FIRST WEEKS OF THE SIEGE OF DELHI. 209 



little tent, and got me a good native charpoy 

 (bedstead.) "1 



On the same day Hodson was requested to consult 

 with Greathed, Chesney, and Maunsell of the Bengal 

 Engineers, on the likeliest mode of carrying Delhi 

 by a sudden assault. These four officers drew up a 

 scheme which met with Barnard's entire approval. 

 Hodson, of course, was greatly pleased at the compli- 

 ment thus paid him by a general who recognised his 

 worth. " Though I am known," he wrote, " to 

 counsel vigorous measures, it is equally well known 

 I do not uro-e others to do what I would not be the 

 first to do myself. It is a much more serious 

 business than was at first anticipated. Delhi is a 

 very strong place, and the vast resources which the 

 possession of our arsenal has given the mutineers 

 has made the matter a difficult one to deal with, 

 except by the boldest measures. The city should 

 be carried by a coup -de-main, and that at once, 

 or we may be many weeks before Delhi, instead of 

 within it." 



That the plan was a very bold one goes without 

 saying, and Hodson himself appears to have been 

 fully alive to the tremendous hazards involved in 

 carrying it out. But the feeling in camp was 

 strongly in favour of an immediate assault before 

 the rebels had time to augment their numbers and 

 strengthen their defences. Colonel Hope Grant 

 assured Sir H. Barnard that he " thought his 

 determination a very wise one ; that every day the 

 rebel forces were increasing, and that the longer we 

 delayed the smaller was our prospect of success."^ 



1 From Cadet to Colonel. 



^ lucidents in the Sepoy War. Blackwood, 1873. 



O 



