Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/163

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Sir Henry concentrates His Troops.
137

by a company of the 32d and thirty guns. At the treasury, within the Residency compound, he stationed 130 Europeans, 200 natives, and six guns. At the third post, between the Residency and the Machchí Bhawan, commanding the two bridges, he located 400 men, Europeans and natives, with twenty guns, some of them eighteen-pounders. The fourth post was the travellers' bungalow, between the Residency and the cantonment. Here he posted two squadrons of the 2d Oudh Native Cavalry, with six guns.

In the cantonment, on the left bank ot the Gúmtí, there still remained 340 men of the 32d Foot, fifty English gunners, six guns, and a complete battery of native artillery. The 32d were, towards the end of May, reduced by eighty-four men, despatched to the aid of Wheeler at Kánhpur. The 7th Native Cavalry remained at Múdkípur, seven miles distant from the Lakhnao cantonment.

As soon as these arrangements had been completed. Sir Henry, on the 24th of May, caused to be moved into the Residency enclosure the ladies, the families, and sick men of the 32d, and the European and Eurasian clerks. These last he armed and drilled, and had them told off into parties for night duty. On the 27th he wrote to Lord Canning that the Residency and the Machchí Bhawan 'were safe against all probable comers.' That very day, however, he had evidence that the country districts were surging around him, and he had to despatch one of the ablest of his assistants, Gould Weston, to Maliábád, fifteen miles from Lakhnao, to restore order. Further, also on the 27th, he despatched Captain Hutchinson, with 200 sowárs and 200 sipáhís, to the northern frontier of the province, there to be under the orders of the civil officer who had asked for them. The measure certainly ridded Lakhnao of the presence of 400 disaffected soldiers, but