early development of the action of the sipáhís. It is due to his memory to record that he had taken a far more serious view of it than that which had commended itself to the advisers of Lord Canning. In his eyes it was 'no passing and groundless panic,' but a deliberate scheme for the overthrow of the British power. He did not know, he had no reason to suspect, that the principal conspirator was within a few miles of him. The outward demeanour of the Náná Sáhib was never more suave than it was just before the outbreak. He was the adviser, and the trusted adviser, of the civil authorities.
Confident that the native army was infected from the crown of its head to the soles of its feet, Sir Hugh, looking round at the straggling station in which he commanded, recognising the utter impossibility of organising a plan of general defence, resolved to select, partially to fortify and store with provisions, one spot in the station, which should be a rallying point, when the danger signal should sound, for all the English and Eurasians, men, women, and children, and which he might be able to defend until succour should arrive. The idea showed prescience and courage. It was the same idea which at the same time occurred to, and was acted upon, by the sagacious Mr Boyle at Árah, by Sir Henry Lawrence at Lakhnao.
His great difficulty was to select a suitable position. The station, I have said, was straggling, covering, as far as the magazine at its further end, that is, the end nearer to Dehlí, a length of seven miles. The cantonment was open, and possessed no kind of fortification. It was separated by the Ganges from Oudh, and Sir Hugh Wheeler was too experienced in the modes of thought of the natives not to be absolutely certain that in the men of Oudh the English would find their most per-
