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46 Such barricades, it is to be feared, rose high in Lord Canning's study. An embassy of his colleagues, on one occasion, brought some friendly pressure to bear upon their too assiduous chief, and urged him to part with some portion of his task, which it was certain that he could never accomplish. The reluctant Governor-General hovered uneasily about the vast accumulation, finding in each instance some especial reason against abandonment, and was at last with difficulty persuaded to bow to the stern destiny which has decreed that human life shall be short, human energy exhaustible, and the art of administration difficult and long.

Canning, however, could be prompt enough when promptitude was evidently essential, and a crisis had now arrived which called imperatively for instantaneous action.

During the early months of the year 1857 various symptoms of a mutinous temper in the troops in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta, and at Berhampur, a military post a hundred miles to the north, sounded the first note of danger. Then, when the troubles in Bengal seemed to have subsided, outbreaks of similar character in Upper India, at Meerut and Lucknow, showed that the malady was no merely local one; and, while these were being dealt with, there came the astounding news that the Sepoys at Meerut, the strongest post, as to European troops, in India, had thrown off allegiance, murdered their officers, sacked the Station, and effected their escape,