Anticipating the good which would be exerted on the public mind by the sight of the forces of the Native States being employed under the British standard before Delhi, he accepted the offers of assistance from these loyal feudatories. Under his auspices, the Chiefs in the Cis-Sutlej States were among the first to appear in arms on the British side. Afterwards he arranged with the Maharaja of Jammu and Cashmere for the despatch of a contingent from those Himalayan regions to join the British camp at Delhi; and he deputed his brother Richard to accompany this contingent as political agent. It was providentially fortunate for him and his that no sympathy existed between the Punjabis and the mutinous Sepoys, but on the contrary a positive antipathy. The Sepoys of the Bengal army who were mutineers nearly all belonged to Oude and Hindostan; the Punjabis regarded them as foreigners, and detested them ever since the first Sikh war, even disliking their presence in the Punjab; he was fully alive to this feeling, and made the very most of it for the good of the British cause. He knew too that they hated Delhi as the city where their warrior-prophet Tegh Behadur had been barbarously put to death, and where the limbs of the dead martyr had been exposed on the ramparts. In the first instance the Punjabis regarded the mutinies as utter follies sure to bring down retribution, and they were glad to be among his instruments in dealing out punishment to the mutineers, and so “feeding fat their grudge” against them. They told him that the bread which the Sepoys had rejected would fall to the lot of the loyal Punjab. Thus he seized this great advantage instantly, and drove the whole force of Punjabi sentiment straight against the rebels, saying in effect as Henry V. said to his soldiers, “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot; Follow your spirit and upon this charge Cry, ‘God for Harry, England, and St. George.’” As outbreak after outbreak occurred, he pressed for the signal and condign punishment of the leaders, as a deterrent to those who might yet be wavering between duty and revolt. But this object having been secured, he instantly tried to temper offended justice with at least a partial clemency, lest men should be tempted to rebellion by despair. When batches of red-handed mutineers were taken prisoners, he would intercede so that the most guilty only should be blown from guns, and that the lives of the rest should be spared with a view to imprisonment. In such moments, he would support his appeal by invoking his officers to look into their consciences as before the Almighty. This solemn invocation--rarely uttered by him, though its sense was ever on his mind--attested the earnestness of his conviction.