We must break the narrative here for a moment, now that we have got the combatants face to face, in the place of decision, to submit to our readers our own conviction that this same siege of Delhi, beginning on June 9th and ending triumphantly on September 22d, 1857, is _the_ feat of arms of which England has most cause to be proud. From Cressy to Sebastopol it has never been equalled. A mere handful of Englishmen, for half the time numbering less than three thousand, sat down in the open field, in the worst days of an Indian summer, without regular communications, (for the daks were only got carried by bribery, stage by stage,) without proper artillery, and last and worst of all, without able leading, before and took a city larger than Glasgow, garrisoned by an army trained by Englishmen, and numbering at first 20,000, in another ten days 37,000, and at last 75,000 men, supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war, and in the midst of a nation in arms. "I venture to aver," writes Hodson, "that no other nation in the world would have remained here, or have avoided defeat, had they attempted to do so." We agree with him; and we do trust that the nation will come to look at the siege of Delhi in the right light, and properly to acknowledge and reward the few who remain of that band of heroes who saved British India.
Our readers must also remember that we are not giving the story of the siege, but the story of Hodson's part therein, and must therefore not think we are unduly putting him forward to the depreciation of other as glorious names. We would that we had the same means of following the life day by day of Nicholson and Chamberlain, Tombs and Light, Welchman, Showers, Home, Salkeld, or a hundred others equally gallant. But what we have is Hodson's life compiled from his daily letters to his wife. No doubt the work of the regulars was as important, perhaps even more trying, than that of the Captain of Irregular Cavalry, Assistant Quartermaster-General, and head of the Intelligence Department; but these were his duties, and not the others', and we shall now see how he fulfilled them.
On the first day of the siege "the Guides" march into camp:
"It would have done your heart good to see the welcome they gave me--cheering and shouting and crowding round me like frantic creatures. They seized my bridle, dress, hands, and feet, and literally threw themselves down before the horse with the tears streaming down their faces. Many officers who were present hardly knew what to make of it, and thought the creatures were mobbing me; and so they were--but for joy, not for mischief."