Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/15

Rh without, however, finding that my views were shared by any one of them. It would seem, however, that the officer who held the responsible post of Town Major, Major Orfeur Cavenagh, had, from his own observation, arrived at conclusions not dissimilar. He has narrated in his admirable work the observations forced upon him by the changed demeanour of the natives of the North-western Provinces in 1856. But he, too, stood, amongst high-placed Europeans, almost alone in his convictions. The fact is that, up to the very outbreak of the Mutiny at Mírath, no one, from highest to lowest, believed in the possibility of a general combination. Those, and they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, who endeavoured to hint at an opposite conclusion were ridiculed as alarmists. So ingrained was the belief in the loyalty of the sipáhís, and so profound was the ignorance as to the manner in which their minds were affected, that neither the outbreak of Mírath nor the seizure of Dehlí entirely removed it. The tone of the governing classes was displayed when the Home Secretary prated about 'a passing and groundless panic,' and when the acting Commander-in-Chief, an old officer of sipáhís, babbled, in June 1857, of reorganisation. But the fact, nevertheless, re-