Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/18

x the difficulty of which I never realised until I had taken it in hand. When a writer has at his command unlimited space, his task is comparatively easy. He can then do justice to all the actors in the drama. But I have found it most difficult to mention the names of all who have deserved in a volume every page of which must be devoted to the relation of events. And although my publishers, with a generosity I cannot sufficiently acknowledge, permitted me to increase, by an additional fourth, the number of pages allotted to the series of which this volume is the second issue, I am conscious that I have not sufficiently dwelt upon the splendid individual achievements of many of those who contributed to the final victory. The fact is that there are so many of them. There never has been an event in History to which the principle of the Order of the Day, published by Napoleon on the morrow of Austerlitz, applies more thoroughly than to the Mutiny of 1857. '"It will be enough for one of you to say," said the Emperor, in his famous bulletin, "I was at the Battle of Austerlitz," for all your fellow-citizens to exclaim, "There is a brave man!"' Substitute the words 'Indian Mutiny' for the 'Battle of Austerlitz' and the phrase applies to that band of heroes whose constancy, whose courage, and whose devotion saved India in 1857.

One word as to the spelling I have adopted. It is similar to the spelling which appears in the