Lawrence’s own policy, meanwhile, was to fight for time. Every hour the Mutiny could be postponed lessened its chances of success. “Time,” he writes in his diary on May 18, “is everything just now; time, firmness, promptness, conciliation, prudence.” But Lawrence had many difficulties in carrying out that wise policy, some of them created by the divided judgments of his own staff. Mr. Gubbins, the financial commissioner, in particular, vehemently mistrusted Lawrence’s mild handling of the Sepoys. Gubbins was clever, audacious, quick-witted, fatally over-quick, perhaps, in judgment, with a gift for giving advice in confident—not to say imperious—accents, which his official superiors found somewhat trying. He valued his own advice, too, so highly that he could not forgive the dulness in his superiors which failed to discern its excellence, or the hesitation which lingered in putting it into practice. He was perpetually urging Lawrence to disarm and expel all the native troops in Lucknow. Yet Lawrence’s milder policy was justified by events. Some seven hundred Sepoys remained true to their salt, and served through the great siege with a devotion and a courage beyond praise. “Neither temptation nor threats from their comrades without,” says Fayrer, “or hardships and privation within, could induce them to desert. There is nothing in the history of the Sepoy army more creditable or honourable than their behaviour.” Lawrence had other troubles with the Europeans in Lucknow. An indiscreet editor in Lucknow published some alarmist articles of a singularly mischievous character, and Lawrence sent for him, and warned him that, if he continued to write in a fashion calculated to provoke mutiny, he would suppress his paper. But Lawrence knew human nature too well to believe that mere threats would keep a foolish editor from committing folly. A few days afterwards, happening to ride by the newspaper office, he suddenly drew rein, and said to his staff, “Let us go in and edit the paper for Mr. ⸺.” He entered, said to the astonished editor, “Mr. ⸺, to show you I bear no ill-will, I am come to write you a leading article;” and, sitting down, dashed off an article expounding the resources of the Government for meeting and putting down a revolt. The article acted as a tonic on native and European opinion in the city; but it also captured the editor.