CONCLUSION, 343 



ornament of some flat stones set in silver, worth a 

 few rupees at most, which had probably, as would 

 appear from his letters, been bought from a sowar." ^ 



" The inventory of his efl'ects," wrote Sir Charles 

 Gough many years afterwards, in honest indignation 

 at the revival of former calumnies, " bears "^^ witness 

 to the fact he had no loot of any kind in his 

 possession."^ 



When the old scandal about the discovery of " vast 

 stores of valuables" amono-st Hodson's effects had 

 been thoroughly exploded by Lord Napier and Sir 

 Charles Gough, the slanderers of their dead friend 

 and comrade affirmed that Hodson's trunks had been 

 carefully rifled before they were examined by the 

 committee of adjustment. The authors of this pre- 

 posterous fable must have forgotten what both Sir 



^ Hodson of Hodson's Horse. 



2 " It was current in camp," writes Lord Roberts, who in com- 

 mon with the whole army had mourned his early death, " and the 

 story has often been repeated, that Hodson was killed in the act of 

 looting. This certainly was not the case. Hodson was sitting with 

 Donald Stewart in the headquarters camp when the signal gun 

 announced that the attack on the Begam Kothi was about to take 

 place. Hodson immediately mounted his horse and rode off in the 

 direction of the city. Stewart, who had been ordered by the com- 

 mander-in-chief to accompany the troops, and send an early report to 

 his Excellency of the result of the assault, had his horse ready, and 

 followed Hodson so closely that he kept him in sight until within a 

 short distance of the fighting, when Stewart stopped to speak to the 

 officer in charge of Peel's guns, which had been covering the advance 

 of the troops. This delayed Stewart for a few minutes only, and as he 

 rode into the courtyard of the palace a Highland soldier handed him 

 a pistol, saying, ' This is your pistol, sir ; but I thought you were 

 carried away mortally wounded a short time ago.' Stewart at once 

 conjectured that the man had mistaken him for Hodson. In face 

 they were not much alike, but both were tall, well made, and fair, 

 and native soldiers had frequently saluted one for the other. It is 

 clear from this account that Hodson could not have been looting, as 

 he was wounded almost as soon as he reached the palace." 



