’9.  To strengthen his military position, he placed Artillery with the European Infantry; he distributed his Irregular Cavalry; he examined the city, decided on taking possession of the Muchee Bawn and garrisoning it as a fort; and summoned in Colonel Fisher and Captain George Hardinge; and with them, Brigadier Handscombe and Major Anderson, consulted and arranged for future plans against the storms which he saw to be impending.

’10.  Much of this, and his policy for remaining in Oudh, and the conduct of the defence of Lucknow, I know from recollections of what he occasionally let drop to me in his confidential conversations while inspecting the Muchee Bawn.  He told me that nearly the whole army would go; that he did not think the Sikhs would go; that in every regiment there were men that, with proper management, would remain entirely on our side; and that, therefore, he meant to segregate from the rest of the troops the Sikhs and selected men, and to do his best to keep them faithful allies when the rest should go; that, if Cawnpore should hold out, we would not be attacked; but that if it should fall, we would be invested, and more or less closely besieged; that no troops could come to our relief before the middle of August; that the besieging forces would, he thought, be confined to the sepoys, for the people of the country had always liked our European officers, whom they had frequently had to bless for the safety of their lives and the honour of their families; and the whole Hindu population had a lively recollection of our friendly line of conduct in the late quarrel with the Mussulmans regarding the Hunnooman Gurhee; that to hold out where we were was necessary, for the slightest appearance of yielding, or of not showing a bold front, would result in annihilation; that to hold out we must get provisions; that to got provisions and prepare for an efficient defence we must keep open our communication with the country, and keep the city quiet; that to the former end the retention of the cantonment was necessary, and of the Muchee Bawn to the latter, while the site of the permanent defences, in case of the need of concentration, should be the Residency.

’11.  All this I know, as before said, from Sir Henry Lawrence’s own casual and hurried remarks to me.  Whether they are officially recorded anywhere I do not know; but they must have been written in letters to various persons, and repeated to others of his subordinates at Lucknow.  I mention these matters thus early, as although the facts on which they bear did not immediately occur, still, Sir Henry Lawrence had prescience of them, and had decided on his line of policy.

’12.  I understand, further, but not on authentic grounds, that Sir Henry wrote at a very early stage to Sir H. Wheeler, urging him to construct entrenchments at the magazine at Cawnpore, and to ensure his command of the boats, whatever might happen; that he wrote early to the Government, entreating them to divert one of the European regiments in the course of relief, and divide it between Cawnpore and Allahabad; and that subsequently he urged on Government to employ the troops of the Persian expedition in Bengal, and to stop the Chinese force for the same end, and to subsidize some of the Nepal troops for the protection of our older provinces east of Oudh.