It was not until the sixteenth that the tents required for the 32nd were ready; and the morning of the 17th May saw an entirely new and effective disposition of the troops.

Half the Europeans were at the Residency, commanding the Iron Bridge; half, with the Artillery, were at the south end of the cantonments; the bridge of boats was moved and under control, while the Muchee Bawn, not yet sufficiently cleansed from its old conglomeration of filth, was garrisoned by a selected body of Native troops.

The whole of these dispositions could not have been effected at an earlier date, and Sir Henry would not do them piecemeal or successively.

Simultaneous, they were effective, and tended to paralyze any seditious plots that may have been hatching.

Successive and piecemeal, they would have incited the sepoys to mutiny and the turbulent to insurrection.' _Memorandum, 18th May, inserted in Sir Henry's own hand in his ledger book._ 'Time is everything just now.