Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and PerseveranceSmiles, Samuel
Philosophy
Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance
Smiles, Samuel
Conduct of life
whose war-horse might be heard miles off,” as was afterwards said of him
by a rough Sikh who wept over his grave.
The siege and storming of Delhi was the most illustrious event which
occurred in the course of that gigantic struggle, although the leaguer of
Lucknow, during which the merest skeleton of a British regiment—the
32nd—held out, under the heroic Inglis, for six months against two
hundred thousand armed enemies, has perhaps excited more intense
interest. At Delhi, too, the British were really the besieged, though
ostensibly the besiegers; they were a mere handful of men “in the
open”—not more than 3,700 bayonets, European and native—and they were
assailed from day to day by an army of rebels numbering at one time as
many as 75,000 men, trained to European discipline by English officers,
and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war. The heroic
little band sat down before the city under the burning rays of a tropical
sun. Death, wounds, and fever failed to turn them from their purpose.
Thirty times they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and thirty times
did they drive back the enemy behind their defences. As Captain
Hodson—himself one of the bravest there—has said, “I venture to aver that
no other nation in the world would have remained here, or avoided defeat
if they had attempted to do so.” Never for an instant did these heroes
falter at their work; with sublime endurance they held on, fought on, and
never relaxed until, dashing through the “imminent deadly breach,” the
place was won, and the British flag was again unfurled on the walls of
Delhi. All were great—privates, officers, and generals. Common soldiers
who had been inured to a life of hardship, and young officers who had
been nursed in luxurious homes, alike proved their manhood, and emerged
from that terrible trial with equal honour. The native strength and
soundness of the English race, and of manly English training and
discipline, were never more powerfully exhibited; and it was there
emphatically proved that the Men of England are, after all, its greatest
products. A terrible price was paid for this great chapter in our
history, but if those who survive, and those who come after, profit by
the lesson and example, it may not have been purchased at too great a
cost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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