[Forty-one years in India by Frederick Sleigh Roberts]@TWC D-Link book
Forty-one years in India

CHAPTER XIX
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The brave fellow then advanced at the charge, and was, of course, shot down.

So ended the 20th September, a day I am never likely to forget.
At sunrise on the 21st a royal salute proclaimed that we were again masters in Delhi, and that for the second time in the century the great city had been captured by a British force.
Later in the day General Wilson established his Head-Quarters in the Dewan-i-khas (the King's private hall of audience), and, as was in accordance with the fitness of things, the 60th Rifles and the Sirmur battalion of Gurkhas[5] were the first troops of Her Majesty's army to garrison the palace of the Moghuls, in which the traitorous and treacherous massacre of English men, women and children had been perpetrated.
The importance of securing the principal members of the Royal Family was pressed upon the General by Chamberlain and Hodson, who both urged that the victory would be incomplete if the King and his male relatives were allowed to remain at large.

Wilson would not consent to any force being sent after them, and it was with considerable reluctance that he agreed to Hodson going on this hazardous duty with some of his own men only.

The last of the Moghul Emperors had taken refuge in Humayun's tomb, about seven miles from Delhi, where, on the afternoon of the 21st, he surrendered to Hodson on receiving a promise from that officer that his own life and the lives of his favourite wife and her son should be spared.

Hodson brought them all into Delhi and placed them under a European guard in a house in the Chandni Chauk, thus adding one more to the many valuable services he had rendered throughout the siege.
I went with many others the next day to see the King; the old man looked most wretched, and as he evidently disliked intensely being stared at by Europeans, I quickly took my departure.


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