* * * * *

Thus ended the great siege of Delhi, and to no one could the tidings of its fall have brought more intense relief and satisfaction than to the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab.  Although in the first instance Sir John Lawrence certainly under-estimated the strength of the Delhi defences and the difficulties with which General Anson had to contend, he fully realized them later, and even at the risk of imperilling the safety of his own province by denuding it of troops, he provided the means for the capture of the rebel stronghold, and consequently the army of Delhi felt they owed him a deep debt of gratitude.

Like Norman when writing his narrative of the siege, I feel I cannot conclude my brief account of it without paying my small tribute of praise and admiration to the troops who bore themselves so nobly from the beginning to the end.  Their behaviour throughout was beyond all praise, their constancy was unwearied, their gallantry most conspicuous; in thirty-two different fights they were victorious over long odds, being often exposed to an enemy ten times their number, who, moreover, had the advantage of ground and superior Artillery; they fought and worked as if each one felt that on his individual exertions alone depended the issue of the day; they willingly, nay, cheerfully, endured such trials as few armies have ever been exposed to for so long a time.  For three months, day after day, and for the greater part of the day, every man had to be constantly under arms, exposed to a scorching Indian sun, which was almost as destructive as, and much harder to bear than, the enemy’s never-ceasing fire.  They saw their comrades struck down by cholera, sunstroke, and dysentery, more dispiriting a thousand times than the daily casualties in action.  They beheld their enemies reinforced while their own numbers rapidly decreased.  Yet they never lost heart, and at last, when it became evident that no hope of further reinforcements could be entertained, and that if Delhi were to be taken at all it must be taken at once, they advanced to the assault with as high a courage and as complete a confidence in the result, as if they were attacking in the first flush and exultation of troops at the commencement of a campaign, instead of being the remnant of a force worn out, by twelve long weeks of privation and suffering, by hope deferred (which truly ’maketh the heart sick’), and by weary waiting for the help which never came.  Batteries were thrown up within easy range of the walls, than which a more heroic piece of work was never performed; and finally, these gallant few, of whom England should in very truth be everlastingly proud, stormed in the face of day a strong fortress defended by 30,000 desperate men, provided with everything necessary to defy assault.