Sir Hugh Wheeler had anxiously watched the flood of mutiny which was closing around him from the North-West Provinces, from Oudh, and from Bengal. He was anxious to provide for the safety of the Europeans without alarming the sepoys. Accordingly he repaired the old barracks and hospital as a refuge for the Europeans, entrenched them as well as he could, and stored up provisions for a siege. At the same time he ordered the British officers to show confidence in the sepoys by sleeping at the lines, and to spare no pains to keep the men staunch to their colours. [Sidenote: Ex-Peishwa at Bithoor.] §5. About six miles to the northward of Cawnpore was a castellated palace, at a place known as Bithoor. Here the ex-Peishwa of the Mahrattas had been permitted to reside after his surrender to Sir John Malcolm, in 1818. He was harmless, and like all Brahmans was resigned to his fate. He lived like a king who had retired from business with an ample fortune, and he indulged in every sensual pleasure which money could command. He died in 1853 leaving no son, real or adopted. [Sidenote: Nana Sahib.] A boy was brought up in his household who was known as Nana Sahib. He also was a Mahratta Brahman, the son of a dependant of the ex-Peishwa; he was a favourite of the exiled prince and was treated as one of the family. Accordingly, when the ex-Peishwa died in 1853, Nana Sahib boldly asserted that he was an adopted son. The widow of the ex-Peishwa denied the fact, and asserted her own claims to the property. The truth has long ceased to be a matter of any consequence. Nana Sahib and the widow appear to have come to some secret understanding. He was permitted to inherit the castellated palace and grounds at Bithoor, as well as the money savings which amounted to about half a million sterling, and had been invested in government paper. He also provided for the widow in the palace of Bithoor. [Sidenote: Preposterous claims.] Nana Sahib had thus obtained all that he could possibly have claimed had he been adopted according to all the forms of Brahmanical law. But he laid claim to a continuation of the pension of £80,000 a year, which had been granted to the ex-Peishwa at the instance of Sir John Malcolm; and Lord Dalhousie refused to take his pretensions into consideration. Nana Sahib invented lies, which were plausible only to those who were not familiar with the real circumstances. He declared that the ex-Peishwa had surrendered his dominions on the understanding that the pension should be granted to him and to his heirs for ever. But this falsehood was contradicted by history, and no one gave it the slightest credence except the enemies of the East India Company, or the opponents of Lord Dalhousie's policy. [Sidenote: Pertinacity.]