"
These words well became the sovereign who, by serious and cogent
argument, had succeeded in inducing her Ministers to strike strongly
and quickly on the side of law and order, they having been at first
inclined to adopt a "step-by-step" policy as to sending out aid,
which would not have been very grateful to the hard-pressed
authorities in India; while the Queen and the Prince shared Lord
Canning's opinion, that "nothing but a long continued manifestation
of England's might before the eyes of the whole Indian empire,
evinced by the presence of such an English force as should make the
thought of opposition hopeless, would re-establish confidence in her
strength."
The necessary manifestation of strength was made; the reputation of
England--so rudely shaken, not only in the opinion of ignorant
Hindoos, but in that of her European rivals--was re-established
fully, and indeed gained by the power she had shown to cope with an
unparalleled emergency. The counsels of vengeance were set aside, in
spite of the obloquy which for a time was heaped on the true wisdom
which rejected them. We did not "dethrone Christ to set up Moloch";
had we been guilty of that sanguinary folly, England and India might
yet be ruing that year's doing.
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