Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/83

Rh in that province. After their advent, Oudh became the chief focus of the rebellion.

At Lakhnao, the capital of Oudh, ruled the chivalrous and capable Sir Henry Lawrence. No man more than he had lamented the tendencies of the time to introduce a western system of local government among an oriental people. No man had been more desirous to stand on the ancient ways, the ways familiarised to the natives of India by centuries of use: to employ the utmost care and discretion in introducing changes, however meritorious those changes might appear to men of western race and western training. Hence Sir Henry Lawrence was popular with all classes of natives. He possessed a greater influence over them than any man then living; and, could the rill, then breaking into a torrent, have been stemmed, he was the one man to stem it. But Sir Henry Lawrence had come to Oudh after the evil seeds sown by his immediate predecessor had begun to bear fruit — when the native landowners had been alienated, the supporters of the native rule had begun to conspire, and when the effects of the annexation were being realised by the numerous families which had sent a son or a brother into the sipáhí army, in order that he might procure for them the support of the English Resident in their local Courts. When Sir Henry arrived, then, the mischief had been done, and he had had no power to repair it.

The events at Barhámpur and Barrackpur had been watched by Sir Henry Lawrence with the deepest interest. Naturally, he had taken particular pains to satisfy himself whether the causes which had produced the outbreaks I have recorded at those stations had affected the three regular native regiments, the 13th, the 48th, and the 71st N. I., which garrisoned Lakhnao. But it was not till the end of April, just about the time when the disbanded men of the