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88 upon. They saw that the English were unsuspicious, and they believed that the plot, so far as Mírath was concerned, might, by a prompt rising, be brought to a successful issue. In that events proved them to be right. But they had lost sight of the fact that, by acting solely for their own hand, they were imperilling the great principle which had been impressed upon them by their committees, and, with it, the general success aimed at by their chiefs. This premature action proved ultimately as fortunate for the English as disastrous to the cause of revolt. A blow which, struck simultaneously all over India, might have been irresistible lost more than half its power when delivered piecemeal and at intervals.

On the 12th of May a telegram from Agra conveyed to the Government, in Calcutta, the information that the native cavalry at Mírath had risen, had set fire to several officers' houses and to their own lines, and had killed or wounded all the English officers and soldiers they had come across. It is not too much to record that the atti-