of Brigadier-General, had assumed command of it. It augured no small courage on the part of Sir John Lawrence to take a regimental captain from Civil employment, and place him in command over the heads of men his seniors. But the times were critical, and at all costs the best man had to be selected if Dehlí was to be relieved.
The force commanded by Nicholson consisted of the 52d Light Infantry, Dawes's troop of horse-artillery, Bourchier's field-battery, the 33d and 35th N. I., and a wing of the 9th native light cavalry. Nicholson joined the force at Jálandhar, and marched straight to Philaúr. Under the walls of the fort of that name he disarmed the two sipáhí regiments, then retraced his steps to Amritsar, a central position commanding Láhor, the Jálandhar Duáb, and the Mánjhá. He was there when news reached him of the mutiny at Jhelam. His first step was to disarm the native regiment, the 59th N. I., located at Amritsar. The next day brought him information that the 58th N. I. and two companies of the 14th, the regiment which had fought at Jhelam, had been disarmed, though in a very clumsy manner, at Ráwalpindí. On the 9th of July he heard of the insurrection at Síálkót, in which the left wing of the regiment, the 9th native cavalry, the right wing of which was with him, had taken a very prominent part. He promptly disarmed that wing; then learning that the Síálkót mutineers were marching on Gúrdáspur, forty miles distant from him, he resolved to intercept them in the course which he felt convinced they would take, via Núrpur and Hoshiárpur, to Jálandhar. Quitting Amritsar on the 10th, he made a forced march to Gúrdáspur, reached it the evening of the 11th to find that the rebels were at Núrkót, some fifteen miles from the Ráví, on its northern side. As they would have to cross that river, Nicholson, commanding the inner line, waited until their movement
