The station of Cawnpore was commanded by Sir Hugh Wheeler, a distinguished general in the company's service, who was verging on his seventieth year. He had spent fifty-four years in India, and had served only with native troops. He must have known the sepoys better than any other European in India. He had led them against their own countrymen under Lord Lake; against foreigners during the Afghan War, and against Sikhs during both campaigns in the Punjab. The news of the revolt at Meerut threw the sepoys into a ferment at every military station in Hindustan. Rumors of mutiny or coming mutiny formed almost the only topic of conversation; yet in nearly every sepoy regiment the European officers put faith in their men, and fondly believed that, though the rest of the army might revolt, yet their own corps would prove faithful. Such was eminently the case at Cawnpore, yet General Wheeler seems to have known better. While the European officers continued to sleep every night in the sepoy lines, the veteran made his preparations for meeting the coming storm. European combatants were very few at Cawnpore, but European _impedimenta_ were very heavy. Besides the wives and families of the regimental officers of the sepoy regiments, there was a large European mercantile community. Moreover, while the Thirty-second Foot was quartered at Lucknow, the wives, families, and invalids of the regiment were living at Cawnpore. It was thus necessary to secure a place of refuge for this miscellaneous multitude of Europeans in the event of a rising of the sepoys. Accordingly General Wheeler pitched upon some old barracks which had once belonged to a European regiment; and he ordered earthworks to be thrown up, and supplies of all kinds to be stored, in order to stand a siege. Unfortunately there was fatal neglect somewhere; for when the crisis came the defences were found to be worthless, while the supplies were insufficient for the besieged. All this while the adopted son of the former _peshwa_ [Footnote: Formerly a chief of the Mahrattas.--Ed.] was living at Bithoor, about six miles from Cawnpore. His real name was Dandhu Panth, but he is better known as Nana Sahib. The British Government had refused to award him the absurd life pension of eighty thousand pounds sterling, which had been granted to his nominal father; but he had inherited at least half a million from the ex-peshwa; and he was allowed to keep six guns, to entertain as many followers as he pleased, and to live in half royal state in a castellated palace at Bithoor. He continued to nurse his grievance with all the pertinacity of a Mahratta; but at the same time he professed a great love for European society, and was profuse in his hospitalities to English officers. He was popularly known as the Raja of Bithoor.