naturally happened that our prisoners have been
exceedingly few. But the decisive battle before Lucknow will tell us
another story. There will at last be cavalry to _reap_ the harvest
when our soldiery have won it. The prisoners will begin to accumulate
by thousands; executions will proceed through week after week; and a
large variety of cases will yield us a commensurate crop of
confessions. These, when they come, will tell us, no doubt, most of
what the sepoys can be supposed to know. But