Another urgent question concerns the acts of the Bengal Government. Many unfounded charges, as in a case of infinite confusion and hourly pressure, must be aimed at the Governor-General: the probability of such charges, and the multiplied experience of such charges, makes reasonable men cautious--in fact, unduly so; and the excess of caution reacts upon Lord Canning's estimation too advantageously. Lord Dalhousie is missed; his energy would have shown itself conspicuously by this time. For surely in such a case as the negotiation with Bahadoor Jung of Nepaul, as to the Ghoorkas, there can be no doubt _at present_, though a great doubt, unfairly indulgent to Lord Canning, was encouraged at first, that most imbecile oscillation governed the Calcutta counsels. And it is now settled that this oscillation turned entirely upon a petty personal motive. A subordinate officer had accepted the Nepaul offer, and by that unauthorised acceptance had intruded upon the prerogative of Lord Canning. The very same cause--this jealous punctiliousness of exacting vanity, and not any wish to enforce the severities of public justice--interfered to set aside the proclamation of Mr. Colvin at Agra. The insufficiency again of the steps taken as to Nena Sahib speaks the same language. In this very journal, full six weeks earlier than in the Calcutta proclamation, the offer of a large sum[67] for this man's head had been suggested. That offer was never kept sufficiently before the public eye. But a grosser neglect than this, as affecting the condition of many thousands, and not of any single villain, was the non-employment of the press in pursuing the steps of the mutineers. Everywhere, as fast as they appeared in any strength, brief handbills should have been circulated--circumstantially relating their defeats, exposing their false pretences, and describing their prospects. Once only the government attempted such a service; and blundered so far as to urge against the sepoys a reproach which must have been unintelligible both to them and to all native readers. [Footnote 67: And imperfectly as the offer was advertised, it seems to have had considerable effect. Apparently it has extinguished the Nena's power to show himself, and to move about with freedom. He is now distrustful and jealous--often no doubt with very little reason.] Again, a question even more practical and instant arises as to the modes of public vengeance.