Note 191 — RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. 17th. November, 1857.

Captain Oliver J. Jones, R.N., in his “Recollections of a Winter Campaign in India, 1857–8,” gives the following amusing anecdote of his first peep at the Commander-in-Chief. The author was wandering through the rooms of a “strongish place” taken from a Rajah.—“In one of them I found a couple of glass candlesticks, not worth sixpence a piece; but as my establishment only sported an empty porter bottle, I thought they would make a handsome addition, and took them. Coming down stairs, I met Forster—poor fellow! he is now dead—one of the Chief’s aide-de-camps, who said,—‘By Jove, old fellow, you’d better not let Sir Colin catch you looting—here he comes!’ upon which I dropped them, as Paddy says, like a hot murphy; and in a couple of minutes after saw a Sikh walking off with my elegant candlesticks. Soon afterwards I saw the Chief serving out bamboo backsheesh to some Sikhs who had passed him with loot, with a big stick, and I rejoiced at the warning my friend Foster had given me, else, perhaps, in his wrath, he might have broken my head too.”

The promising young officer above referred to, namely Captain W. F. Godolphin Forster, of the 18th. Royal Irish Regiment, son of Major-General W. F. Foster, K.H., Military Secretary at Head Quarters, died at Lucknow on the 14th. of May, 1858, and up to that date had accompanied Sir Colin Campbell in all his battles and operations against the mutineers.