in their lines and gradually recovered their senses.[76] But the trouble, though scotched, was not killed. A few days later Forjett erected a gibbet in the compound of the Police Office, summoned the chief citizens whom he knew to be disaffected, and, pointing to the gibbet, warned them that on the slightest sign that they meditated an outbreak, they would be seized and hanged. This forcible demonstration had the desired effect. Forjett had quashed all chance of a rising in the bazar. But the danger from the native troops remained. Forjett redoubled his detective activities and soon discovered that a number of them were regularly holding secret meetings in the house of one Ganga Prasad, who had gained the confidence of the sepoys in the triple rôle of priest, devotee and physician.[77] Forjett had this man arrested and induced him to confess all he knew. The next night he went in disguise to the house in Sonapur (Dhobi Talao) and listened to the sepoys’ conversation. He learnt that they intended to mutiny during the Hindu festival of Divali in October, pillage the city, and then escape from the Island. He reported the facts at once to the military officers, who received them with incredulity. But Forjett eventually persuaded Major Barrow, the commandant of one of the regiments, to accompany him in disguise to the house and hear the details of the plot from a convenient hiding-place. Major Barrow was convinced and reported the facts to General Shortt, who exclaimed:—“Mr. Forjett has caught us at last!” Court-martials were promptly held: the two ringleaders—a native officer of the Marine Battalion and a private of the 10th N. I.—were blown from guns on the Esplanade, and six of their accomplices were transported for life. According to James Douglas, thirty men deserved the same fate as the ringleaders, but owed their reprieve to the clemency of Lord Elphinstone.[78] Thus by his energy, courage and detective ability did Forjett save Bombay from a mutiny of the garrison. His services had more than local effect, for in Lord Elphinstone’s opinion, if the Mutiny in Bombay had been successful, nothing could have saved Hyderabad, Poona and the rest of the Presidency, and after that “Madras was sure to go too.”[79] The formal thanks of the Bombay Government were conveyed to Forjett in a letter from the Secretary, Judicial Department, No. 1681 of May 23rd, 1859, nearly six months after the Queen’s Proclamation announcing the end of the East India Company’s rule. The words of the letter were as follows:— “The Right Honourable the Governor in Council avails himself of this opportunity of expressing his sense of the very valuable services rendered by the Deputy Commissioner of Police,[80] Mr. Forjett, in the detection of the plot in Bombay in the autumn of 1857. His duties demanded great courage, great acuteness, and great judgment, all of which qualities were conspicuously displayed by Mr. Forjett at that trying period.”