twenty years! This is most cruel and unfair to the gallant men who devote their services to the country, and the Government is in duty and humanity bound to alleviate their position. “The Queen wishes Lord Palmerston to communicate this memorandum to the Cabinet.” SIEGE AND RELIEF OF LUCKNOW (1857). =Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 99; _Public Documents_, pp. 455, 456. DESPATCH FROM BRIGADIER-GENERAL HAVELOCK TO THE CHIEF OF THE STAFF TO THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. RESIDENCY, LUCKNOW, _September 30, 1857_. SIR, Major-General Sir James Outram having, with characteristic generosity of feeling, declared that the command of the force should remain in my hands, and that he would accompany it as Civil Commissioner only, until a junction could be effected with the gallant and enduring garrison of this place, I have to request that you will inform His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief that this purpose was effected on the evening of the 25th instant. But before detailing the circumstances, I must refer to antecedent events. I crossed the Sye on the 22nd instant, the bridge at Bunnee not having been broken. On the 23rd I found myself in the presence of the enemy, who had taken a strong position, his left resting on the enclosure of the Alum Bagh and his centre and right drawn up behind a chain of hillocks. The head of my column at first suffered from the fire of his guns as it was compelled to pass along the trunk road between morasses; but as soon as my regiments could be deployed along his front and his right enveloped by my left, victory declared for us, and we captured five guns. Sir James Outram, with his accustomed gallantry, passed on in advance close down to the canal. But as the enemy fed his artillery with guns from the city, it was not possible to maintain this, or a less advanced position for a time taken up; but it became necessary to throw our right on the Alum Bagh, and re-form our left, and even then we were incessantly cannonaded throughout the 24th, and the enemy’s cavalry, 1,500 strong, crept round through lofty cultivation, and made a sudden irruption upon the baggage massed in our rear. The soldiers of the 90th forming the baggage-guard received them with great gallantry, but lost some brave officers and men, shooting down, however, twenty-five of the troopers, and putting the whole body to flight. They were finally driven to a distance by two guns of Captain Olpherts’ battery.