On the 27th May Lawrence wrote to Lord Canning as follows:  ’Hitherto the country has been kept quiet, and we have played the Irregulars against the line regiments; but being constituted of exactly the same material, the taint is fast pervading them, and in a few weeks, if not days—­unless Delhi be in the interim captured—­there will be but one feeling throughout the army, a feeling that our prestige is gone, and that feeling will be more dangerous than any other.  Religion, fear, hatred, one and all have their influence; but there is still a reverence for the Company’s ikbal[4]—­when it is gone we shall have few friends indeed.  The tone and talk of many have greatly altered during the last few days, and we are now asked, almost in terms of insolence, whether Delhi is captured, or when it will be.  It was only just after the Kabul massacre, and when we hesitated to advance through the Khyber, that, in my memory, such a tone ever before prevailed.[5]

Feeling all this so strongly, it is the more remarkable that Henry Lawrence never lost heart, but struggled bravely on ’to preserve the soldiery to their duty and the people to their allegiance,’ while at the same time he was, as I have shown, making every conceivable preparation to meet the outbreak whenever it should come.

There is no doubt that Henry Lawrence was a very remarkable man; his friendly feeling for Natives, and his extraordinary insight into their character, together with his military training and his varied political experience, peculiarly fitted him to be at the head of a Government at such a crisis.[6]

All this, however, is a digression from my narrative, to which I must now return.

While the withdrawal was being effected, Peel’s guns distracted the enemy’s attention from the proceedings by keeping up a perpetual and destructive fire on the Kaisarbagh, thus leading the rebels to believe that our whole efforts were directed to taking that place.  By the evening of the 22nd three large breaches had been made, and the enemy naturally expected an assault to take place the next morning.  But the object of that heavy fire had already been accomplished; the women and children, the sick and wounded, were all safe in the Dilkusha; no one was left in the Residency but the garrison, on duty for the last time at the posts they had so long and so bravely defended, and they were to leave at midnight.

As the clock struck twelve, in the deepest silence and with the utmost caution, the gallant little band evacuated the place, and passed down the long line of posts, first those held by Outram’s and Havelock’s men, and then those occupied by the relieving force, until they reached the Martiniere Park.  As they moved on, Outram’s and Havelock’s troops fell in behind, and were followed by the relieving force, which brought up the rear.  The scheme for this very delicate movement had been most carefully considered beforehand by General Mansfield, the clever Chief of the Staff, who clearly explained to all concerned the parts they had to play, and emphatically impressed upon them that success depended on his directions being followed to the letter, and on their being carried out without the slightest noise or confusion.