and temper. I do not know that any one measure of precaution and strength which human foresight can indicate has been neglected. There are stout hearts and clear heads at the chief posts of danger — Agra, Lucknow, Benares. For the rest, the issue is in higher hands than ours. I am very confident of complete success.'
It was hard that a mood so high-toned and courageous should not have found support in the sympathy and confidence of the English community. But the English in Calcutta were now in no sympathising temper. Again and again it was Lord Canning's lot to provoke their distrust, dislike, resentment. They were angered by his fancied reluctance to accept their services as Volunteers for the defence of Calcutta. They were angered at the neglect of precautions which to them seemed obvious and necessary, but which reasons of policy led Lord Canning to veto or postpone. They were angered at restrictions of the press, European as well as native, which the position rendered imperative. They were angered at the rule which obliged European and native alike to obtain a license for carrying fire-arms. The grievance was purely sentimental: but the English were not in a mood to tolerate anything which implied equality between themselves and the natives of the country. The tragedies of the Mutiny were bearing fruit in a fierce, sometimes a ferocious, spirit of revenge. The sufferings of our countrymen had engendered an appetite for blood — an appetite which grows by
