words. "That gun must be taken by the bayonet. I must have it. No firing; and remember, I am with you." The troops advanced, the grape from the gun crashing through them; but their charge was irresistible, and the enemy was everywhere in flight.

Such was the battle of Cawnpore, in which 1,000 British troops and 300 Sikhs, after a march of twenty-four miles under a blazing sun, without cavalry, and with inferior artillery, in three hours and forty minutes put to flight 5,000 of the enemy, armed and trained by ourselves. Havelock always considered this his best day's work, and in no engagement was the superiority of generalship, and the personal daring and physical force of the Europeans more conspicuous. But the prize for which the troops had braved such dangers was lost. On entering the town of Cawnpore, they learnt that on the preceding day Nana Sahib, enraged by his defeat at the Pandoo nuddy, had ordered the slaughter of all the women and children. "With every kind of weapon, from the bayonet to the butcher's knife, from the battle-axe to the club, they assaulted these English ladies; they cut off their breasts, they lopped off limbs, they beat them down with clubs, they trampled on them with their feet; their children they tossed on bayonets. . . . The bodies, yet warm, in some, life not yet extinct, were dragged into a well hard by, limb separated from limb, all were thrown in in one commingled mass; the blood was left to sink into the floor, to remain a lasting memento of insatiable vengeance."

Having thus reached Cawnpore, Havelock marched against Bithoor on the 19th; but the Nana, despairing of a successful resistance, had crossed the river and passed into Oude, leaving fifteen guns behind him, and cattle of every description. His palace was fired, and his magazines were blown up. Havelock, having received all the reinforcements which Neill could spare, crossed the Ganges, by the aid of a little steamer, which had been placed at his disposal. The whole force, consisting of 1,500 men, was united on the left bank on the 25th, and, after completing all the arrangements for advancing to Lucknow, started at five in the morning on the 29th. The men were without tents; the whole country was under water, and the troops could advance only on the high road. After marching five miles, Havelock found the enemy occupying a strong position at the village of Onao. He gave the order to advance, and after a severe struggle, the town was gained. As our troops debouched into the plain beyond, they were again threatened by the enemy's cavalry and infantry, but the former had not the pluck to charge, and the latter fled on the first onset, leaving their guns behind them. It was now half-past eleven, and there was a burning sun over head. The men halted to take breakfast and rest. At two p.m., the advance was again sounded, and the troops at length came up to the strongly entrenched position of Busarut-gunj, a walled town, with a jheel, or sheet of water, in front, and a larger one in the rear. It was flanked on either side by a swamp, and the road approaching it was commanded by four pieces of cannon, planted on a round tower. But the Fusiliers and Highlanders steadily gained ground, and on coming within charging distance, rushed on with the bayonet, and the town was carried, but the enemy retreated to a village beyond the lake, and kept up an unremitting fire all night. It was six o'clock before the town was captured. The troops had been marching thirteen hours, with the exception of the time allowed for breakfast; they had fought two engagements, and were completely knocked up; officers and men had vied with each other in these terrific struggles; they had suffered severely from heat, cholera, dysentery, and

the enemy's fire, and their numbers had been reduced in two days to 1,200. Havelock was losing at the rate of fifty men a day; he had to convey all his sick and wounded with him; the enemy was continually recruited with swarms of insurgents, and his communication with Cawnpore was certain to be cut off. He determined not to sacrifice the lives of his brave men in a fruitless attempt to reach Lucknow, and most reluctantly retraced his steps back to the banks of the Ganges. Having sent his sick and wounded across to Cawnpore, and obtained a small reinforcement from Neill, he started again for Lucknow, on the 4th of August, with 1,400 men. He found Onao evacuated, but the enemy was strongly entrenched at Busarut-gunj, where they intended to offer a resolute resistance. On the 5th of August the troops marched up to it, and Havelock having reconnoitred their position, which was very strong, resolved to turn it. The monœuvre succeeded; the enemy, taken by surprise, evacuated their first position, and fell back on the second across the lake, which it was impossible to turn. Our troops however dashed across the causeway, and drove the enemy from village to village. In the evening cholera broke out with violence, and this circumstance, combined with our losses and the strong position of the enemy, induced Havelock a second time to retrace his steps to Mungurwa. Here he lay recruiting for four or five days, but resolved not yet to give up the prospect of relieving Lucknow. On the 11th he started a third time, though his force was now reduced to about 1,000 men, but the same daring spirit still animated them all. Three miles beyond Onao, they came upon the enemy, now increased to 20,000, and occupying a line which extended five miles, while ours when deployed did not extend more than half a mile. Manoeuvring was out of the question, he must beat them by dint of sheer British pluck, or not at all. Our troops dashed among the enemy with undaunted courage, and the victory was at length gained, but it was one of those victories which recalled to mind Pyrrhus's melancholy exclamation. We had lost 140 men out of 1,000, without advancing ten miles towards Lucknow. There was but one course to pursue-to retire to Cawnpore and wait for reinforcements. Havelock reached the station on the 13th of August, and found that reinforcements were on their way up; but his occupation was gone. He had failed to relieve Lucknow, and the Government of Calcutta resolved to supersede him, and sent Sir James Outram to take the conduct of the campaign out of his hands.

At Cawnpore Havelock found Neill threatened on all sides. The Nana Sahib had reoccupied Bithoor in great force, and Havelock found it necessary to dislodge him. He marched to the place on the 16th, and after one of the most severe and well-contested actions of the campaign carried the enemy's position. With this action terminated his first grand campaign for the relief of Lucknow. In this great effort, without cavalry and without tents, exposed to the rays of a deadly sun, and too often deluged with rain, and constrained to carry with him every article of supply, he had, in thirty-five days, fought five pitched battles and four minor actions, against an enemy vastly superior in number; yet, under these disadvantages, he had advanced three times towards Lucknow, and struck such terror into the enemy, that his retirement was always unmolested. He found he could gain victories, but for want of cavalry could not complete them; that his enemies were daily increasing, his own force daily diminishing. During the next month, while Outram was bringing up the reinforcements, he was

employed in making preparation for again crossing the Ganges. Outram arrived on the 16th of September, and with a degree of generosity which will ever be remembered to his honour, determined to leave the credit of relieving Lucknow to Havelock, and to accompany him only in a civil capacity. Just before crossing, Havelock wrote to the author of this sketch-"The enterprise of crossing the Ganges, opposed to double my numbers, is not without hazard; but it has to me, at sixty-three, all the charm of romance. I am as happy as a duck in thunder." The army was crossed over in safety, though not without difficulty. It rained in torrents during Sunday, and on Monday morning the force was again in motion, and came up with the enemy's encampment at Mungurwa. The victory was so complete that the insurgents offered no further opposition on the line of march between the Ganges and the Alumbagh, on the outskirts of Lucknow. For three days the troops marched amidst a deluge of rain, and at night found but scanty shelter in the miserable hovels in the villages. At the Alumbagh the enemy was strongly entrenched, but though our troops had been marching seven hours, it was at length stormed. On the 25th the British force was in motion at an early hour; for six hours was it engaged in a deadly struggle with the enemy, who fired on them, as they advanced, from every house and enclosure. At the Kaiser Bagh, the palace of the late king, a fire was opened on them of grape and musketry from an entrenchment, under which, as Havelock states in a letter, nothing could live. Here the brave Neill fell mortally wounded. Sir James Outram was wounded; Havelock's son was wounded in the arm, his own horse was disabled by two bullets. Night was coming on, and they were still two miles from the Residency. It was proposed to halt at the Fureed Buksh till the morning; but Havelock so strongly represented the importance of achieving at once a communication with the beleaguered garrison, and restoring their confidence, that it was determined to advance. The Highlanders and Sikhs were called to the front, and Outram, Havelock, and three of their staff, rode at their head, as Havelock wrote, "and on we dashed through streets of loopholed houses, from the flat roofs of which a perpetual fire was poured. But our troops were not to be denied. We found ourselves at the great gate of the Residency, and entered in the dark in triumph." Then came three cheers for the leaders, and the joy of the half-famished garrison. "Our reception," says one of those present, was enthusiastic; old men and women, and infants, pouring down in one weeping crowd to welcome their deliverers. Fortunate, indeed, was it for the garrison that the relief was achieved at the time; for one of the enemy's mines, most scientifically constructed, was ready for loading, the firing of which would have placed the garrison at their mercy." The delay of another day must have sealed their fate. This was one of the most arduous days of the campaign, and will be ever memorable in the annals of British India. One-fourth of the force fell; the killed, wounded, and missing, amounted to 535. The army had been so much reduced by these casualties, that it was deemed impossible in the face of an ever-recruiting enemy to remove 1,500 sick, wounded, women, and children, to Cawnpore. the 25th of September, Outram assumed the command of the force, and Havelock's period of sole command and responsibility ceased. Counting from the day of his arrival at Allahabad, he had enjoyed the uncontrolled direction of the campaign for the space of eighty-eight days; but this brief period was crowded with achievements which have con

On

tributed in no small measure to the national glory, and drawn on him the admiration of the civilised world. For eight weeks subsequently, he was employed within the garrison in defending the works, and little opportunity was afforded for strategics; but all his movements were marked by the same skill, perseverance and daring which have rendered his career memorable.

I

At length, on the 17th of November, Sir Colin Campbell, with a force of 5,000 men, came up to the relief of the garrison. On the 19th of November Havelock writes: "Sir Colin Campbell has come up with 5,000 men, and made a complete change. The mail of the 26th of September came in with him, announcing my elevation to the dignity of a Knight Commander for my first three engagements. have fought nine since-ubicunque felix-by the blessing of God." The next night he was attacked with dysentery. The "recoil on his constitution," of which he had a presentiment, proved fatal. From the day of his leaving Allahabad he had for twenty-two weeks been worn out with incessant anxiety and exertion, and now that the great object of his labours had been accomplished in the deliverance of the besieged women and children, his constitution sank under the attack of disease. He was taken out to the Dilkoosha, where he was tended with filial affection by his son, who had shared with him the dangers of the campaign, and displayed a spirit of gallantry worthy of such a father. He had been twice wounded, but was happily so far recovered from his wounds as to be able to attend the General in his illness, and to close his eyes. In the letter, which announced the melancholy intelligence of his death, he says, "My father died on the 24th of November, having been attacked with acute dysentery on the 20th. For two months that we had been shut up in Lucknow, he had been literally starved for want of proper nourishment, and his constitution had not strength to survive the shock. On the night of the 21st he was removed from the garrison to the camp of Sir Colin Campbell's relieving force at the Dilkoosha Park, where I had the comfort of tending him to the last. God grant that the Christian resignation, and peaceful confiding reliance on the Master he had so long and so faithfully served, may have a lasting influence on my life. He died in perfect peace. To Sir James Outram, who came to see him on the previous evening, he said, 'For more than forty years I have so ruled my life, that when death came, I might face it without fear."' Once turning to me he said, ' See how a Christian can die;' and repeatedly exclaimed, 'I die contented.' The recognition of his grateful country of the noble deeds he had performed, reached us on the 17th, just a week previously, and though his heart was satisfied in the consciousness of the rigid performance of duty (as he has repeatedly said to me), it was no doubt a satisfaction in his last hours. Immediately after his death, the force was removed to the Alumbagh, where he was buried the next day. Sir Colin Campbell, and numbers of his sorrowing comrades, who had followed him in so many victorious fields, accompanied his remains to the grave."

Havelock's personal appearance was emphatically that of a soldier. Though of diminutive stature, there was a spirit of determination, not only in the expression of his noble countenance, but in the fiery glance of his eye, which marked his character. He was as strict a disciplinarian as Frederick the Great and Wellington, and attached the greatest importance to the principle of implicit military obedience. Hence he was often

considered severe, and even stern, by his subordinates; but every feeling of irritation vanished as the time for action approached. He enjoyed the perfect confidence of his men; and his spirit-stirring addresses to them, after the engagements they had shared together, served to awaken feelings of the highest enthusiasm. His utter disregard of danger exceeded the ordinary feelings of courage, and excited the admiration of the bravest. He was never more cheerful or chatty than under fire. He combined, in a singular degree, a comprehensive view of the field of action and its exigencies, with a minute attention to detail, and all his orders were precise and decisive. Though he had acted only in a subordinate position till within five months of his death, his brilliant achievements during that brief career, amidst unexampled difficulties, arising from disparity of numbers, deficiency of means and appliances, the discipline and equipment of the enemy, and, above all, the season of the year, showed that he was equal to the highest command and to the most arduous enterprises. The predominating impulse of his mind was the rigid performance of duty, for which he was ready to make any sacrifice, even that of life itself. On every occasion in life, whether in the performance of its ordinary duties, the maintenance of his religious views, or the organisation of a battle, his conduct was equally marked by decision. Few men have ever more eminently illustrated the truth, that the fear of God excludes all fear of man. His religion was marked by all the strength of his own character, and he never flinched from the defence of evangelical truth in any society, though he carefully abstained from any intrusion of his own sentiments. His dependence on the ever-present goodness of Providence was the source of all his calmness as well as animation, and led him to exhibit the greatest modesty after his most signal triumphs; for he always attributed the success of every undertaking to the blessing of God, and not to his own talents. He was every inch a soldier, and every inch a Christian. His religion was not the mere result of instruction imbibed in childhood, but a strong and living principle, which ever pervaded his mind and regulated all his conduct. His sterling piety, combined as it was with chivalrous daring and military genius, has naturally led to the association of his name with the great men of the Commonwealth, whose worth is the more appreciated in proportion to the liberality of the age. Havelock exhibited all the strength of their religious feelings without any of the vagaries of their enthusiasm. He was a Puritan of the true Cromwellian stamp. At the same time there was nothing of the narrowness and exclusiveness of sectarianism in his religious composition; and while firmly attached to the tenet peculiar to the Baptists, because he considered it in accordance with the Bible, he was delighted to associate, and that most cordially, in the benevolent labours of all other denominations,