Some months later my brother wrote with reference to this matter:--
CAMP, ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE GANGES, OPPOSITE CAWNPORE, _Feb. 12th, 1858_.
... I see that many people suppose that I had promised the old King his life _after_ he was caught. Pray contradict this. The promise was given two days before, to induce him to leave the rebel troops and return to the near neighborhood of Delhi within reach. General Wilson refused to send troops in pursuit of him, and to avoid greater calamities I then, and not till then, asked and obtained permission to offer him his wretched life, on the ground, and solely on the ground, that there was no other way of getting him into our possession. The people were gathering round him. His name would have been a tocsin which would have raised the whole of Hindostan, and the Rajahs and Rajpootana in the south would have been forced to have joined in the rising, which would then have been universal. Was it not better to get rid of all this, and secure ourselves from further mischief at the simple cost of sparing the life of an old man of ninety? It must be remembered, too, that we had no troops left to meet any further augmentation of our enemies. A small force under Colonel Greathed was with difficulty found, some days later, to go towards Agra; and it was clear to me then (as experience has since shown) that we had still months to wait for reinforcements from home. Here is February; the King was caught in September, and yet up to this present day the Commander-in-Chief has not been able to send a single soldier of all that have arrived from England up as far as Delhi; and all Rohilcund, all Oude, a great part of Central India, all Bundelcund, and most of Behar, are still in the hands of the enemy. Would it have been wise to have given, in addition to all this, so strong an incentive to combination, to the warlike men of the northwest, as they would have had in the person of a sacred and "heaven-born" monarch, dethroned, wandering, and homeless, but backed by a whole army in rebellion? I am blamed for it now; but knowing that there was no other way of getting him into our power, I am quite content to take the obloquy. It will hereafter be admitted that one of the greatest blows was struck at the root of the rebellion when the old King was led a captive into his own palace on the 21st of September, 1857.[58] Strange, that some of those who are loudest against me for sparing the King, are also crying out at my destroying his sons. "Quousque tandem?" I may well exclaim. But in point of fact, I am quite indifferent to clamor either way. I made up my mind at the time to be abused. I was convinced I was right, and when I prepared to run the great physical risk of the attempt, I was equally game for the moral risk of praise or blame. These have not been, and are not times when a man who would serve his country dare hesitate as to the personal consequences to himself of what he thinks his duty.