surging masses of the city and the provinces, he had decided to concentrate all his forces within the Residency. He still, however, for the moment held the Machchí Bhawan, believing that the report of his preparations there would have some effect on the rebels.
He was not quite certain, at this time, that he would be besieged at all. Everything depended on Kánhpur.[1] If British reinforcements could reach that place whilst Wheeler should still be holding it, then, he argued, the people of Oudh, in face of an English force within forty-two miles, would not dare to attempt the siege. He feared very much, however, for Kánhpur. He would have marched to succour the place if it had been possible, but, in the face of the masses of the enemy holding the Ganges, he could not have reached Wheeler's intrenchment, whilst he would have certainly been destroyed himself At length, on the 28th, he heard that Kánhpur had fallen, and that the rebels of his own province, emboldened by the news, had advanced in force to the village of Chinhat, on the Faizábád road, eight miles from the Residency.
Sir Henry promptly decided to move out and attack the rebels. He held, and I am confident he held rightly, that nothing would tend so much to maintain the prestige of the British at this critical conjuncture as the dealing of a heavy blow at their advanced forces. Accordingly, he moved his troops from the cantonment to the Residency, and at half-past six o'clock, on the morning of the 30th of June, set out in the direction of Chinhat, with a force composed as follows: 300 men of the 32d Foot, 230 loyal sipáhís, a troop of volunteer cavalry, thirty-six in number, 120 native troopers, ten guns, and an eight-inch howitzer. Of the ten guns four were manned by Englishmen and
- ↑ 'If Kánhpur holds out, I doubt if we shall be besieged at all.' Sir H. Lawrence to Lord Canning.
