Page:Earl Canning.djvu/106

100 how inadequate were its resources for the siege, and to be obliged to fight hard, day by day, to maintain its position. As week after week went by, and the Mughal capital still offered defiance to the British flag, the crisis intensified and the area of insurrection spread. The Lucknow garrison was in desperate peril: that of Cawnpur was doomed. Oudh had become an enemy's country. Rohilkhand, on the left bank of the Upper Ganges, was a-blaze. At all the great stations of the North-West Provinces — Aligarh, Etáwah, Máinpuri, Bulandshahr — there had been mutiny.

In the Punjab, where a prompt blow, struck by Montgomery at Lahore, the vigour and determination of Lawrence, and the military prowess of Nicholson, had hitherto kept the disaffection in check, the temper of the Sepoy army was dangerous.

On the 3rd of June Sir J. Lawrence wrote to Lord Canning that the whole native army was ready to break out, and that unless a blow were soon struck, the irregulars as a body would follow their example.

Nicholson and Edwardes at Pesháwar had found it necessary to disarm four native regiments there, and another at the neighbouring station of Murdan; and Nicholson sweeping about the country like the incarnation of vengeance, had struck terror into wavering: hearts. In the east of the Province the fort of Phillor, an important arsenal, containing much of the siege material destined for use at Delhi, had, happily, been saved. Firozpur, too, another important arsenal, with its priceless magazine, was safe;