By W. W. Ravenhili, Esq. 201 
stream, heeling over in a frightful manner. The inmates contrived 
to get through the after cabin windows on to the sides of the 
ship. In this dangerous position they remained for three hours, 
holding on they scarce knew how, the boat rolling from side to 
side, sometimes floating completely bottom up. Had she righted 
she would probably have gone down; such was the violence of the 
storm. The people on the banks either could not, or would not 
assist them. What an awful night adventure for ladies! At day- 
break those on board discovered the dingy still attached ; by partially 
baling her out they managed to get into her, and when opposite 
Rajmahal were rescued. The pinnace however sank with the colours 
of the regiment. After six months the latter were recovered from the 
bottom of the river ; tattered and worn they now hang in Salisbury 
Cathedral, a fitting votive memento not merely of our Wiltshire 
soldiers, but of that awful wrath of weather and that merciful de- 
liverance. 
A little more than three years and, on the 20th December, 1845, 
the Wiltshire regiment was part of a garrison of six thousand holding 
Ferozepore, under Sir J. Littler, against the Sikhs who were ten 
times their number. The enemy had crossed the Sutlej, and the 
force with which Sir H. Harding and Sir H. Gough were coming to 
their rescue, was about eleven thousand. Orders came that night 
to Ferozepore that the garrison there was to retire from their 
position, risk a flank march and join the main army. At 8, a.m., 
next morning they started, and, strange to say, effected a junction 
about 4, p.m., in the afternoon of the same day, without opposition. 
They were at once ordered to the left front of the British and 
Native army, then drawn up ready to attack the Sikhs. 
‘The enemy, thirty thousand strong, were in a large entrenched 
camp, the approach to which was protected by guns of a heavy calibre. 
Littler’s division formed part of the left attack, and the men, exhausted 
by their march, found themselves in action immediately. Two- 
thirds of the Sixty-Second regiment were slaughtered before the 
entrenchments, and “ the men,” says Lord Gough, in general order, 
“did not desist from their noble efforts until ordered by the Brigadier 
commanding (General Reed) to fall back. . . . The conduct 
