Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/82

 before Delhi, and there met his old corps of the guides, who received him with extravagant enthusiasm. Of the details of the siege of Delhi, and the important share that he and his Horse had in its capture, his letters give a very clear and interesting account. It was taken on 20 Sept. 1857, and on the following day he obtained (with some difficulty) from General Wilson permission to pursue and seize the king of Delhi. He started with only fifty of his own men for Humayoon's tomb, where the king had gone after leaving his palace. The surrender followed, and Hodson brought the king back into Delhi, handing him over to the commander-in-chief, in spite of the thousands following, any one of whom could have shot him down in a moment. This, the leading the king a captive into his own palace, was perhaps the heaviest blow the rebellion had received.

On the following day (22 Sept. 1857), with a hundred picked men, he started again for Humayoon's tomb, where the Shahzadahs, princes of Delhi, had taken refuge. Hodson demanded their surrender; they came out and were sent away towards the city under a guard. The tomb was crowded with six or seven thousand of the servants and hangers-on of the palace and city. Hodson demanded from these men the instant surrender of their arms. In spite of the small number of his force, they obeyed, and, after leaving the arms and animals with a guard, he went to look after the prisoners. A large native mob had collected, and were turning on the guard. It was no time to hesitate; the question was between the lives of himself and his soldiers and those of the prisoners; and after appealing to the crowd saying that these were the butchers who had murdered and brutally used helpless women and children, he took a carbine from one of his men and shot the princes, one after another. The critical condition of things in India, and the absolute necessity at the moment of immediate action for the safety of his own life and those of his soldiers, gained for Hodson's action the approval at the time of all engaged in the work of putting down the rebellion. Yet he did not escape detraction. ‘The capture of the king and his sons,’ he says himself, ‘however ultimately creditable, has caused me more envy and ill-will than you would believe possible.’

Hodson's Horse was not suffered to lie idle after the fall of Delhi; it was soon after sent towards Cawnpore in charge of a convoy of supplies for the commander-in-chief's army, and went through a great deal of hard fighting and service of all kinds. One of Hodson's most brilliant exploits was his riding from Mynpooree to the commander-in-chief's camp at Meerun-ke-Serai to open communications between the two forces, when he rode seventy-two miles on one horse through a country swarming with enemies.

On 6 March Hodson was before Lucknow. On 11 March he advanced as a volunteer with his friend, Brigadier Napier, who was directing an attack on the begum's palace. While the soldiers were searching for concealed sepoys in the courtyard and buildings adjoining, he looked into a dark room, and was shot from within through the chest. He died the next day, 12 March 1858, and was buried at Lucknow. Sir Colin Campbell wrote of him to his widow as ‘one of the most brilliant officers under my command.’ Sir John Lawrence described him as ‘one of the ablest, most active, and bravest soldiers who have fallen in the war.’ Sir Robert Montgomery wrote: ‘I can find no one like him; many men are as brave, many possess as much talent, many are as cool and accurate in judgment, but not one combines all these qualifications as he did.’ These verdicts are beyond dispute. The accusation made against him, that he had accumulated ‘vast stores of valuables’ by looting, is refuted by the fact that all his property (save horses) was sold at his death for 170l. Moreover, his widow, who was in the receipt of two pensions, died in 1884 in Hampton Court Palace, and her whole property was sworn under 400l. 