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Rh conquered. It was, I repeat, a unique position. Sir John Lawrence had to consider whether he could afford to risk the departure from the province of some of the English regiments which were there for its protection, in order to enable him to despatch to the force besieging Dehlí the assistance without which, as events were soon to make clear, that city could not be taken. He had to recollect that he, too, was encumbered by a large garrison of sipáhís imbued with the leaven of mutiny; that he would have to deal with these; that it would be incumbent upon him to repose a trust nearly absolute in the Sikhs; that, in a word, he would have to risk everything to ensure the success of that march against Dehlí, of which he had been the persistent advocate.

A brave man, morally as well as physically, Sir John Lawrence even courted the ordeal. From the very first he devoted all his energies to the employment of the resources of the Panjáb in the subduing of Dehlí. One of his first acts was to despatch thither the splendid Guide corps, composed entirely of frontier men, and consisting of cavalry and infantry. That corps quitted the frontier on the 13th of May, and, as already related, joined the force before Dehlí the day after Barnard had made good his position on the ridge. His lieutenants at Pasháwar, Herbert Edwardes, Neville Chamberlain, and John Nicholson, had, in concert with General Reed, commanding the division, and Sydney Cotton, commanding the brigade, jotted down the heads of a plan for the formation of a moveable column. This scheme was approved by Lawrence, and acted upon somewhat later.

Meanwhile, his lieutenant at Láhor, Robert Montgomery, had taken the wise precaution of disarming the sipáhís at Mían Mír (May 13th); the general at Pasháwar carried out a similar policy on the 22d, and generally, by