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Rh used with these, patches smeared with wax had been served out. No suspicion had ever attached to these patches. But for the Adjutant-General, the right-hand man of the Commander-in-Chief, seriously to argue that the issue of these patches warranted him in remonstrating with the Government against their order forbidding the issue of greased cartridges, and for the Government to accept his statement that for some years greased cartridges had been issued, argued an ignorance and an absence of common sense sufficient to account for the many grave blunders which followed.

Such had been the condition of matters at the end of January. There had been sufficient displays of dissatisfaction to cause grave suspicions, and that was all. In those displays the Government had recognised no sign of wide-spread disaffection. There were but two men holding prominent positions in or near Calcutta who saw in the action of the sipáhís something more than a passing wave of discontent, and one of these saw it but dimly. The more prescient of these two men was Major Cavenagh, the Town-Major of Fort William, and the representative in that fortress of the Governor-General. The other was the Commander of the Presidency Division, General Hearsey. I have already recorded the action of the former in January, and I shall have to write of his action in March and April. For the moment I must narrate the proceedings of General Hearsey at Barrackpur.

The revelations of the lascar at Dam-Dam, in January, had deeply impressed that officer. He recognised that the minds of the sipáhís were in a state of great excitement. The real cause, the basis of that excitement, was not apparent to him. His intelligence was limited to the matters which came under his eyes, and it was not in his nature to probe the situation more deeply.