5_.--This untoward event considerably hampered the
operations on September 15, and but small progress was made that day
towards driving the rebels out of Delhi. The artillery and engineers
worked hard at the completion of the batteries on the captured bastions,
on which were mounted our own and the enemy's heavy guns; and one for
mortars was erected in the College grounds, which shelled the Palace
and the Fort of Selimgarh. A few houses were taken in advance of our
positions, but no further movement on any large scale was attempted,
owing to the demoralized state of a great portion of the European
infantry, and, further, to a desire that the troops should obtain some
rest after the unparalleled fatigues and exposure of the previous day.

Reports also spread through the force that the General, feeling his
strength and means inadequate to hold even the portions of the city in
our possession, meditated an evacuation of the place, and a retirement
to the old camp to await reinforcements. Every consideration must be
made for one placed in his critical position; and he, no doubt, in his
own mind, felt justified in proposing the step, which, had it been
carried out, would, in all probability, have ended in the fall of
British rule in India. "In an extraordinary situation extraordinary
resolution is needed," was the saying of the Great Napoleon, and to no
crisis in our history was this dictum more applicable than that at Delhi
in September, 1857. Mutiny and rebellion spread their hydra heads over
the land, disaffection was rife in the Punjab, our only source of supply
for operations in the field; and nought could stay the alarming symptoms
save the complete capture and retention of the great stronghold of
rebellion. It had also been a well-known maxim laid down and carried out
by Clive, Wellesley, Lake, and all the great commanders who had made
our name famous in Hindostan, never to retire before an Eastern foe, no
matter how great the disparity of numbers; and history tells us that our
successes were due mainly to this rule, while the few reverses we have
suffered resulted from a timid policy carried out by men whose heart
failed them in the hour of trial.

Happily for the Delhi army, and more especially for the English name,
the counsels of the General in command were overruled by the chief
officers in the force, and even the gallant Nicholson from his death-bed
denounced, in language which those who heard it will never forge