measure, for there was no longer any power of maintaining discipline. Still less was it a military manifesto: for military authority was practically extinguished. It was a measure of public security.
But in any case, he was told, he should have wired for approval. A reply would have come, in ordinary course of twenty-four or thirty-six hours. Twice in the letter of May 29 does the expression 'ordinary course' occur. There was 'no necessity for any extreme haste.' When, in the name of wonder could such necessity arise? Many regiments had already revolted; others were momentarily expected to break from their ranks. A sudden act of mutiny was known to have caused the Proclamation. Even as it was penned, a detachment from one of the regiments in Agra itself was on the eve of revolt. When Sir John Lawrence[1] asked the Commander-in-Chief to issue, on his own responsibility, an order abolishing the new cartridges altogether, he added, 'time does not admit of a reference to the Governor-General.' Pressed, as he conceived, by time and circumstance, Mr. Colvin acted in the same spirit. The Governor-General's telegram of May 15 (page 182), and his instructions issued on July 31. enjoining clemency and ordering individual inquiry, prove that it was not Mr. Colvin's policy which was condemned but his meaning that was misunderstood. Men will differ as to the standard by which to decide in such a crisis; as to how far in similar circumstances a man should
- ↑ Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 23.
