१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

RANEE LAKSHMI BAI
thing, and that was Independence ! And to unite to-
gether these thousand voices in one harmonious whole,
the Lakshmi of Jhansi declared with her sweet but firm
voice, " None can have my Jhansi ; he who dares may try!"
Very rarely had the world heard such a firm " No ! "
Generous and liberal to a fault India has always been
pronouncing and swearing by ' I shall give ! ', " I shall
give ! ", so far. But here was a strange phenomenon to-
day—a set face and a stern voice which said, " I will not
give ! I will not give up my Jhansi ! " Would to heaven,
O Mother, that every one of thy sons and daughters had
said the same ! The Feringhi was taken aback at this
unexpected assertion ; and Sir Huge Rose was sent, with
five thousand armed men and a considerable number of
guns, to gauge the extent of the disturbance and to quell it.
In the beginning of 1858, the English had drawn up a
complete military plan for the reconquest of all the terri-
tory, from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas, which was
under the Revolutionaries. The whole territory was divid-
ed into two portions, and to each of them a huge army
was sent to subdue it. We have in an earlier chapter
described how commander-in-chief Sir Colin Campbell
marched upwards from Allahabad to the north of the
Ganges and the Jumna and, with his big army, conquered
the Doab, and crossed the Ganges and marched on Luck-
now ; how, after destroying Lucknow, he extinguished the
flames of insurrection raging in Behar, in Benares and
round it, and in Oudh ; how he forced all the Revolu-
tionaries into Rohilkhand, where the final engagement
took place, and how, thus, the northern portion of the
territory which was in the hands of the Revolutionaries
was reconquered by the English. While Sir Colin was
advancing from the north of the Jumna towards the Hima-
layas, Sir Hugh Rose advanced to conquer the southern
portion lying between the Jumna and the Vindhyas. In
the north, the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, and other Indian
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