The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-09 00:00:00

LIICK.NOW.

Heavier and heavier tidings of woe ! About a
week ago it was known that Sir Henry Lawrence
—whose defence of Lucknow with a mere handful,
amid the rage of hostile myriads, has been the ad-
miration of all India—had gone out to attack a
vast body of armed rebels—that his native force,
with characteristic treachery, had turned round
upon him at the commencement of the fight—and
that, with his 200 Europeans, he had to cut his way.
back, with Spartan daring, to the Residency. It ,
was also known that, on that occasion, the brave
leader was severely wounded ; and two days ago,
intelligence reached us, which, alas ! has since been
confirmed, that on the 4th inst. he sunk under the
effects of his wounds. What shall I say ? It is im-
possible for me to express the grief of heart which I
feel in thus recording the death of Sir Henry Law-
rence. In his character were singularly blended the
heroic chivalry of the old Greek, and the inflexible
sternness of the old Roman, in happy combination
with the tenderness of a patriarch, and the bene-
volence of the Christian philanthropist. In him
the native army, through whose murderous trea-
chery ho prematurely fell, has lost its greatest
benefactor ; while the girls and boys' schools,
founded by his munificence on the heights of the
Himalaya, of Mount Aboo, and of the Nilgiris,
must testify through coming ages to the depth and
liveliness of his interest in the welfare of the British
soldier's family_ in this burning foreign clime. I
mourn over him as a personal friend—one whose
friendship resembledmore what we sometimes meet
with in romance rather than in actual everyday
life. I mourn over him as one of the truest, sin-
cerest, and most liberal supporters of our,Calcutta
mission. I mourn over him as the heaviest loss
which !British India c mild possibly sustain in the
very midst of the most terrible crisis of her history.
The only counterpoise to all this heavy budget of
calamities is the fact, that a small colum of Euro-
peans which marched under General Havelock from
Allahabad, after routing the rebels at Futtehpore
and other places, recaptured Cawnpore on the 16th
inst. There the rebel army, commanded by Nana
Sahib in person, after a vigorous defence, was to-
tally defeated. It was found, however, to the hor-
ror of our brave men, that all the captive British
women and children, whom it was supposed that
Nana Santo had been reserving as hostages, had
been barbarously murdered by him before the en-
gagement. A gleam of hope now opens upon us,
that General Havelock and his dauntless little force
will be able to fight their way to Lucknow in time
to save the garrison there—of which the late Sir
Henry Lawrence was the life and soul—from a simi-
lar terrible fate to that of Cawnpore.
The reports of the fall of Ddhi, which, coming
from so many different quaxers, were universally
credited, turn out to have been premature. In the
neighbourhood, and under the walls of the doomed
city, there were several severe combats, in which
hundreds of the murderous mutineers were slain ;
and these had been exaggerated by native reports
into the fall and capture of the city itself. That
anxiously looked for event has not yet been officially,
announced. In the absence of authentic intern-
, genes, the long delay is on all hands felt to be in-
explicable. It is this unexpected delay which has
doubtless enheartened the disaffected everywhere,
and filled them with bright visions of reconquest
and re-established dominion.