Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/117

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Resources at His Disposal.
91

the next military station beyond it. At Lakhnao, indeed there was one English regiment, but that regiment was wanted to defend the whole province of Oudh. At Agra there was but one English regiment. Beyond Agra and Kánhpur came Mírath and Dehli. We know, and Lord Canning knew, the condition of both those places. Beyond them were the military stations of Ambálah, and the hill stations between it and Simla, and Fíruzpur, and beyond these again, the Panjáb, as the Panjáb was then computed. Here the bulk of the British troops was concentrated, but their numbers were none too many for the needs of the province.

If the reader, bearing in mind the allotment of British troops I have just given, will study a map of India, he will realise that the prospect immediately before Lord Canning was far from reassuring. He had, as a statesman versed in affairs, to regard the native garrisons in all the stations mentioned, and in the smaller stations in their neighbourhood, as at least untrustworthy. After the events of Mírath and Dehli, he was bound even to class them in the list of probable enemies, and to provide for them accordingly. There were native troops at Barrackpur, in eastern Bengal, at Dánápur, at Banáras, at Allahábád, at Kánhpur, scattered all over the province of Oudh, at Agra, at Alígarh, at Barélí, at Murádábád, and at other minor stations south-east of Mírath and west of Agra. In the districts in which those native troops were located Lord Canning could at the moment dispose of but four English regiments — the 53d and 84th at or near Calcutta, the 10th at Dánápur, the 32d at Lakhnao, the 3d Europeans at Agra. Every man of these regiments was required for the purposes of the city or cantonment in which he happened to be. Lord Canning could not fail to recognise, then, that between Calcutta and Mírath he was absolutely powerless for ag-