190 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



new light thrown upon it, and I left them to go 

 through it together. When they had done so they 

 were evidently much impressed by it. Colonel 

 Chester promised to show it at once to the com- 

 mander-in-chief, General Anson, and Keith Young 

 thanked me very warmly for bringing it under his 

 notice. From that time Keith Young became one 

 of Hodson's warmest friends, and General Anson 

 was prevailed on by both of them to give him 

 another appointment. Then, of course, the idea 

 only was that he should write on the matter to Lord 

 Canning, which I believe he did ; but the letter was 

 lost in transmission through the sudden outbreak of 

 the rebellion. 



" It was, I think, just a week after I spoke to 

 them that the Mutiny broke out at Meerut, and for 

 months afterwards there was no direct postal com- 

 munication with Calcutta. General Anson, there- 

 fore, gave Hodson a staff appointment on his own 

 responsibility, and he soon justified the selection, 

 for it is doubtful if there was another man in 

 the whole army who could have supplied his 

 place." ^ 



The hour, indeed, was drawing very near when 

 every Englishman from Peshawar to Calcutta 

 would learn with incredulous surprise the first 

 tidings of a successful sepoy rising in one of the 

 most important stations of Upper India. When 

 news of the murderous outbreak at Meerut on May 

 10 was first flashed up and down the telegraph 

 wires, it seemed hardly credible that such a thing 

 could have happened in a cantonment guarded by 

 two strong European regiments and several batteries 



1 Mr Sloggett's letter to the Rev. G. H. Hodson, 1882. 



