The Indian is open to prophecy at all times; argument may fail to convince him, but not prophecy.

There was a prophecy that a hundred years from the year of that battle of Clive's which founded the British Indian Empire, the British power would be overthrown and swept away by the natives.
The Mutiny broke out at Meerut on the 10th of May, 1857, and fired a train of tremendous historical explosions.

Nana Sahib's massacre of the surrendered garrison of Cawnpore occurred in June, and the long siege of Lucknow began.

The military history of England is old and great, but I think it must be granted that the crushing of the Mutiny is the greatest chapter in it.

The British were caught asleep and unprepared.