Ázamgarh, at Juánpur, at Banáras, at Jhánsí, to be yet related, followed one another in quick succession. To counterbalance these misfortunes came the news of Brigadier Wilson's victory at Ghazí-úd-dín Nagar on the 31st of May. But the information, which reached Calcutta about the same time, that General Anson had succumbed to cholera at Karnál, on the 27th, seemed at the moment a misfortune great enough to outweigh even this victory.
Lord Canning and his councillors, however, made a great attempt to repair it. They telegraphed to Madras for Sir Patrick Grant, Commanding-in-Chief at that Presidency, to come up to Calcutta to replace Anson. Grant was an officer in the Bengal army who had filled the office of Adjutant-General, and it was supposed that, in the existing terrible crisis, one who had been able to rise to such a position would possess experience from which the Government might profit. The mistake was a natural one, but it was not the less a mistake. A clerk promoted to the headship of the department in which he has served is rarely able to lift his mind above routine. So it was with Sir Patrick Grant. Sent for in the crisis of a mutiny, whilst the entire country was surging with revolt, he arrived with his mind full of reconstruction and reorganisation, and he was unable to the last to apply it to any other consideration. For all the good he effected he might as well have remained at Madras.
Before he arrived the news from the revolted districts became daily more alarming. To the list already given might be added Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, and a part of Central India. The Government was indeed to be pitied. Little more than a fortnight had elapsed since they had refused the offers of the British and foreign residents of Calcutta to volunteer, on the ground that all difficulties
