Colonel Seaton is doing well; in three weeks' time I hope he will be about again. Before this surely our rulers will consent to take Delhi. Sickness is on the increase, and we have been nearly losing another General. General Wilson was very ill for a few days, but is now better. He is older, however, by ten years than he was. The responsibility and anxiety of what is certainly a very difficult position, have been too much for him, and he has got into the way of being nervous and alarmed, and overanxious even about trifles, which shakes one's dependence on his judgment. These men are personally as brave as lions, but they have not big hearts or heads enough for circumstances of serious responsibility. This word is the bugbear which hampers all our proceedings. Would we could have had Sir Henry Lawrence as our leader; we should have been in Delhi weeks ago. I hope Colonel Napier is coming up with the force. He has head, and heart, and nerve, and the moral courage to act as if he had; we hear that the crisis is passing; all below Cawnpore is safe, and all above Kurnâl to Peshawur; while Lord W. Hay keeps the more important hill stations steady. When all is over, our power will be stronger than ever, principally because we shall have got rid of our great sore, a native army.
3d.—4 p. m. and I have only just got out of the saddle, and found on my arrival in camp the heaviest news that has yet reached us. Report says that Sir Henry is dead! The news wants confirmation, and God grant that it may be untrue. I should lose one of my best friends, and the country (in Lord Dalhousie's words on poor Mackeson) "one whose loss would dim a victory." I cannot write more to-day; the news has quite unnerved me.
4th.—Two letters have just arrived from General Havelock at Cawnpore. They were written at an interval of ten days, and mentioned his having had three successful fights, on the 12th, 15th, and 16th of July, and the reoccupation of Cawnpore. The first of these letters mentions a report that Sir Henry had died on the 4th July, of wounds received on the 2d; but the second letter, written ten days later, does not even allude to a circumstance of such importance, and the Sikh who brought it, and who left Havelock near Lucknow, on his way to its relief, maintains that it is not true, and that Sir Henry Lawrence was alive when he left, as letters were constantly passing from Havelock's camp to the "Burra Sahib." God grant, for his country's sake and for mine, that it be not true. To the country his death would be worse than the loss of a province; to me it would be the loss of my truest and most valued friend. I hope, yet fear to hope, that it may be a false report; yet what soldier would wish a more noble, a more brilliant end to such a career? Havelock has captured all the enemy's guns, and inflicted severe punishment. The destruction of Sir Hugh Wheeler and his party is fully confirmed, and Havelock was too late to save the unfortunate women and children, who were massacred in their prison, before his arrival, by their guards. Such fiends as these our arms have never met with in any part of the world. May our vengeance be as speedy as it will unquestionably be sure!
We (Hodson's Horse) are getting on very comfortably, and are going to start a mess on our own account, so as to be ready to march without difficulty when required.
5th.—To-day the accounts received from a native Commissariat Agent, arrived at Meerut from Lucknow, are positive as to Sir H. Lawrence being alive a fortnight after he was said to have died. This, if reliable, is good indeed. The letter I annex[38] from Colonel Tytler gives good news, and the man who brought the letter, says there were fourteen steamers and flats at Cawnpore when he left. The troops had taken Bithoor, the Nana's place, and at first it was uninjured, but the bodies of some English women were found inside the Nana's house, on which the European soldiers, excited to irresistible fury, destroyed every human being in the place, and then demolished the building, not leaving one stone upon another. The Nana himself, with his family, took refuge in a boat on the river, and the native accounts add that he sunk it, and all were drowned. This I strongly doubt; such Spartan heroism could scarcely exist in the mind of one who could violate and massacre helpless women and children. Indeed, I hope it is not true; for it is one of my aims to have the catching of the said Nana myself. The hanging him would be a positive pleasure to me. I trust the day of retribution is not far distant.
6th.—Small chance of much writing to-day, for just as I have got into camp, after some hours' attendance on the pleasure of the Pandies, who came out in force and threatened an attack, I find that I have to start on a long reconnoitring expedition, from which I cannot return till late at night. This is unfortunate, as I have much pen-work on hand, my necessary official writing being very onerous. I was obliged to write as long a letter as I could to Lord W. Hay, if but to thank him, in my own and others' name, for the comforts he so thoughtfully sent us.
I have a very complimentary letter from G. Barnes, the Commissioner, as well as some others, enough to turn one's head with vanity; but I have had bitter experience of its rottenness, and take the flattery at its full value, namely, "nil." I fear, from fresh reports arrived, that Havelock will not come and help us after all. They say he has the strictest orders to relieve Lucknow only, and that however much he may desire to march on to Delhi, it is out of his power to do so. It is true we do not want him. Delhi surely must be taken as soon as ever the reinforcements get down here from the Punjaub. Our rulers must then see the necessity for action.
7th.—I returned at three o'clock this morning from a forty miles' ride over the worst and wettest country I was ever in, and I am thoroughly exhausted, though everybody is wanting something, and I must attend to business first, and then to rest.