volunteer escort mistook the way, and some forty helpless men were done to death, some by the daggers of the rebels, some by the fire wantonly applied to their dolis.[1]
The losses sustained in this glorious operation were heavy. The official return puts them at 196 killed and 535 wounded, and there is every reason for believing that that return is accurate. Those losses were incurred in the hope that, as a satisfactory result of them, the defenders of the Residency would be relieved. As it was, they were merely reinforced. At first Outram inclined to the belief that it would be possible to fall back upon Kánhpur. But his better judgment prevailed. Subsequent experience proved most clearly that the women and children could not have been withdrawn by the force under his orders except at a tremendous risk. If it had cost him over 500 men to make his way into the Residency, unencumbered by non-combatants of that stamp, the reader may judge for himself how far he could have succeeded in making the reverse journey under circumstances infinitely more complicated. Eager as was Outram to return to place himself and his troops at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief, he was surely right, situated as he was, not to attempt it. Circumstances were too strong, even for a man who, throughout his career, had never flinched at either danger or responsibility.
Whilst he remains besieged in the Residency, his troops occupying some of the adjacent palaces, and the Álambagh held by a small detachment, I propose to take a survey of the events which had been passing in that part of the country in which British interests were represented almost solely by the men who occupied the fortress of Agra.
- ↑ A doli is an inferior kind of palanquin, used for carrying a wounded man.
