Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston

DEATH OF SIR HENRY LAWRENCE

Osborne, 22nd August 1857.

The Queen is afraid from the telegram of this morning that affairs in India have not yet taken a favourable turn. Delhi seems still to hold out, and the death of Sir H. Lawrence is a great loss. The Queen must repeat to Lord Palmerston that the measures hitherto taken by the Government are not commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis.

We have given nearly all we have in reinforcements, and if new efforts should become necessary, by the joining of the Madras and Bombay Armies in the Revolt, for instance, it will take months to prepare Reserves which ought now to be ready. Ten Battalions of Militia to be called out is quite inadequate; forty, at least, ought to be the number, for these also exist only on paper. The augmentation of the Cavalry and the Guards has not yet been ordered.

Financial difficulties don't exist; the 14,000 men sent to India are taken over by the Indian Government, and their expense saved to us; and this appears hardly the moment to make savings on the Army estimates.

Footnote 31: On the previous day, the Queen and Prince had returned from a visit to Cherbourg, and found very disquieting news from India. Sir Henry Lawrence was the Military Administrator and Chief Commissioner of Oudh; on the 30th of May, the 71st N.I. mutinied at Lucknow, but Sir Henry drove them from their position and fortified the Residency. Some weeks later, on sallying out to reconnoitre, the English were driven back and besieged in the Residency; Sir Henry dying from the effects of a wound caused by a shell.