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RULERS OF INDIA

Lord Hawrence

= BY

SIR CHARLES AITCHISON, K.C.S.1, M.A., LL.D.

FORMERLY LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF THE PUNJAB

Orford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS: 1892
 

Orford

HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 

 

 

 

 

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PREFACE

—++—

Tue life and achievements of Lord‘*Lawrence
have been already written, both in large and small.
There is the exhaustive work of Bosworth Smith;
there are sketches by Captain Trotter, Robert Cust,
Dr. George Smith, and others; and there is the
vignette by Sir Richard Temple in the ‘Men of
Action’ series. The circumstances and events of his
time too have been recorded by many pens. It would
seem, therefore, as if there was no room for another
monograph. But the series of the ‘Rulers of India,’
without a notice of the man who both saved India
and ruled it, would be so incomplete that, as there
may still be variety of treatment, even if nothing new
be said, I have been induced to try.

For the events of Lord Lawrence's life and times
I have freely used existing biographies (especially
Bosworth Smith’s), the ordinary histories, Blue Books,
Administration Reports, and official papers kindly put
at my disposal. For some local touches I am indebted
to the Settlement Reports of the Delhi, Karn4l, Gur-
g4on, and Rohtak Districts. The Settlement Reports
of the Districts of our Indian Empire are mines of
vi PREFACE

information—antiquarian, historical, scientific, statis-
tical and general—too little known in this country.

The information available from the above sources
has been supplemented by my own personal recol-
lection. I served under Sir John Lawrence’s orders,
in the rank and file of the Civil Service in the Punjab,
through the year of the Mutiny and afterwards till he
left the province. When he returned to India as Vice-
roy, I was his Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs for
more than a year, and for a short time his Foreign
Secretary. And being called on, toward the end of
my service, to govern the Punjab, I found there still
the impress of his master hand, weakened indeed by
time and change, but not obliterated.

It may be thought that in the chapter on Afghan
affairs I have not observed due proportion. There
is ground for this. Sir John Lawrence’s policy and
action have been so much misunderstood that I have
thought it best to give a plain narrative of facts with
quotations from documents. It is essential to know
not only what Sir John Lawrence said and did, but
the time at which and the circumstances under which
he said and did it. If my own conclusions be thought
to be those of a disciple, the facts are there, and the
reader will judge for himself.

C. U. AITCHISON.

30th April, 1892.
CHAP,

II.
III.
IV.

VI.
VII.

VIII.
IX.

XI.
XII.

CONTENTS

IntRopuctory

Tue Districr OFFICER .

CoMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER
A Non-Reeviation Province

Tue Motiny . .

THE Mutiny (continued)

From CuHrer ComMMISSIONER TO VICEROY

The Viceroyalty :—

FRonvTIER AND FeupaTory AFFAIRS ‘
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS F

Famine. Pusric Works. Finance
Foreren Arrarrs. AFGHANISTAN .
Tue Enp

NoTE TO PAGE 19

InDEX

NOTE

PAGES
9-17
18-37
38-53
54-71
72-93
94-109

I1O-124

125-142
143-156
1S7-175
176-194
195-203
203-205

207-216

The orthography of proper names follows the system adopted by
the Indian Government for the Imperial Gazetteer of India. That
system, while adhering to the popular spelling of very well-known
places, such as Punjab, Poona, Deccan, &c., employs in all other

cases the vowels with the following uniform sounds :—

u, as in woman: d, as in father : 7, as in kin: ¢, as in intrigue :
v, as in cold: uw, as in bull: 2%, as in rural.
 

 
LORD LAWRENCE

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

THE close of Lord Elgin’s brief Viceroyalty of
twenty months! was overclouded by political troubles
on the Punjab frontier.

A colony of fanatical Muhammadans had settled, in
the early part of the present century, on the right
bank of the Indus, near the Mah4ban Mountain, and
had, for many years during the Sikh rule, kept the
country in perpetual unrest. Sayyid Ahmad, the
founder of the colony, was a British subject, and his
followers were largely recruited by fugitives from
justice and discontented men from British territories.
Bodies of armed men, sometimes numbering five hun-
dred or six hundred, made their way to his standard.
He had organised a regular propaganda, the centre of
which was at Patné in Bengal, and had established
agencies in different parts of India for the levy of

1 Assumed office t2th March, 1862; died at Dharmsala 2oth
November, 1863.
10 LORD LAWRENCE

money and the supply of arms. The prayers of pious
Mussulméns followed him. The imperial palace at
Delhi, the minor Muhammadan princes and the great
cities of Lucknow and Hyderabad supplied him with
funds.

Inflamed with fanatical zeal, his avowed object was
to wage war, in the name of religion, against all un-
believers in the Muhammadan faith. Bigoted Pathdns,
from the turbulent tribes of the Peshawar border,
flocked to him in numbers, animated not less by the
hope of plunder than by zeal for their creed. For
many years his daring inroads, in one of which he
captured the city of Peshawar, kept the Sikh armies
on the alert and gave employment to the most active
generals of Ranjit Singh. Sayyid Ahmad was slain
in battle in 1831.

His death depressed for a time but did not extin-
guish the colony. Recruited by ever-fresh accessions
of bigoted and desperate men, the fanatics contrived
to keep the Sikh border in a constant ferment. With
the annexation of the Punjab, the British Government
inherited these frontier quarrels and the ferocious ani-
mosity of the colonists. They had to be chastised in
1853, and again in 1858. On the latter occasion their
settlement at Siténa was burned, they were driven
from their villages, and engagements were taken from
the neighbouring tribes never to permit their return.
These engagements, however, were not observed.

In 1862 the colony once more began to give trouble,
and in October 1863, a force of six thousand men of
INTRODUCTORY Il

all arms, under command of Brigadier-General Sir
Neville Chamberlain, moved out against them. <A halt
in the Ambela Pass, attributed by the enemy to
weakness and hesitation to advance, had the effect of
uniting the neighbouring tribes against us; and what
was intended to be an expedition to chastise a hand-
ful of fanatics suddenly developed into a frontier war,
in which we found ourselves opposed to a coalition of
all the tribes between Peshéwar and the Indus. For
two months the British troops lay in the Pass, unable
to advance, and subjected to attacks by night and
by day. The Punjab was denuded of every available
soldier to reinforce the position ; and the campaign,
which lasted till the close of the year, cost much blood
and was the most serious frontier affair in which we
had ever been engaged.

Matters were at their worst, calling for the personal
intervention of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh
Rose, when Lord Elgin died. It was this frontier war
which ‘clenched! the appointment’ of Sir John
Lawrence, ‘beyond the possibility of doubt, to be
Viceroy and Governor-General in succession to Lord
Elgin. Sir John Lawrence had already successfully
directed expeditions against the fanatics, and severely
chastised them. He had defeated all their efforts to
enlist the Amir of Kébul against us, and to effect a
hostile coalition of the frontier tribes in the most
desperate hour of our fortunes. The treaties which,
under the inspiration, and with the help of Sir Herbert

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 385.
12 LORD LAWRENCE

Edwardes, he had concluded with Dost Muhammad
Khan, had converted into a faithful ally the man who
had been ‘by turns the rejected friend, the enforced
enemy, the honourable prisoner, the vindictive as-
sailant ’ of the English in India. ‘I have now made an
alliance with the British Government,’ said the Amir,
‘and come what may I will keep it till death.” That
promise, made three short months before the revolt of
the Sepoy army, was never broken, even when the
Punjab was so denuded of European troops as almost
to invite an Afghén invasion, and when the priests of
Kabul and the Amir’s own sons were calling him to
bind on his head the green turban of Islam and sweep
the English from the plains of India.

In those dark days of 1857, too, when the valleys
of the frontier lay defenceless and open to the free-
booters from the mountains, Sir John Lawrence had
dexterously drawn to his service the marauders of
the border. Adventurers from many tribes—Afridis
and Mohmands, Datidzais and Yusafzais, even robbers
from Boner and zealots from Sw4t—had answered his
call, and had marched, regiment after regiment, to fight
our battles on the Ridge at Delhi and on the plains
of Hindustén. lLawrence’s splendid services to the
State, his soldierly qualities, his firmness and energy
and fertility of resource in difficulty, his adroitness and
penetration in native diplomacy, his straightforward
bluntness in meeting Oriental artifices, combined with
his knowledge of border politics and his experience of
tribal modes of warfare, singled him out as the man
INTRODUCTORY 13

best qualified to deal with the serious entanglements
into which frontier affairs had drifted. There was no
living man whose antecedents gave better or equal
assurance of ability to correct the military and diplo-
matic blundering which had converted a petty ex-
pedition into a dangerous war, and had produced a
political crisis in which even the fundamental duty of
loyalty and allegiance came to be gravely discussed
among our Muhammadan subjects.

The war was over some three weeks before Sir
John Lawrence arrived in Calcutta. But the cheers
which greeted him as he landed showed that the ap-
pointment was a popular one, apart from the special
circumstances which had ‘clenched’ it. There were
many in England, and in India too, who looked upon
this as only a fitting recognition of the unique services
which had drawn the eyes of the world upon him and
made his name a household word. The Government
of Bombay had been already offered to him and
declined. It was meet and right that John Lawrence
should, in the Queen’s name, govern the empire he
had done so much to save.

Lord Elgin’s messages to India were peace and good-
will, reconstruction and progress. He had, in 1857,
seen Calcutta when the English were staggering under
the first shock of the Mutiny. He had witnessed the
first outburst of mingled surprise and panic and rage
and vindictiveness when the Empire seemed to be
crumbling to pieces. He had heard the deep and
savage cry for vengeance, and had realised the bitter-
i LORD LAWRENCE

ness of the race hatred which the events of 1857 had
evoked. The gaping wounds which the Mutiny had
inflicted were little more than skinned over when he
returned five years later as Viceroy, in 1862. The
storm of evil passions had subsided, but the race anti-
pathy was deep. There was a clamour for reconstruc-
tion on English lines and English principles. Eng-
lishmen were flocking in numbers to the country.
Waste lands and tea-cultivation and new enterprises
of various kinds were attracting English capital.
The rights of the Native population were in some
danger of being overborne by the demands of the
dominant race under the influence of a prejudiced
public opinion. If Lord Elgin had lived out his term
of office, his genial disposition, his varied knowledge
of men, and his experience in the arts of diplomacy
and administration, would have gone far to accom-
plish the work of reconciliation and secure due con-
sideration to the claims of the Natives. But his short
reign left it little more than begun.

Sir John Lawrence’s qualifications for the task
were of a different but not less effective kind. He
had won the gratitude of his countrymen, the devo-
tion of the army, and the admiration of the Natives
of India. There was a sentiment in each class to
which he could appeal. The task of pacifying the
people and healing old wounds he knew to be difficult
more difficult even than the reconquest of India.
‘It is a task, he had once said, ‘ which the bravest
and best may shrink from. It is one in which a great

 
INTRODUCTORY’ 15

man may break his heart and lose his life, and which,
even should he, by God’s help, accomplish it, will
never be appreciated.’ But if any man was likely
to bridge over the gulf between the Native and the
European, it was Sir John Lawrence, who could speak
the Hindustdni language as fluently as English, and
who had governed a province in the administration
of which the Native had from the first been more
closely associated with the European than in any
other part of India.

On the other hand, in the work which lay before
him as Viceroy Sir John Lawrence had special diffi-
culties of his own to contend with. He returned to
India a commoner as he had left it. He was not
adorned with the titular rank and dignity which had
long hedged round the person of the supreme ‘ Rulers
of India.’ He was destitute of those social graces
which go far to conciliate opposition and disarm pre-
judice. He had risen from the ranks of the service.
His proposals, therefore, were certain to be canvassed
with unusual freedom; and it was almost inevitable
that his measures, when not approved of, should be
opposed with more than ordinary persistency, even
by those who were loyal to him at heart. ‘He and
I” wrote one of his colleagues, ‘have always been
good friends, and all the better that we were on a
footing of equality; I am not so sure how this will
last when he is superior.’

Mindful, probably, of the bickerings which had im-
peded Warren Hastings in his administration, and had
16 LORD LAWRENCE

more than once brought the government of the country
to a deadlock, Lord Cornwallis, in writing to Mr.
Dundas on the choice of his successor, had given it
as his opinion? that ‘nobody but a person who had
never been in the service and who was essentially
unconnected with its members, who was of a rank
far surpassing his associates in the government, and
who had the full support of the Ministry at home,
was competent for the office of Governor-General.’
For three-quarters of a century these recommenda-
tions had, with one single exception, prevailed in the
selection of the Governor-General. John Lawrence
possessed none of them save the last. By constitution
and training, moreover, he was not well suited to
work in multiple harness. He made up his own
mind quickly, and had the courage of his opinions.
Protracted discussions were a weariness to him, seldom
producing conviction. ‘I am not well fitted by
nature to be one of a Triumvirate,’ he wrote, when
member of the Board of Administration at Lahore.
The romance of Sir John Lawrence’s life was the
Mutiny year. His Viceroyalty was on the whole
peaceful and uneventful. But it was a germinal
time, a time in which seeds were sown that brought
forth much fruit in later years. It fell to him first,
in the work of reconstruction, to give full effect to
the Royal Proclamation in which the Queen had ex-
pressed her ‘earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful
industry of India, to promote works of public utility

1 Marshman’s India, vol. ii. p. 51.
INTRODUCTORY 7

and improvement, and to administer its government
for the benefit of all her subjects resident therein.’
His Viceroyalty was a time in which the Native
Princes of India were permitted to ‘ enjoy that pros-
perity and that social advancement which can only
be secured by internal peace and good government’ ;
a time when none of the subjects of Her Majesty, of
whatever colour or creed, ‘ were in anywise favoured,
none molested or disquieted, by reason of their reli-
gious faith or observances, but all alike enjoyed the
equal and impartial protection of the laws’; a time
when the Natives of India were ‘ protected in all
rights connected with the land, subject to the equit-
able demands of the State’; and when ‘in framing
and administering the law, due regard was paid to
the ancient rights, usages and customs of India,’
CHAPTER II
Tur District OFFICER

THERE was nothing in the boyhood or early life of
John Laird Mair Lawrence to give indication of a
brilliant future. It was not till the forty-sixth year
of his age that the opportunity came to him to show
his heroic mould and ‘the iron nerve to true occasion
true, though he had before then distinguished himself
as an exceptionally able administrator, a man of self-
reliance, vigour, and resource, and had risen to an
eminence in India not often attained so early in
life.

John Lawrence was the eighth child and sixth son
in a family of twelve, born to Colonel Alexander
Lawrence and his wife Letitia Catherine Knox. Both
parents were of families which had for generations
been domiciled in Ireland. But the father, a gallant
old soldier, who as a lad had volunteered for India
and there purchased his commission only after he had
twice earned it by gallantry in the field, led the
wandering life of his profession; and so it came to
pass that the children counted their birthplaces in
various parts of the world. John was born on 4th
LHE DISTRICT OFFICER 1g

March 1811, at Richmond in Yorkshire, where his
father’s regiment, the 19th Foot, happened at the time
to be stationed. The mother was a shrewd, thrifty,
God-fearing woman, with great administrative quali-
ties, who ‘kept the family together’ on scanty means.
I am afraid, however, that the traditions which make
her of the lineage of the great Scotch Reformer
through Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles and of
Raphoe, are mythical. At any rate it is certain that
the blood of the Reformer did not flow in her veins},

Both parents possessed much character. It was
probably from his mother that John Lawrence derived
his vein of quiet evangelical religion and unobtrusive
Puritanism. But it was the father who stamped the
character of his boys. ‘I should say,’ wrote one of
them in after life, ‘that on the whole we derived
most of our metal from our father. Colonel Alex-
ander Lawrence gave five sons to India, all of them in
their way remarkable men; and two of whom, Henry
and John, have built themselves an everlasting name.
The life of the stout old father had been an adven-
turous one. He carried the seams and scars of a hard
and honourable but ill-requited service, and all his
life endured the buffetings of adverse fortune. He
was ‘a mine of memories, and the stirring stories of
a chequered life, told at the fireside and in the daily
walks, fell on the mind of the boy John like generous
seed, awakening in him military ambitions and making
him in later life, as his brother Henry said, ‘in heart

1 See Note A.
B2
20 LORD LAWRENCE

and action more of a soldier than half the men who
wear red coats.’

From his earliest years John had set his heart on
being a soldier. ‘A soldier I was born,’ he exclaimed
when the supreme moment came to decide on his
future,—‘A soldier I was born, and a soldier I will
be!’ The remonstrances of his veteran father and
the counsels of his brother Henry were unavailing to
change his mind. But the persuasions of his much-
loved sister Letitia, with perhaps a thought of his
mother and the res angusta domi, at last prevailed to
turn him from his purpose. He sacrificed his personal
ambitions and accepted the ‘ writership ’ in the service
of the East India Company offered him by Mr. John
Huddlestone, who had already provided his elder
brothers with cadetships.

Four years (1819-1823) as a day scholar at College
Green, Bristol; two years (1823-1825) at his ma-
ternal uncle’s school, Foyle College, in Londonderry;
and two years more (1825-1827) at Wraxall Hall, in
North Wilts, with desultory reading in Plutarch’s
Lives and sundry books of history, constituted his
general education before he entered Haileybury and
commenced the special preparation for his Indian
career. School did little for him. But the glorious
associations of Derry seem to have produced an
abiding impression on his mind. More than two
centuries have passed since Derry made her heroic
defence. But the story of her Spartan endurance has
never lost its freshness. The blood still warms and
THE DISTRICT OFFICER ai

the pulse beats quick as one reads in the graphic
pages of Macaulay how the great fastness of Protes-
tantism in Ulster, ‘betrayed, deserted, disorganised,
unprovided with resources, begirt with enemies,’ shut
her gates in the face of King James and endured the
memorable siege of a hundred and five days. Its
effect on the young schoolboy was deep and lasting.
Long afterwards, in the height of his. fame, when he
revisited Lahore with the Viceregal mantle on him,
Sir John Lawrence told, in a public address, how the
blood of the old defenders of Derry warmed within
him as he fought in India against fearful odds, and
nerved him for his work.

He entered Haileybury in July 1827. There he
proved himself a good but not a specially distin-
guished student, passing out third in the order of
merit in May 1829. Accompanied by his sister
Honoria, and his brother Henry, he sailed from Ports-
mouth on 2nd September 1829, and, after a voyage
of over five months, during a great part of which
he suffered severely from sea-sickness, landed in
Caleutta on gth February 1830. This was an unfor-
tunate time to arrive. The short winter was already
over. The heat of summer was beginning and the
sickly months of the rainy season were close at hand.

Calcutta was at that time a very unhealthy place,
with little resemblance but in outward features to
the city of the present day. Cholera was endemic.
Drinking water was procurable only from open tanks,
exposed to all kinds of pollution. It was carried in
22 LORD LAWRENCE

the common leather skins used by the water-carriers
for miscellaneous purposes, often no doubt to carry
water that was putrid and contained the germs of
disease. The river was the common receptacle for
the half-burned corpses of the Hindus, which floated
up and down with the tide, or stuck in the chains of
the shipping, giving out the most sickening stench,
and affording a loathsome meal to hundreds of carrion
crows. The city was practically undrained. The
sewage festered and bubbled under the tropical sun
in open ditches till removed by scavengers. The place
had no attractions for John Lawrence, though it may
have suggested to him some sanitary reforms which
he carried out in later years. Here, however, he had
to remain for ten months to pass examinations in
the Hindi and Persian languages before he could be
pronounced fully qualified for work up-country. He
was ill nearly the whole time. His biographer tells
us he was often heard to say that an offer of a
hundred pounds a year in England in those days
would have taken him straight home.

Towards the end of 1830, he passed his examina-
tions and escaped from the enervating and sickly
climate of Calcutta, of which he entertained a hearty
dislike to the end of his days. At his own request he
was appointed to the Delhi Territory, the cradle and
the theatre of his future fame. Here, early in 1831,
he began his work as Assistant to the Resident, and
served for eight years—four years’ apprenticeship as
Assistant, two years as Magistrate and Collector of
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 23
‘

the District of Panipat, and two years in charge of the
District of Gurgéon. During these years he received
a thorough training in all departments of the civil
administration, and acquired that complete mastery
of details without which he never considered a Civil
Officer to be fit for his duties. With him there was
no royal road to become an efficient Officer—no road
at all other than hard work and regular training.
An apprenticeship had to be served in these things.
His own appetite for work was insatiable. At Pani-
pat he worked for two years, morning, noon, and
night ; and to this he attributed his fortune. ‘During
my charge of the Panipat District,’ he tells us, ‘I com-
pleted my training as a Civil Officer. It was a hard
one, it is true, but one which I had no cause ever to
regret. It has facilitated all my subsequent labours,
no matter how varied, how onerous. I had become
well acquainted with the duties of an administrator
both in a large city and in an important agricultural
District. I had come in contact with all classes of the
people, high and low. I had made acquaintance with
most of the criminal classes, and understood their
habits of life. I had seen all the different agricultural
races of that part of India. I had learned to under-
stand the peculiarities of the tenure of land, the
circumstances of Indian agriculture, canal and well-
irrigation, as well as the habits, social customs, and
leading characteristics of the people. ...The expe-
rience and the credit we gained stood us in good
stead in after years.’
24 LORD LAWRENCE

No finer field than the Delhi Territory could at that
time have been chosen for the development of the
special characteristics by which John Lawrence was
distinguished. There was scope for independent action
and opportunity for the display of individuality of
character and temperament which the administration
of an ordinary British District did not present. The
Delhi Territory came into our possession when the
Maratha confederacy was crushed in the war of 1803.
The aged Emperor, Shih Alam, the same who, eight-
and-thirty years before, had ceded the civil govern-
ment of Bengal to the English Company of Merchants,
was now rescued by the armies of his ‘faithful ser-
vants and sincere well-wishers’ from the thraldom
of the Marathds, and restored to his throne under
English protection. The puppet King went through
the form of conferring on the English the territories
they had conquered, and the victors on their part
assigned for his support certain Districts on the right
bank of the Jumna, and a money allowance equal to
more than £120,000 a year. The city of Delhi and
the assigned lands were excluded from the operation
of the Company’s laws and placed under charge of an
officer styled the Resident and Chief Commissioner,
who collected the revenue and administered justice in
the Delhi King’s name. The King and Heir Apparent
carried with them, outside the royal palace, personal
exemption from the ordinary laws, while the precincts
of the palace were treated as foreign territory in
which the King’s authority alone prevailed. Here in
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 25

the Hall of Audience—round the cornice of which in
letters of gold upon a ground of white marble, in the
graceful characters of the Persian language, ran the
famous lines, ‘If there be a Paradise on earth, it is
this, it is this’—the King held mimic court. Sur-
rounded with all the paraphernalia of imperial dig-
nity, he received from his protectors the symbols of
an allegiance they did not pay, and affected to dis-
pense an authority he no longer possessed.

For more than a quarter of a century the coins of
the Company continued to bear the superscription of
the Emperor; and the representative of the Governor-
General did him obeisance. Everywhere the people
of India looked to him as the fountain of honour.
No Prince of a Muhammadan House, no Chieftain of
ancient lineage in R4jputana, conceived his title to be
quite complete till he had obtained the recognition of
the Delhi King. In vain our Government discount-
enanced these pretensions, in vain it substituted the
royal effigy of England on its coinage for the imperial
superscription, in vain it declined to recognise the
validity of titles granted by the Emperor. Do what it
might, the Company was unable to clothe itself with the
prestige which encircled the imperial throne, and this
phantom as it seemed of a vanished power continued
to exercise a strange but real fascination over the
people of India. To ambitious spirits, brooding over
the memories of departed greatness, it was a visible
figure ever recalling what had been; ever suggestive
of what, by the blessing of Allah, might yet again one
26 LORD LAWRENCE

day be. To the evil-disposed and disaffected, and to
all who were ripe for mischief, it became a focus of
intrigue. And, as we shall see, it formed a rallying
point for the military revolt which shook the founda-
tions of the English power.

Perhaps things might have been different had Lord
Wellesley carried out his original design to remove
the King to a distance from Delhi. But this was
never done. In fact it was found convenient at first
to governin his name. Authority which seemed to be
delegated by him procured more ready acceptance for
the government of the foreigner. And when at last
the English stood forward in their true position of
paramount supremacy, the mischief was already done,
and there was no remedy. Lord Dalhousie indeed
recommended that, upon the death of Bahédur Shah,
the royal title and prerogatives should cease. The pro-
posal however was opposed by the Court of Directors.
They yielded only to the overruling power of the
Board of Control; and Dalhousie, in deference to their
objections, abstained from using the authority he re-
ceived. But although the King’s grandson was re-
cognised as Heir Apparent, it was only on condition
that he should quit the palace at Delhi.

This fate was impending over the ancient House of
Timér, when the Mutiny intervened. John Lawrence
well knew the dangerous associations which centered
in and round a city that had for generations been the
throne of empire. He knew it was the prestige arising
from the possession of Delhi that gave to the revolted
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 27

Sepoys half their strength and power for mischief.
He knew that with the fall of Delhi the cohesion of
the Mutiny would dissolve like snow ina thaw. In
the dark days of the great military rebellion, it was
not till Delhi fell that he began to breathe freely again
and felt that the extremity of the crisis had passed.
There was no strong poetic vein in young Lawrence
to which the faded glories of the Imperial House could
appeal. His character was above all things practical.
Yet fond of history as he was, his imagination could
hardly fail to be impressed by the ruins of ancient
cities covering many square miles of country, whose
annals ran back some sixteen centuries to the story of
the Mahébharata. They had seen the rise and fall of
many thrones and dominions, Hindu and Pathén
and Mughal and Marath4. But his sympathies were
with the peasantry rather than with the Princes; with
the village communities, ‘ the indestructible atoms,’ as
Elphinstone calls them, which survive all revolutions
rather than with the dynasties which succumb. His
honest spirit was stirred to indignation by the vice
and debauchery that festered within the walls of the
palace. His sympathy with the masses was roused
by the unpunished crimes of the nobles, the violence
of the grandees, the insolence of their retainers, and
the oppression of the petty Chiefs, many of whom had
palaces of their own in the city, where they came to
swell the tawdry pomp of the mimic court. What he
saw and learned at Delhi inspired John Lawrence
with a strong and abiding conviction of the blessings
28 LORD LAWRENCE

conferred by British rule on the industrial and agri-
cultural classes, and furnishes the key to the policy
he afterwards pursued as Chief Commissioner of the
Punjab and as Viceroy of India.

The Delhi Territory was full of refugees from the
Native States bordering it on three sides, which had
been created by the British Government in pursuance
of a policy now long exploded, or carved out by the
swords of martial horsemen in the days embalmed in
the local annals as the ‘Sikh hurly-burly.’ When the
Mardthas were stripped of their conquests in Upper
India, our acquisitions beyond the Jumna were con-.
sidered as an encumbrance. Most of them were given
away in reward for services during the war and in
pursuance of the policy of the day which sought to
create a belt of dependent States from Karnal to Agra.
It was made a condition of these grants that the Chiefs
were to settle the country with their own troops and
we were to have no concern therewith. And some
years later, the petty Sikh Chieftains, over whom our
shield was thrown to save them from Ranjit Singh,
were maintained in the same rights and authority
within their possessions as they enjoyed before they
were taken under British protection.

In the course of time and under the gradual de-
velopment of the British power, the little Sikh Rajas
and Sardars have all sunk to the position of ordinary
subjects. Most of the petty States! we created have

1 It was the Chief of one of these States who instigated the
murder of the Commissioner of the Delhi Territory and whose
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 29

also disappeared. Five of them threw in their lot
with the rebel King of Delhi and were consequently
extinguished. Three only — Pataudi, Loharu, and
Dujéna—remain to this day. But when Lawrence
was at Delhi, nearly all of them were still in the full
possession of their power, with unlimited opportunities
to oppress, untempered by British interference. Their
jurisdictions interlaced in the most perplexing way,
and every Chieftain levied tolls on traffic according to
his fancy. Everything was taxed—the caravan of the
merchant and the head-load of the peasant, the rich
man’s luxuries and the poor man’s necessaries—and
payment to one Chief gave no exemption from the
rapacity of another. No fewer than ten different
kinds of rupee were in circulation, which were re-
ceived into the British treasury at fixed rates of
exchange.

The country round Delhi is purely agricultural.
Here it was that John Lawrence acquired his ex-
perience as a Revenue Officer, and that intimate know-
ledge of tenures and the economic condition of the
peasantry which underlay all his future land policy.
In the neighbourhood of the city and in the hills to
the south, there is a large population of Gujars, else-
where a quiet and pastoral people, but in Delhi of
evil reputation. In the south of Gurgéon the Meos or
MewéAtis, believed by some to represent the original

capture was cleverly effected by the energy and detective ability of
John Lawrence. The story is graphically told in Bosworth Smith,

vol. i. pp. 74-78.
30 LORD LAWRENCE

non-Aryan inhabitants of the country, predominate.
These are predatory races, thieves and cattle-lifters, a
turbulent people, who were ever a thorn in the side of
the Muhammadan Government and have given much
trouble to ourselves. But three-fourths of the popu-
lation of the Delhi Territory belong to honest and’
industrious agricultural tribes. The flower of the
peasantry is the Jét. Not a few of the villages can
trace their pedigree back for more than a thousand
years and, amid all the revolutions of time and
changes of dynasties, have preserved written annals
of their history from a time when William the Con-
queror had not yet landed on the shores of England.
The vitality of these village communities is marvel-
lous. ‘They are admirably adapted, wrote John
Lawrence, when Collector of Delhi, ‘to resist the evil
effects of bad seasons, epidemics and other evils inci-
dental to this country. Bound together by the ties of
blood connection, and, above al], common interest, like
the bundle of sticks . . . they are difficult to break.
Drought may wither their crops, famine and disease
may depopulate their houses, their fields may be
deserted for a time, but when the storm blows over,
if any survive, they are certain to return.’

The country is specially liable to drought. Part of
it, is protected by canals, but the cultivation generally
is dependent on the rainfall, which is exceedingly
uncertain. When the rain fails everything is lost; the
grass and the young crops wither away; the cattle
begin to die; the ground becomes hard as iron; not
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 31

an acre can be ploughed, not a seed can be sown ;
and when the clouds collect and the rain falls at last,
there are no oxen left to draw the plough. Once at
least in every ten years, generally oftener, severe
scarcity or actual famine may be expected. The
official records of the Districts enumerate twelve such
years since 1803, and the memory of earlier famines
is preserved in the traditions of the people. In the
«Famine of ’40’ thousands died of disease and want ;
even rich men died of starvation ; food was not to be
purchased for money. The ‘ Famine of 7171” lives in
the mouths of the people and in the village songs—
‘grain sold at the price of pistachio nuts and wheat
at the price of raisins ;’—‘the trader lived and the
JAt died; the carts remained useless, for the oxen
were dead; and the bride went to her husband’s
house without the due formalities.” Two terrible
famines occurred, one in 1833 and another in 1837,
when John Lawrence was serving in the Delhi
Territory. That of 1833 was intense and forms an
epoch from which old men fix the date of events.
Even the wolves and jackals, from feeding on human
flesh, became more ferocious and lost their fear of
man. Lawrence in describing it as an eye-witness
says, ‘As early as the end of April, there was not a
blade of grass to be seen for miles, and the surround-
ing plains were covered with the carcases of the cattle

that had died from starvation.’

1 The year 1840 of the Hindu Calendar=1783 a.p.: and the
year 1917 of the Hindu Calendar =1860 4.p. Just so we say ‘The
Rebellion of *45.’
32 LORD LAWRENCE

In those days the Company’s government of the
Delhi Territory was supposed to be patriarchal. But
the revenue administration was thoroughly vicious
and hardly less oppressive than in the worst of the
Native States. The assessment of the land tax was
fixed at a ruinous rate. The demand was never paid
in full. Balances were always accruing. When the
revenue of a village was overdue, horse and foot
were quartered on the inhabitants till everything was
squeezed out of all who could pay. One hundred
and thirty-six horsemen were retained in Panipat for
the collection of the revenue, while twenty-two were
considered sufficient for the duties of police! No
wonder the revenue settlements broke down. An
estate was considered fairly lucky if it escaped re-
settlement every five years. Almost all the assess-
ments which Lawrence made were large reductions
on the previous demand. Even then, his settlements
sometimes broke down too, from the extreme destitu-
tion of the peasantry and their want of cattle, im-
plements of husbandry, and even the necessaries of
life. ‘In going over the records, he wrote, ‘one is
often amazed at the excessive assessments which
have been realised.’ Naturally he had ever after a
horror of over-assessment. Light taxation of the land
was to his mind the panacea for foreign rule in India.
‘Do not be hard on the Zamindars,’ were his instruc-
tions to Charles Raikes, his Assistant in Pénfpat ;
‘Government revenue of course must be paid, but do
not be hard: “the calf gets the milk which is left in
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 33

the cow.”’ ‘Mind you assess low,’ he wrote to George
Christian, when entering on his settlement work in
Jalandhar ; ‘if you don’t, I shall be your enemy for
life, and indeed, what is worse, you will be your own.
Let nothing tempt you to assess high. A contented
and prosperous peasantry he looked upon as the
bulwark of the empire. Better to give too much
than too little.

No department of the Indian administration comes
into closer touch with the people and more directly
affects, for good or evil, the prosperity of the country,
the contentment of the agricultural classes, and the
stability of British rule, than that which is con-
nected with the periodical assessment of the land-
tax. The Officers to whom the duty is entrusted are
invariably picked men, the cream of the services,
though perhaps not always sufficiently ripened and
chastened by experience. When the principles for
their guidance were first laid down, the Government
declared its wish and intention to be that the efforts
of the Revenue-Officers should be chiefly directed, not
to any general and extensive enhancement of the
assessment, but to the objects of equalising the public
burdens and of ascertaining and recording the rights
of all persons and classes claiming an interest in the
land or its produce. Once well and thoroughly done,
this record does not need frequent revision. The
questions with which it deals belong rather to the
courts of law. So it has come about that the increase
of assessment has risen from the subordinate to the

Cc
34 LORD LAWRENCE

prime place in settlement work. Indeed it is now an
accepted principle that no revision is made unless a
large increase of revenue is expected to result.

As a rule the assessments are fair and moderate.
Such too has been the prosperity of the country, that
while the revenue from the land has enormously in-
creased, its incidence on the area of cultivation is less
than it was more than half a century ago, when the
principles of assessment were first laid down. But it
does not follow that the tax is more easily paid than
before. There are many more mouths to feed for one
thing. With facilities of communication and increase
of purchaseable commodities the standard of living
among the peasantry has rapidly risen. Expenses of
cultivation have largely increased. The rates of tax
on the best soils also have been enhanced, while the
extension of cultivation has naturally been for the
most part in land of poorer quality. It is quite
possible, therefore, that a cultivator may now find
more difficulty in paying a low rate upon a large
estate than he did in paying a aS rate on his
most profitable land.

In these days, when money is sorely needed to meet
on every hand the growing demand for improvements,
not to speak of the military sieve into which so much
of it is poured, there is a strong temptation to force
up the assessments. It is a dangerous policy. The
mischief of over-assessment is insidious. The millions
of India are as yet voiceless. It is not the ery of the
tillers of the soil that is borne on the Press. They
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 35

suffer in silence, and their sorrows reach the ear of
authority only when the mischief is done—when the
wells get out of gear, when the cultivation grows
slovenly, when the transfers of land to the moneyed
classes are so frequent as to attract official notice,
when men begin to leave their ancestral homes, when
perhaps the seeds of revolution have beensown. Great
as the development of India has been, it is much re-
tarded by the want of agricultural capital. In spite
of all her material improvements—new industries, un-
exampled growth of trade, and great addition to the
general wealth—India is almost a purely agricultural
country. But she is no longer the sole consumer of
her own produce. She is coming every day into wider
competition with other agricultural countries in the
markets of the world. If she is to succeed, old methods
must give way to better, and capital must be accumu-
lated to provide the improvements. For this a
margin of profit must always be left to the landowner.
A system of assessment which periodically dips into
every increase requires to be carefully supervised at
all times. One injudicious turn of the screw may do
mischief to a District which cannot be repaired in one
or two generations.

Life among the rural population gave John Law-
rence a strong affection for the sturdy yeoman, a
sympathy with him in his difficulties, and a respect
for his honest, manly independence, which he never
lost. Half his time was spent in tents among the
people, not in office ‘from ten to four by the regulation

c2
36 LORD LAWRENCE

clock.’ Every corner of his charge was visited. He
was accessible all day and at any hour to every one
who wished to see him. Soon after he joined at Delhi
the system of administration was considerably changed.
Hitherto everything had been managed politically by
the Resident and Chief Commissioner of Delhi, in whom
vested the superintendence of the revenue, the police,
and civil and criminal justice, under such orders as
the Governor-General might from time to time pre-
scribe. In 1832 the office of Resident was abolished,
and the control was vested in the Supreme Courts of
Justice and the Board of Revenue in the North-
Western Provinces. The ordinary laws and regu-
lations were not formally introduced, but the Com-
missioner and the Officers acting under him were
required to ‘ordinarily conform to the principles and
spirit of the Regulations, and to act according to
justice, equity, and good conscience in cases for which
no specific rules existed.

This was the foundation of what was afterwards
developed in the Punjab into the ‘Non-Regulation
system.’ It introduced into the Delhi Territory more
law and order than had heretofore prevailed, and
practically gave Lawrence the opportunity he wanted
to fix his own impress on a new state of things.
Associating with the people in daily intimacy, listen-
ing to their petitions, ministering to their sick, some-
times nursing them with his own hands, always ready
to listen to anybody, seeing everything with his
own eyes, his character was formed and he laid the
THE DISTRICT OFFICER 37

foundation of the eminence to which he afterwards rose.
He belonged to a class of District Officer for whom
there is no longer any room in our more elaborate and
highly-organised system of government in India. The
species is as extinct as the mastodon or the megalo-
saurus.

After eight years of this life in the Delhi Territory,
John Lawrence was appointed to be Settlement
Officer in Etéwah. He never cared for the place, which
he described as a ‘hole’ in which he was nearly
buried. The work too was tame after what he had
been accustomed to. He joined the appointment in
November 1838, and before twelve months were over
he was prostrated by fever, which nearly proved fatal,
and compelled him to return to England, where he
arrived in June 1840. So ended his first period of
Indian service.
CHAPTER Iil
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER.

Tuts little book is not intended to be a personal
biography of John Lawrence. An able pen has written
that at length. What I am endeavouring to picture is
the Indian environment in which he lived and acted,
his relation to the principal events of his time, and
his position in the development of the constitutional
principles on which the government of India is now
conducted. These are of course entwined with the
personal events of his life. But it will be convenient,
both here and in subsequent chapters, to dismiss
purely biographical matters in a very brief summary.

John Lawrence spent two years and three months
in England and on the Continent in search of health
(1840-42). His fever, of which he had a dangerous
relapse in Calcutta on his way home, returned with
such severity at Naples, towards the end of his leave,
that the doctors advised him not to go back to India.
But go he must, if it were only to die. And he did
not go alone. On 26th August, 1841, he was married
to Harriet Catherine Hamilton, daughter of the Rev.
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 39

Richard Hamilton, Rector of Culdaff, in county Done-
gal—‘ the most important and certainly the happiest
step in my life,’ he says. Sailing from Southampton
on Ist October, 1842, they arrived in Bombay by the
overland route on r4th November. After a slow and
difficult journey to Upper India by way of Nagpur and _
Allahébaéd, John Lawrence found himself appointed
to the old familiar scenes of Delhi. The Kabul War
was just over, and he had the joy of embracing his
brother George, recently rescued from captivity. At
Delhi he remained, first as Civil and Sessions Judge,
and then as Magistrate and Collector, till the spring
of 1846, when he was summoned by Lord Hardinge
to be Commissioner of the country acquired from the
Sikhs in the Jalandhar Dodb, and was thus translated
to the thick of the stirring events which led to the
annexation of the Punjab to the British dominions.

It is not my intention to narrate these events, even
in brief. They are a thrice-told tale. Lord Hardinge,
when on his way to the frontier, in daily expectation
of the outbreak of war with the Sikhs, had met John
Lawrence at Delhi in November 1845. Hardinge’s
discerning and soldierly eye had taken the measure of
the young Magistrate, the ‘vehement, swift-riding
man,’ with the honest and eager face, careless of dress
and appearances—who seemed never to count any work
too hard, or to think any duty too little to be done
with his own hand—who knew every man in the
place and every inch of his District, its condition, its
capabilities, its resources, and its requirements. He
40 LORD LAWRENCE

noted him then and there as the man for his pur-
pose should occasion arise. Nor did Lawrence fail
him.

Taken aback by the determined resistance of the
Khalsa? troops in the first battles on the banks of the
Sutlej, crippled by the loss of a seventh of our army,
paralysed by the exhaustion of the artillery ammuni-
tion, the want of heavy guns, and the deficiency of
supplies, which the Cis-Sutlej? feudatories began to
withhold, the English were reduced to inactivity for
a time after the desperate battle of Firozshéh, and
were unable to follow up their victories. A note of
personal appeal from the Governor-General enlisted
the energies and local knowledge of Lawrence in the
provision of transport for the military stores from the
Delhi magazine. A train of four thousand carts, each
driven by its owner, was speedily organised. It made
its journey of over two hundred miles to the front,
and arrived, ‘without any straggling or deserting,
without the failure of a man, a wheel, or a bullock, in
time for the battle of Sobréon*’ On gth February,
1845, the train filed into camp. On the 10th was won
the crowning victory, which broke and scattered the
Khalsa army and resulted in the establishment of a

? This name is derived from the Arabic Khdlisa. It signifies
one’s own, pure property; thence, the Gurw’s (or God’s) own, special
property, See Trumpp’s Adi-Granth, p.xci, note. As we should say,
God’s chosen or peculiar people.

? From the point of view of the Government at Calcutta, the
country on the left bank of the river has acquired the name of Cis-

Sutlej ; that on the right, Trans-Sutlej.
5 Sir R. Temple’s Lord Lawrence, p. 25.
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 41

British Protectorate at Lahore and the incorporation
in the British dominions of all the country, hill and
plain, situated between the Beas and the Sutle}.

To the administration of this country Lawrence was
now summoned. ‘Send me up John Lawrence!’ was
Hardinge’s reply to the Lieutenant-Governor of the
North-Western Provinces, who wished to have a man
of his own selection. The beginning of March 1846
saw him at his post. Here, with intervals during
which he acted as Resident at Lahore for his brother
Henry, or took his work in addition to his own, he
laboured with his wonted method, resolute self-sacri-
fice, vigilant activity, love of the people, and single-
minded devotion to duty, till the Khélsa once more
struck a blow for independence and was beaten, and
the kingdom of Ranjit Singh became the frontier pro-
vince of our Indian Empire.

The Trans-Sutlej Territory, which John Lawrence
was thus suddenly called upon to govern, is a land of
singular beauty and fertility. From the banks of the
Beas and Sutlej, an unbroken plain extends with a
gentle ascent to the foot of the Himélayas, whence
the country rises in a receding series of mountains
and valleys, higher and ever higher, to the great snow
peaks which separate India from Tibet. Three of
the great rivers of the Punjab—the Beas, the Ravi,
and the Chenéb—take their rise in these mountain-
ranges. The products are as varied as the aspect of
the country. The valleys are abundantly watered by
mountain streams. KAangra rice is the finest in Upper
42 LORD LAWRENCE

India, while Kéngra tea !—a product introduced since
the British occupation—finds growing favour alike in
the markets of Central Asia and in Mincing Lane.
The population varies in language, religion, and
type. In the plains are the Jéts and other agricul-
tural tribes of the ordinary Hindu family. On the
extreme North, in the valleys of Lahul and Spiti, the
Mongolian element predominates over the Indian, the
language is Tibetan, and the religion is Buddhism
largely adulterated with Hindu ideas and demonology
and spirit-worship. In the lower intervening ranges
are the Rajputs of Kangra, descendants of the Sun
and Moon, with genealogies that lose themselves in
the mists of pre-historic times, but which are said to be
authentically traced for more than two thousand years.
In the seventh century of our era, when Hiuen
Tsiang, the Chinese pilgrim, passed through India, a
prince of the Katoch family was ruling the kingdom
of Jalandhara (Che-lan-t‘o-lo). Hiuen Tsiang, who
made a halt of four months, describes? the people as
brave and impetuous, and the land as favourable for
the cultivation of cereals and producing much rice,
with thick and umbrageous forests and abundance of
fruits and flowers. At the present day there are in
the Jalandhar territory the representatives of eleven
principalities, the debris of once powerful dynasties.
Three of them—Mandi, Chamba, and Suket—are still

? In the years 1890 and 1891 the area under tea-cultivation in the
Punjab was 9,229 acres, of which 9,177 are in the Kangra District,
the other fifty-two acres being in Simla.

? Beal’s Buddhist Records of the Western World, vol. i. p. 175.
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 43

Ruling Houses; the others are only titled nobility. It
is the cadets who have survived as Ruling Chiefs.
Naturally their portions were in the more inaccessible
hills and less fertile valleys. And to this they owe it
that, though they lost bits of territory and had to pay
tribute to the Sikhs, they escaped the political ex-
tinction which overtook the elder branches in the
more open districts when, in an evil hour, Ranjit
Singh was called in to help to repel a Gurkha invasion.
Having once gained a footing in these principalities,
the ‘Lion of the Punjab,’ bit by bit, by fraud and
violence, reduced to subjection all the lower hills
between the Ravi and the Sutlej.

When the country was annexed to the British
dominions the old Chieftains expected great things.
But the policy of the day was to maintain the status
as we found it and to restore nothing which the Sikhs
had taken. Chiefs whom we found to be still ruling
were maintained in their States subject to tribute, but
those who had lost their sovereign powers did not get
them back. Nothing else was to have been expected
from the known antecedents and training of Lawrence.
To him the idea of these Chiefs being royal families

‘and crowned heads was ridiculous; they were only
petty barons. ‘I certainly think it would be mad-
ness in us, he wrote, ‘to give them back much of
their old power and extensive possessions. Continue
to them the jégirs held under the Sikhs, and if they
have done good service in the war, make them a
money present, or even give them an annual stipend
44 LORD LAWRENCE

in cash, but do not give them more power. .. . Itisa
mistake to think that by making Rajds and Chiefs
powerful you attach the country. One lakh given in
the reduction of assessments and making people com-
fortable and happy in their homes is better than three
lakhs given to Rajas,’

The Réjdés were bitterly disappointed. Only in
name could the position assigned to them be the same
as under the Sikhs. A British Jagirdar is a mere
receiver of rents or revenue. A Sikh Jagirdar was
still a petty Prince in his estates, with immense power
and prestige. So long as his tribute was paid or
his service rendered ‘to his government, he might do
very much as he liked. He could still dispense a
rude justice or injustice; he could levy benevolences;
he could take cesses on property, on trade, and even
on domestic occurrences ; he was served by unpaid
labour. All this was swept clean away by the
annexation. It followed naturally that the Chiefs
were discontented as well as disappointed. The
barons sulked in their ancestral halls and bided their
time. When the Sikh nation rose and made their
last struggle for independence, the emissaries of the
Khalsa incited the disestablished Princes to join them,
and promised the restoration of their little Kingdoms
if the British power should be overthrown. John
Lawrence was prepared for this. ‘ After Hazara,’ he
wrote}, ‘the elements of discord prevail to a greater
extent in Kangra than in any other District of the

1 Life of Reynell Taylor, p. 220.
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 45

Punjab. The country bristled with forts. Every
little palace was a fortified building. Kangra and
Nurpur had a fabled reputation. In the proverbs of
the people, he who ruled Kangra ruled the hills.
Years afterwards, in the height of the Mutiny,
Lawrence wrote that if by any misadventure Kangra
should be lost to us, a general insurrection of the hill
people would almost certainly follow.

In 1848 the Raéjas of Kangra, Jaswén, and Datér-
pur, with the Wazir of Nurpur and other discontented
leaders, backed by the prestige and influence of Bedi
Bikrama Singh, the descendant of Guru Nanak, and
the chief-priest of the Sikh religion, raised the standard.
of rebellion and proclaimed that the English rule had
ceased. But they had cast in their lot with a losing
cause. With a small force and some raw levies, and
within a very few hours, Lawrence and his Officers
were upon them wherever rebellion showed its head.

‘By the orders of John Lawrence,’ writes Robert
Cust, who, as one of his subordinates, had charge of the
District of Hoshiérpur, ‘I issued a Proclamation! to

1 This Proclamation, so vigorous and characteristic both of Law-
rence and his men, is worth preserving :—

‘Robert Cust, the Deputy-Commissioner and Superintendent of
the District of Hoshiarpur, to all the principal landowners in the
district, sent by special messenger to each separately.

‘Camp, Hajipur, Nov. 28, 1848.

‘I expect, and am fully confident, that you are in your own
villages, and have kept clear of any rebellion. If any of your rela-
tions have joined the rebels, write to them to come back before

.blood is shed : if they do so, their fault will be forgiven. Consider
that I have in person visited every one of your villages, and I know
the position of every one of you: what is your injury I consider

.
46 LORD LAWRENCE

the headmen of the villages to meet us at different
points of our hasty march to grapple with the insur-
gents. At each halting-place they were assembled in
scores, and when a sword and a pen were placed
before them to select the instrument by which they
wished to be ruled, the pen was grasped with enthu-
siasm. With the genius of a general, Lawrence planned
and carried into execution this bloodless campaign,
where delays would have been fatal.’ In a few days
all was over; the rebel leaders were made prisoners
and sent into exile, their palaces and fortresses were
razed to the ground, and the estates which had been
continued to them were confiscated.

‘This campaign, Edwin Arnold justly observes, ‘has
attracted too little regard from the annalists of the
period: as a horseman who plays no fine tricks of

mine: what is gain to you I consider my gain. The rule of the
British is in favour of the agriculturist. If your lands are heavily
assessed, tell me so, and I will relieve you: if you have any
grievance, let me knowit, and I will try to remove it: if you have
any plans, let me know them, and I will give you my advice: if
you will excite rebellion, as I live, I will severely punish you. I have ruled
this district three years by the sole agency of the pen, and if neces-
sary I will rule it by the sword. God forbid that matters should
cometothat. This trouble affects your families and your prosperity.
The Rdjds of the country get up the disturbance, but it is the
landowners whose lands are plundered. Consider what I have
said, and talk it over with your relations, and bring all back from
rebellion, and when my camp comes in your neighbourhood, attend
at once in person, and tell those who have joined the rebellion to
return to me, as children who have committed a fault return to
their fathers, and their faults will be forgiven them. Let this be
known in the valley of Jaswan, and be of good cheer. In two days
I shall be in the midst of you with a force which you will be
unable to resist.’
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 47

horsemanship, nor trifles with the hot temper of his
steed, wins less applause from an idle eye than the
showy rider, who provokes the fury which he has
then to check.’ The position of the rebels on the
right flank of our main army which was operating
against the Sikhs made their immediate suppression
imperative. Had John Lawrence not acted promptly
and on his own responsibility, the rebellion would
have assumed a formidable aspect. Viewed by itself,
however, the offence of rising, under overwhelming
temptation, against a foreign rule which had been
established for little more than two years, was not
an unpardonable one. In the lapse of time it has
been forgiven. The survivors of the families have
been permitted to return, and some of them have been
reinstated in a portion of their old family domains.
When Her Majesty the Queen was proclaimed Empress
of India, the Jaswdn estate was restored, as an act of
grace, to the great-grandson of the Réjé who re-
belled. And some years later, before I left the Punjab,
I was instrumental in obtaining permission for the
grandson, who was only a lad of twenty when he
went ‘out,’ to return to his old home.

John Lawrence found his views justified. The
people were contented and did not rise. What had
been a sore grievance to the Rajaés was a blessing to
them. The hand of the Sikh was very heavy on the
property and lives of men. George Forster’, writing

1 Journey from Bengal to England through the northern part of India, &e.
London, 1798.
48 LORD LAWRENCE

of this very part of the country about fifty years
before, thanks God that, ‘unhurt by Sicques, tygers
or thieves, he is safely lodged in Nourpour. For
some years before our rule the people had been
severely ground down by the local governor, Sheikh
Im4ém-ud-din. But now the lion and the Jamb could
drink at the same fountain. The lamb had no fear;
the people were contented. In March 1846 the country
had been annexed; before the harvest was ripe the
greater part of it was summarily assessed to land-
revenue. A large reduction was made on the revenue
levied by the Sikhs, and the demand was fixed for
three years. Unauthorised cesses, benevolences, and
perquisites were swept away. A light money assess-
ment was substituted for payments in grain. These
measures were eminently successful, although the
summary settlement was found in some villages to
have been pitched too high and remissions had to be
granted. It was in the Jalandhar District that Law-
rence gave George Christian the instructions to assess
low, which I have already quoted. In the Kangra
District, George Barnes, who made the regular settle-
ment three years afterwards, estimated that the sum-
mary settlement had ‘added from fifteen to twenty
per cent. to each man’s income.’

In the virgin soil of the Trans-Sutlej States, John
Lawrence, with his Assistants, Cust and Scott and
Barnes and Lake, was able to sow good seed broad-
cast. It was a new country; he had a free hand, and
could mould the administration very much as he
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 49

pleased.’ “I want to put my stamp on it, he wrote,
‘that in after-times people may look back and recall
my Raj. with satisfaction. No portion of our Empire’
promises better than it does.’ The system of civil
administration introduced was of the simplest kind.
A few Rules of Procedure were drawn up for the
guidance of the Civil Officers. The law administered
was the lex loci, when not repugnant to principles of
natural justice or to equity or good policy. In cases
not specially provided for, the Regulations in force
in the Company’s territories were to prevail, as far
as circumstances would admit, and in doubtful cases
instructions were to be asked for. Religious liberty
was proclaimed. Mussulmdn, Hindu, Sikh, and Chris-
tian were alike protected. All were free to observe
their own religious and socia] customs, but none were
permitted to injure or meddle with their neighbours
in the observance of theirs. Once more the call. to
public prayer, which the Sikhs had silenced, awoke
the dawn from the minarets of the mosque. But in
vain was the veil of religious sanction thrown over
crimes like saté and child-murder. These were put
down with a strong and stern hand.

The Bedis?, the priestly class, among the Sikhs,

1 The Bedis are descendants of Lakshmi Dis, the second son of
Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion. In the Granth
(Book, Bible) the killing of daughters is strictly forbidden. ‘A true
Sikh may have no intercourse with those who kill their daughters.’
—Trumpp’s Adi-Granth, pp. exv and exvi. Also Cunningham's
Sikhs, p. 363: ‘With the slayers of daughters whoever has inter-

course, him do I eurse.’ ‘Whoever takes food from the slayers of
daughters shall die unabsolved.’

D
50 LORD LAWRENCE

were most addicted to the crime of female infanticide,
notwithstanding the fact that it is sternly forbidden in
‘their sacred books. But it was prevalent also among
Rajputs and other Hindu castes, and even among
some classes of Muhammadans. But, whatever the
predisposing cause—whether it was religious, whether
it was founded on peculiar tenets and considerations
of caste, whether it was avarice, or whether it was
pride of birth—whatever it was, the crime had to be
stamped out. Proclamations were issued that it would
be treated and punished as murder; the chief men of
tribes were called on to suppress it ; an annual census
of the inhabitants, male and female, of all villages and
tribes known to be addicted to it, was prescribed; and
honorary rewards were promised to those who should
distinguish themselves in the crusade against the in-
human practice.

The years spent in the Jalandhar Dodb were the
happiest in Lawrence’s official life. His domestic
circle was not broken up by the separations incident
to Indian service. His work was thoroughly con-
genial to him, and he was his own master. Boehm
has chosen the sword and pen incident of this period
as the subject for a statue’. The artist represents
John Lawrence as offering to the people the choice
between enforced submission and willing obedience :

+ This statue was presented by Sir Edgar Boehm to the Munici-
pality of Lahore, and has been erected on a commanding site. It
was unveiled by the present writer in the Jubilee year of Her
Majesty’s reign, on 30th March, 1887.
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 51

‘By which will ye be governed—the pen or the sword?’
The pen prevailed; but none the less was the sword
ever in reserve, though sheathed. In their first Punjab
Report the Board of Administration were able to say
that the Trans-Sutlej States were the most prosperous,
the most easily managed, and the most profitable of
the territories under their control.

From these scenes of peaceful and philanthropic
labour Lawrence was called away to take part in the
administration of the territories which the Second
Punjab War laid at our feet. The events are matters
of general history. Lord Dalhousie succeeded Lord
Hardinge on 12th January, 1848. The Empire was in
profound peace. But the new Governor-General had
only been four months in power when Vans Agnew
and Anderson, deserted by their Sikh escort, were
murdered at Miltén and the Khalsa army began once
more to raise its head. Herbert Edwardes, with no
resources but his courage, his soldiership, and a few
raw levies, defeated the local governor Mdalr4j and
cooped him up inthe fort of Maltén. But the summer
heat was on, and the English forces could not move.
In an Indian crisis delay is fatal. Disaffection gains
head, the wavering fall away, and friends hesitate to
declare themselves. Before the British troops were
able to take the field in the autumn, the whole Sikh
nation was up in arms and had combined with their
hereditary enemies, the Afghans, in an alliance for
our destruction. The Punjab had to be reconquered:
the Sikh army passed under the yoke, and all that

D2
52 LORD LAWRENCE

remained of the Sikh Kingdom from the previous
war passed under the sceptre of the Queen of
England (1849).

For the administration of this new country, together
with the territory previously acquired on both sides
of the Sutlej, Dalhousie appointed a Board of Three—
the president, Sir Henry Lawrence, and two members,
John Lawrence and Charles Mansel, the latter of
whom was succeeded by Robert Montgomery. It
was on this Board that Sir Charles Napier penned
his savage epigram—‘ Boards indeed rarely have any
talent, and that of the Punjab offers no exception to
the rule. But the world has pronounced another
verdict on the labours of these eminent men. From
the first, the Board -was intended to be a temporary
arrangement, whereby Lord Dalhousie could combine
the heart and rare gifts of Henry Lawrence with the
clear head and strong hand of John in reducing the
new province to order. It is not my part to draw
any comparison between the two heroic brothers—
‘both illustrious, as Edwin Arnold says, ‘in a House
which, like the Fabian, has a prescription to serve and
save the State. Their story is well known. John
admitted his brother to be a keener and higher in-
tellect than himself and to have a greater ‘grip’ on
men, Henry admitted that, in a school of able men
such as are seldom to be seen anywhere, his chief help
was in his brother John, without whom he would
have had difficulty in carrying on. But they were
trained in different schools and their policies were
COMMISSIONER AND CHIEF COMMISSIONER 53

irreconcilable. When, therefore, the work of pacifica-
tion was done, and the work of organisation had to
begin, it is not surprising that Lord Dalhousie se-
lected John, whose general views were in accordance
with his own. Henry, the friend of every one who
was ‘down, the loved, the generous, who ‘ got a little
more for every one,’ who ‘fought every losing battle
for the old Chiefs and Jdghirdars, with’ entire dis-
regard to his own interest}, left the Punjab, amid
an outburst of universal lamentation, to write his
name imperishably on another page of Indian history.
Henceforward John Lawrence ruled supreme in the
Punjab as Chief Commissioner, doing his duty with
the same simplicity as of old, the same devotion and
singleness of purpose, all unconscious of the fiery
ordeal by which his work was soon to be tried.

1 Raikes, Notes on the Revolt in the North-Western Provinces of India,
Pp. 33+
CHAPTER IV
A Non-REGULATION PROVINCE

Tue First Sikh War added a little over 15,000
square miles of territory to the British dominions.
The Second Sikh War added a Kingdom nearly five
times as large; it advanced the boundaries of our
Empire to the mountain-ranges, where they remained
for more than thirty years, till we crossed the Passes
in search of a ‘scientific frontier’; and it profoundly
altered our relations to the politics of Kabul, Central
Asia, and Russia.

The country is classic ground, the furthest theatre
of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Almost on
the same field where, nearly twenty-two centuries ago,
he defeated Porus, we fought the indecisive battle of
Chilianwéla. Lahore, its capital, is the Labokla of
Ptolemy, on the Ravi (Iravati, ‘abounding in water,’
Hydraotes), near ‘where Alexander crossed. Next
perhaps to Delhi, its history is interwoven with the
rise and fall of dynasties in Upper India. It was the
capital of a Muhammadan Kingdom long before the
Mughal Empire was established. ‘Lahore of great
Mogul’ is among the ‘earth’s kingdoms and their
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 55

glory’ disclosed to Adam by Michael the Archangel
from the hill of Paradise. The reign of Akbar! was
the time of its greatest splendour. It was famous for
the curious stuffs and silk brocades issued from the
imperial manufactories. There were more than a
thousand workshops for shawl-weaving. Sea-going
ships were made here and transported to the coast.
In Akbar’s time it was also a place of great literary
activity. At Lahore the Emperor collected at his
court poets, divines, and historians. Here were
held some of those famous discussions from which
Akbar sought to sublimate an eclectic religion, or
perhaps only to cover his lapse from Muhammadan
orthodoxy. The ruins of crumbling mosques and
tombs and ancient gateways scattered for miles round
the present city witness to its former extent and mag-
nificence. Remarkable now for its well-paved and
well-drained streets, Lahore, in the Sikh days, was
notorious as the ‘ filthiest capital in India.’ It is still
one of the most striking Oriental cities in India, more
interesting, perhaps, than even Peshawar.

Our quarrel was with the Sikhs, not with the
people of the Punjab. Although the Punjab is the
home of the Sikh nation, only a fraction of the popu-
lation—less than one-twelfth—is Sikh. Judged by
population, the Punjab is a Muhammadan province.
More than half the population is Muhammadan. But
it must be borne in mind that the Sikh is a Hindu,

1 See Gladwin’s Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. pp. 13, 63, 105, and 250, and
vol. ii. p. 119.
56 LORD LAWRENCE

and his religion is only a phase of Hinduism. The
Jats furnish most of the converts, and it is no un-
common thing to find in the same family one brother
a Hindu and another a Sikh. The Muhammadans
too partake largely of Hindu blood, their ancestors
having been converted to Islam, forcibly or otherwise.
The true home of the Sikh is the Manjha, or ‘ middle-
land, the central portion of the plain between the
Beas and the Ravi, of which the capital is Amritsar.
This small tract of country contains a third of the
Sikh population, the rest, known as the Mélwé4 Sikhs,
being distributed for the most part over the Districts
south of the Sutlej.

It was with the Sikh army and the Sikhs that we
came into collision in 1848. The movement was a solid
and national one on their part. From the Ménjha the
people flocked in thousands to the standard raised by
Sardér Chhatar Singh. Many of the leaders were
nobles who had signed a treaty with us only
eighteen months before. The Commander-in-Chief of
the rebel army had been a member of the Council of
Regency. But over most of the Punjab the Govern-
ment which we were to destroy was a military
despotism, established by the sword and maintained
by the sword, hardly softened by the short British
Protectorate. In Ranjit Singh’s lifetime, the master-
fulness of his genius, the prestige of conquest, the
sentiment of young national life, edged off the rough-
ness of the government. But with Ranjit Singh the
false glory departed. Indeed it is a marvel how the
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 57

country could have endured so long the burden of
taxation we removed. In addition to the land-tax,
the Sikh government imposed duties upon no fewer
than forty-eight classes of articles of trade and com-
merce—many, indeed most of them, the produce of
domestic industry. For these we substituted four
new taxes—on salt, on drugs and spirits, stamps, and
ferry-tolls—which brought in the same revenue, while
they freed the produce of the soil, which had already
paid land-tax, cut away a network of customs lines
which throttled the commerce of the country, and
delivered the people from unlimited extortion. ‘Our
true policy, John Lawrence wrote, ‘is to give up
every restriction that we can possibly do without and
retain the land-tax. By this means we conciliate
the masses, and especially the industrial classes.
Customs levies are harassing in all countries; in this
country they are intolerable’ (1849).

Once more John Lawrence had virgin soil to cul-
tivate. ‘I should like to fix my own impress on the
administration, he wrote; ‘I desire earnestly to shew
what a man bred and educated as a civilian can do in
anew country.’ He hada fine staff of Officers—picked
men like Montgomery, Macleod, Edward Thornton,
Cust, Barnes, and others—the flower of the civil service
of the North-Western Provinces. And there was the
splendid school trained by his brother Henry. These
men made the Punjab administration famous. All of
them were young. Edwardes was little more than
thirty, with the laurels of Multén fresh upon him.
58 LORD LAWRENCE

John Lawrence himself was only forty-two when he
was made Chief Commissioner. Lord Dalhousie, who
inspired and controlled them, the youngest Governor-
General ever appointed to India, was only 37 in 1849.
Many of them too were brave and tried soldiers, bear-
ing the honourable scars of battle. Edwardes carried
a bullet-wound, and Reynell Taylor three sabre-cuts,
from the field of Midki. Nicholson, when a mere
stripling, had distinguished himself by prodigies of
valour at Ghazni before he obeyed the orders to sur-
render and yield himself to what seemed at the time
a hopeless captivity. He had been through Chilian-
wala and Gujrat and in Gilbert’s pursuit, and was
only thirty-four when he met the soldier’s death in
the assault of Delhi.

Fearing no responsibility and shirking no labour,
there was perhaps a tendency in the young men to
act too much on their own initiative, or, as Lord
Dalhousie put it, ‘to consider themselves as Governor-
General at least.’ Edwardes had already drawn Dal-
housie’s fire upon himself:—‘I will not stand it in
quieter times for half an hour, and will come down
unmistakably upon any one of them who may “try it
on,” from Major Edwardes, C.B., down to the latest-
enlisted General-Ensign-Plenipotentiary on the estab-
lishment.’ Perhaps the kingly vision of Dalhousie
was a little distorted by his imperiousness. But this
fertility of initiative, this disregard of formalities, this
readiness to accept responsibility without usurping it,
stood us well in the after-days of trial.
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 59

‘It was the fashion at one time to sneer at the .
Punjab school and their rough-and-ready methods, as
if what was done quickly and done with least tech-
nicality of form must necessarily be badly done. No
use, it was said, to gallop out twenty miles to decide
a case if you give a wrong decision at the end. As
if it were any better to give a wrong decision in court
from an arm-chair! But in fact the cases were simple
and dependent on local custom, and they were in-
vestigated in the face of crowds who knew the facts
and under conditions far more favourable to the dis-
covery of truth than the oaths of the court and the
cross-examination of the barrister. The accessibility
of the Officers and the personal influence they gained
did more for the pacification of the country than
regiments of soldiers. In time the Non-Regulation
system came to be synonymous with all that is best
for the government of a newly-conquered country.
After the Mutiny of 1857, when the whole fabric of
administration in Upper India had to be reconstructed,
Lord Canning drew some of his best men from the
Punjab, and when remonstrated with, only answered
that he must take more.

The Non-Regulation system means, as I have already
explained, that the administration should be con-
ducted according to the principles and spirit of the
Regulations, but not fettered by the letter, and that
justice, equity, and good conscience should speak
when the law is silent. The principle underlying it
is the kernel of despotism. It assumes that in con-
60 LORD LAWRENCE

quered countries the Executive Government is inde-
pendent of the Legislature, and can make laws and
rules for itself as the Queen does in a crown colony.
This assumption continued to be acted upon till the
passing of the India Councils Act in 1861, since which
time it has been held that the Government possesses
no other legislative powers in Non-Regulation pro-
vinces than in other parts of the country. From this
point of view, the distinction between Regulation
provinces and Non-Regulation provinces has become
a matter of history.

Dalhousie proclaimed that over those who should
live as obedient and peaceful subjects the British
Government would rule with mildness and benevo-
lence. He declared it to be his wish to uphold Native
institutions and practices as far as they are consistent
with the distribution of justice to all classes. He did
not desire to introduce our voluminous laws into this
new province. But he was persuaded there were few
parts of the country which would not be benefited
by the gradual introduction of the British system of
administration at the earliest possible period. Three
principles characterised the Non-Regulation system
adopted by John Lawrence. First, the country was
mapped out into Districts, so small in respect of area,
population, and revenue, that it was possible for the
Civil Officers to gain a complete knowledge of them
and to become personally acquainted with all the
men of mark and influence. Secondly, every civil
functionary, from the highest to the lowest, in due
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 61

order of subordination, was vested with judicial, fiscal,
and magisterial powers, so as to secure concentration
of authority and undivided responsibility. Thirdly,
the laws and procedure introduced were of the sim-
plest kind, and were based as far as might be on
Native customs and institutions.

John Lawrence impressed his own individuality on
all his Officers—his vigour, promptitude, and deter-
mination to do the work before him with singleness
of purpose. Responsibility was undivided, and the
delegation of power went down in an unbroken chain
of subordination, so that the influence of the central
authority was directly felt by every Officer and to the
extremities of the province. The Chief Commissioner
knew hismen. For honest mistakes there -was tolera-
tion ; for idleness or the incompetence of ignorance
there was none. Every man was required to know
his work and to do it, and to see that the men under
him knew and did it too.

It was to John Lawrence, Edwardes has told us,
that we owe the key-stone of the Non-Regulation arch
—the union of judicial, revenue, and magisterial powers
in all Officers in their various degrees. He had a
great objection to the civil and revenue work being
separated, and considered it ruinous to the tenures of
the country. The arrangement he made was admirably
adapted to the actual needs of the Punjab at that
time. Under the Sikh rule the people had never been
accustomed to separation of functions. All powers
centred in the Kérdér. For us to have introduced a
62 LORD LAWRENCE

multiplicity of authorities would only have perplexed
them. As matters were arranged, they knew exactly
to whom to carry their complaints, and from whom to
receive orders. The means of redressing their wrongs
was brought to their door.

The system gave the Civil Officers a hold on their
Districts they could not otherwise have got. The
District Officer, or Deputy-Commissioner as he was
called, and his Assistants were expected to be every-
where, to know everything affecting the welfare of
their charge, to be accessible to the people at all times
and in all places, and to be able to check the reports
of Native officials by personal knowledge. I served
my apprenticeship as a Civil Officer in the Punjab in
those days. Looking back at them after an interval
of five-and-thirty years, I seem still to have a sort of
feeling of ubiquity. A good stable was an essential
equipment. If in the remotest corner of the District
there occurred a cow-riot or an affray or a murder or
a big burglary, the Deputy-Commissioner or an As-
sistant had to be on the spot. If cholera broke out,
every village affected had to be visited. No remission
of revenue was ever granted without a personal in-
spection of the land and the crops. Nothing that
affected the welfare of the District or the contentment
of the people was too insignificant for personal atten-
tion. It was an unwritten law that the Civil Officers
should see things with their own eyes, do things with
their own hands, and enquire into things for them-
selves. Thus they came to know the people, the people
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 63

learned to know them, and a grip was got on the
country which the Mutiny of 1857 did not loosen.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Punjab
administration was the simplicity of its laws and its
legal machinery. Under the Sikh rule there was no
written law. Disputes were for the most part settled
by arbitrators in accordance with tribal custom or the
usage of trade. ‘The unwritten penal code contained
but two penalties—fine and mutilation. There was
scarcely any crime, from larceny up to murder, for
which impunity might not be purchased by the pay-
ment of a fine?’ Cattle-lifters were liable to be ham-
strung, robbers had their hands cut off, and offences
like adultery and seduction were punished by slitting
the nose. When I began my service in the Punjab
there were many of these mutilated wretches wander-
ing about and subsisting on the gifts of the charitable.
The patriarchal administration of John Lawrence
has sometimes been spoken of as government without
law. But this was not the case. He held that
rules and regulations were as necessary for the good
management of a newly-conquered country as in our
older provinces. No doubt everything depended on
a vigorous executive, and some of the best executive
Officers were more conspicuous for zeal and energy
and devotion to duty than for legal knowledge and
training. But it was no fault of his if there was
uncertainty as to the law. The Chief Commissioner
required the executive to be guided by law and rule,
1 First Punjab Administration Report, par. 29.
64 LORD LAWRENCE

when law and rule could be ascertained. Even in the
time of the Mutiny, when, if ever, there might have
been excuse for neglect, the Chief Commissioner was
never tolerant of arbitrary conduct, though many
high-handed things had of necessity to be done for the
preservation of the State. ‘So far, indeed,’ says Sir
James Stephen }, ‘ was it from being true that the great
authority of Lord Lawrence could be quoted in favour
of personal government as against government by law,
that it would be much more like the truth to say that
Lord Lawrence’s administration of the Punjab af-
forded the clearest proof that could be given, not
only of the necessity of having laws to govern by,
but of the superiority of simple and scientific laws
over cumbrous ones.’ After annexation, the adminis-
tration was guided in civil matters by the simple
Rules which had been adopted in the Sutlej Territories,
and in criminal matters by the principles of the
Regulations as stated in the ordinary text-books, a
large discretion being left to Magistrates to frame
their proceedings so as to suit the circumstances of
the country. The people were unused to technicalities
and legal refinements, and could not have understood
them. Great importance was attached to local and
social customs so far as they did not conflict with
morality or public policy. The Punjab contains a
great diversity of tribes and races, with corresponding
diversity of customs, which are not covered by the
Hindu and Muhammadan law of the text-books. In

1 Speech in Legislative Council, 27th June, 1871.
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 65

the province generally, and especially among the
Muhammadan tribes of the frontier, these customs
have often a sanction more powerful than law, and
the breach of them can be atoned for only by blood.
John Lawrence recognised at once the impossibility
of dealing with divers races by a uniform law im-
ported by a foreign government, and the difficulty of
deciding ‘as to what rule will be observed, what
rights upheld, what laws introduced, under what con-
ditions and to what extent each law will be super-
seded by custom!’ He therefore caused a com-
pendious abstract of legal principles to be prepared
with special reference to the known peculiarities of the
country and people. This abstract was practically ac-
cepted as the Civil Code of the Punjab, and so suitable
was it found to the circumstances of a new country,
that it was afterwards introduced by the Government
of India into Oudh and other Non-Regulation pro-
vinces as the basis of the judicial administration.
To Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Richard Temple
belongs the honour of compiling this remarkable
work. It ‘does not pretend even to an attempt at
the codification of Civil Law, but it is an ad-
mirable Code nevertheless. While it recognises local
and tribal usages, its general principles are drawn
from the Regulations, the Hindu and Muhammadan
law, English law, and various other sources. Even the

1 Abstract Principles of Law circulated for the guidance of Offi-
cers employed in the administration of Civil Justice in the Punjab.
Preface, p. vi. °

E
66 LORD LAWRENCE

Code Napoleon is made to do service. It provided
that custom is to prevail over the ordinary Hindu
and Muhammadan law in the decision of such matters
as inheritance, property of women, marriage, divorce,
adoption, and the like, which intimately affect the
dearest interests of the people. At the same time it
introduced some enlightened provisions, which an-
ticipated by years the course of general legislation.
Among these may be mentioned the recognition of
the re-marriage of Hindu widows, limited liability
in partnership, and the abolition of usury laws.
Its Rules of Procedure were simple, free from techni-
calities, and so framed that, by bringing the parties
face to face, by ensuring that they understood their
own. interests, by endeavouring to effect compromises
and so on, all means of amicable settlement were
exhausted before the parties became involved in the
toils of litigation.

This simple Code has long been superseded by the
progress of the country. But it was admirably suited
to the time when it was framed. It prevented the
province from being bound in the fetters of intricate
Muhammadan and Hindu law and overshadowed by
the cloud of commentaries. It was a bulwark against
the flood of English law which otherwise would in-
evitably have followed the establishment of British
courts. On the one hand it saved social and tribal
customs from being needlessly swept away; on the
other hand it admitted of their growth and improve-
ment. And not the least of the benefits which it con-
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 67

ferred on the Punjab—it compelled the Legislature to
provide in its future laws for local and provincial
usage. It is now the established law of the Punjab
that mercantile usages and local customs affecting the
family life of the people and the disposition of their
property shall be valid and shall be recognised by the
courts of law, unless they be contrary to justice,
equity, or good conscience. Among the legacies that
John Lawrence left to the province he so vigorously
governed, this is perhaps one of the most beneficent.

It is not my purpose to recount the measures
adopted for the pacification of the Punjab, the or-
ganisation of its government, and the development of
its resources. How the country was disarmed, how
the frontier was defended, how violent crime was
put down, how the coinage was reformed—these and
many other things of interest are set forth in the
First Punjab Administration Report with an ability
and a literary skill that make it the most readable of
Blue Books. Ina review which did insufficient justice
to the magnificent works of material improvement,
the civil and military buildings, the bridges, the
network of roads, the plantations, the wells, canals,
and works of irrigation, which had been executed
under the direction of Colonel Robert Napier, after-
wards Lord Napier of Magdala, who was then John
Lawrence’s Chief Engineer, the Court of Directors?
wrote :—

‘In the short period which has elapsed since the Punjab

1 Political Letter, 26th October (No. 42), 1853.
E2
68 LORD LAWRENCE

became a part of the British dominions, results have been
achieved such as could scarcely have been hoped for as the
reward of many years of well-directed exertions. The for-
midable army which it had required so many battles to
subdue has been quietly disbanded, and the turbulent soldiery
have settled to industrious pursuits. Peace and security
reign throughout the country, and the amount of crime is as
small as in our best administered territories. Justice has
been made accessible, without costly formalities, to the whole
population. Industry and commerce have been set free.
A great mass of oppressive and burthensome taxation has
been abolished. Money rents have been substituted for pay-
ments in kind, and a settlement of the land revenue has been
completed in nearly the whole country, at a considerable
reduction on the former amount. In the settlement the best
lights of recent experience have been turned to the utmost
account, and the various errors committed in a more imper-
fect state of our knowledge of India have been carefully
avoided. . . . It is a source of just pride to us that our
services, civil and military, should have afforded men capable,
in so short a time, of carrying into full effect such a series
of enlightened and beneficent measures.’

This catalogue of results in general terms must
suffice. What was the secret of such success? It lay
not entirely in the fact that Dalhousie’s kingly hand
directed and controlled the administration. Nor in
the fact that the Chief Commissioner and his Officers
had the experience of our older provinces to guide
them. Nor yet in the fact that they were picked
men, all in the prime of life or the bloom and
promise of early manhood, All that was true and
counted for much, but it was not everything. The
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 69

secret lay rather in the spirit which moved them;
and that spirit was inspired by John Lawrence
and his brother. There was a unique truthfulness,
simplicity, and singleness of purpose about .them.
Each strove to do his duty, neither courting favour
nor fearing blame. They loved the people; they
lived among the people and for the people. They
were accessible at all times and places and were never
above any kind of work. They had a respect for
Native ways and institutions, and did not consider a
thing bad because it was not English. They put them-
selves in the people’s place and made the interests and
the cares of the people their own, striving to identify
them with the government, and create as it were a
family feeling. Look at the Hoshiérpur Proclamation
— what is your injury I consider mine; what is gain
to you I consider my gain; return to me, as children
who have committed a fault return to their fathers,
and their faults will be forgiven them.’ This touch of
nature did much to break down the barriers of colour
and creed and national animosity. Every measure
introduced was beneficent in conception and bene-
ficent in its direct effect upon the masses of the
people. This was the firm foundation on which the
Punjab administration was built and which enabled
it to weather the flood and the storm that were so
soon and so fiercely to beat upon it. If I have not
made this one thing clear, my story has been spoiled
in the telling.

Eight years passed away in this beneficent work.
vie) LORD LAWRENCE

The province was peaceful and prosperous. Commerce
grew apace with the removal of the taxes and customs
barriers. Rapid extension of cultivation followed the
reduction and fixity of the land-tax and the security
given to life and property by the disarmament of the
country. A net-work of roads, connecting the towns
and villages, gave access to markets and relieved the
glut and congestion that came with the first years of
peace. Prices, which at first had greatly fallen, were
beginning to rise, while golden harvests brought
wealth to the tillers of the soil. Wages were good,
and work was plentiful on the canals, roads and public
buildings. The Frontier Force and the Military Police
gave stirring employment to men of martial habits.
Such peace and prosperity had never been known in
the province within the memory of living men. All
the efforts of the Government had been designed to
improve the condition of the people; and they were
contented. Even the Sikh laid aside his national
ambitions and quietly accepted the new state of
things.

The Chief Commissioner had now laboured for
fourteen years as few men labour, without a day’s
relaxation, except a short visit to Calcutta, there to
take farewell of his master and friend, Lord Dalhousie,
and to be told of the well-earned honour of knight-
hood proposed for him. Incessant work had told on
his health. Severe fever had more than once put his
life in danger. He did not think he had more than
three or four years of good honest work left in him,
A NON-REGULATION PROVINCE 71

and was beginning to look to the day when he could
return to England and devote himself to the interests
of his family. He had been compelled in the summer
months to seek a refuge from the fierce heat, at Murree
in the Himélaya mountains. Here he could do more
work in one day than in three at Lahore. In the
Spring of 1857 he had left Lahore for this mountain
retreat and had reached Réwal Pindi, at the foot of
the Hills, when his journey was arrested by the
terrible news of the military revolt at Meerut, and that
Delhi, the ancestral seat of the Mughals, was in the
hands of the unpursued mutineers.
CHAPTER V
Tue MoutTIny

THERE had no doubt been warnings of the coming
danger; but the issue broke on all India like a
thunderbolt from a clear sky. The dangerous state of
the Bengal army had long been known. The way-
ward genius of Sir Charles Napier had foreseen what
was coming more clearly perhaps than any one else.
But the rancour of his frustrated ambition lessened
the weight of his warnings. Lord Ellenborough had
foreshadowings of a possible mutiny. Prophetic
passages might be quoted from many writers. The
sagacity of Sir Henry Lawrence had enabled him even
to name Delhi and Meerut as the possible theatre of
catastrophe. Whether the writers expected the early
realisation of their forebodings may be doubted; at
all events no action was taken to anticipate such
a catastrophe, although the solidarity of the great
Bréhman brotherhood was being gradually broken up
by the enlistment of irregular troops.

For some months before the outbreak a vague
feeling prevailed that something was wrong. Mischief
was in the air. Mysterious cakes passed through the
THE MUTINY 73

villages from hand to hand. A proclamation purport-
ing to be from the Shah of Persia, written on a scrap
of dirty paper and rudely illustrated with a naked
sword and shield, announcing the approach of a
Persian army to exterminate the English, was posted
on the Great Mosque at Delhi. Intrigues between the
King of Delhi and foreign powers were reported. The
minds of the Sepoys were troubled. Family remit-
tances began to fall off and the price of gold coins
went up rapidly. Then came the story of the greased
cartridges, the insubordination and mutinies at Ber-
hampur, Barrackpur, and Lucknow, the disbandment
of the regiments, the executions, the nightly fires at
Lucknow, Meerut, and Ambala and other military
stations, breaking out no one could discover how.
There was a general feeling of insecurity. Something
assuredly was coming.

But it is no reflection on the wisest to say that no
one imagined that the whole army would turn as they
did on their masters and strike for the restoration of a
Muhammadan Empire. Lord Canning and his advisers
certainly did not. The Commander in Chief certainly
did not. On the 1st of May, the military authorities
at Ambéla were writing that there was no sign of
insubordination and no reason to accuse the Sepoys
of causing the nightly fires. Nor were the Punjab
authorities more prescient. Neither Lawrence nor
Edwardes, when negotiating the treaty with the Amir
of Kabul three months before, foresaw the outbreak.
When the crisis came on, nearly one-fourth of the
74 LORD LAWRENCE

Punjab Frontier Force was on furlough and had
to be suddenly recalled. John Lawrence himself had
at one time proposed to spend the summer in Kash-
mir, and on the 4th of May, only one short week
before the rising, he had written to Lord Canning
from Sidlkot a re-assuring letter as to the feeling of
the Sepoys there. A universal sense of uneasiness
prevailed but no one was able to interpret the signs.
A royal dignity hedged the English round ; the white
face carried an unassailable prestige ; and when the
occurrences at Meerut and Delhi were first announced
it would be difficult to say which feeling for a time
was the stronger in the English mind—a paralysis of
bewilderment at the audacity of the rising, or horror
and fury at the atrocities by which it was attended.
The causes of this stupendous catastrophe have
baffled investigation. Sir John Lawrence formed a
decided opinion that its origin lay in the army itself,
and that its proximate cause was the cartridge affair
and nothing else. ‘As a body,’ says the Chief Com-
missioner 1, ‘the Native army did really believe that
the universal introduction of cartridges destructive to
their caste was only a matter of time. They heard
(and believed as they heard) that the measure had
been resolved on, and that some Sepoys had been
punished even by death for refusing to use the ob-
jectionable cartridges. They thought, therefore, that
their only chance of escape was to band together, to

* Letter on the trial of the King of Delhi, Political, No. 50, dated
April 29, 1858.
THE MUTINY 75

refuse the cartridges, and to resist if force should be
attempted by the Government; and the incendiary
fires at the different stations were intended by the
Sepoys as a warning to their Officers and to their
Government of the feelings which had taken posses-
sion of the Native army. Such truly was the origin
of the mutiny.’ This is the one fact that, in Sir John
Lawrence’s opinion, stands clearly out ; the intrigues
and false stories that were rife within and without
the army would not have drawn the army from its
allegiance, had it not been already penetrated by the
unfortunate belief about the cartridges; nor would
such an ill-feeling have so speedily arisen, had the
army not been for years in an unsound state. There
was no proof of a general conspiracy for the over-
throw of the English rule; there was no evidence,
even in the records of the palace at Delhi which were
ransacked, that, until he was in the hands of the
mutineers, the King had seriously dreamed of the
restoration of his power.

But this view does not account for the phenomena.
It may be admitted that, even perhaps in Oudh, the
evidence is insufficient to connect the revolt with
popular discontent. But in some places—at Muzaffar-
nagar, Sahéranpur, Farukhab4d, and elsewhere—after
the success of the military outbreak at Meerut and
Delhi, the populace rose before the Sepoys. The
leaders, in their Proclamations, dwelt much on alleged
bad faith, earth-hunger, and interference with the
Native religions, citing the ‘cartridges as only the last
76 LORD LAWRENCE

in a series of acts which strained allegiance to the
breaking. ‘The English,’ they said, ‘are people who
overthrow all religions. In the army, it is true,
the fear of religious defilement was universal, and the
army knew its power. It held all the treasuries and
most of the fortresses; and the European force was
weak and dangerously reduced. But the fear had
fallen also on the villages and the country people, and
it was all the more potent and infectious from its
vagueness. Panic spreads like wildfire among ignorant
and superstitious people. On this inflammable ma-
terial the too true story of the cartridges fell as a
spark on dry tinder. The revolts at Meerut and Delhi
were unchecked and unpunished. As one successful
émeute occurred after another, the British Govern-
ment seemed paralysed. lis authority was thrown
off, and the Mutiny of the army assumed in places the
character of a partial rebellion of the people already
made uneasy by military revolt, innovation and change.

No long reflection was needed to see the tremendous
import of what had taken place at Delhi. The most
sanguine could feel no confidence as to how the country
would go. At that moment there were in the Punjab
about 58,000 trained Native soldiers all told. Euro-
pean troops had been massed in the Punjab, but they
numbered only 10,500 men. They were broken up
into two sections at the extreme ends of the province
—one in the Peshawar valley, and the other in the
Simla Hills,—with weak detachments dotted at inter-
vals between, at Firozpur, Jélandhar, Lahore, Sialkot,
THE MUTINY 77

and Rawal Pindi. Of the Native troops 36,000 be-
longed to the Bengal army, and not a man of them
was to be trusted. The others, numbering over
20,000, were irregular troops and military police
raised in the Punjab. Everything depended on how
they would act. Should they make common cause
with the Hindustani army, our position was hopeless,
and we were lost. Ifthey stood true, we might weather
the storm, we might save the province, we might save
the Empire. What had we to offer them ?

In this instance we could not play off the Muham-
madan against the Hindu. Those fatal cartridges
seemed to have been compounded with a Satanic in-
genuity to create a common ground. If the fat of the
cow excited the horror of the Bréhman Sepoy, the fat of
swine was an abomination to the Muhammadan; and
the Sepoys believed the cartridges to be smeared with
both. Between the Sikh and the Muhammadan there
was ancestral hatred. The Muhammadans had hunted
the Sikhs like wild beasts, slain their priests with the
sword, razed their holy temple and besprinkled the
ruins with the blood of the cow. In the zenith of
their power, the Sikhs stabled their horses in the
mosques and turned the tombs of Muhammadan saints
into pigsties. A true Sikh is damned if he place on
his head anything belonging to a Muhammadan. He
is required by his Bible to fight a Muhammadan face
to face whenever he meets him. And yet, only a few
years before, the Sikh and the Muhammadan had
combined in an unnatural alliance and laid aside their
78 LORD LAWRENCE

national animosities in the common hatred of the
English name. Manifestly there was little hope to be
placed on antipathies of creed.

But now we were to reap the rich blessing of
Lawrence’s vigorous and beneficent rule. Not many
years had passed since the country tasted to the full
the bitterness of military tyranny. The memory of it
was recent; the people were prosperous; there was
no desire for its return. At the same time many
looked upon the struggle before us as almost hopeless,
and therefore displayed no eagerness to support the
British rule. The people waited upon circumstance,
and those early moments were precious moments.
Fortunately Sir John Lawrence and his officers were
men of nerve, fearless of responsibility, who knew how
to take occasion by the hand,

‘And if some dreadful deed should rise
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke.’

Promptitude and decision turned the scale. On the
12th of May the terrible news of the disasters at
Meerut and Delhi was received. Before twenty-four
hours were over, the Native troops at Lahore, who
were on the watch for the signal from below, were
disarmed, three thousand well-trained soldiers piling
their arms, ‘with silent and angry astonishment,’
before some four hundred European infantry with
twelve guns; the fort at Lahore was secured; the
great magazine at Firozpur, containing upwards of
seven thousand barrels of gunpowder and immense
stores of arms, was saved ; the fort of Govindgarh, the
THE MUTINY 79

key of the Ménjha which Ranjit Singh had made
almost impregnable, was occupied; the arsenal at
Phillaur with the siege train was transferred to the
guard of European troops; and every District Officer
was made alive to the magnitude of the crisis and
warned to secure his treasure, to deal firmly with the
first symptoms of disorder, but to be quiet and calm
and show no sign of alarm or excitement. Nothing,
said Sir John Lawrence, conduces more to overawe
the Natives than a quiet, resolute demeanour. And
so, all over the province, except for a short time in
the Cis-Sutlej States, the work went on as if nothing
were wrong.

No precaution was omitted to prevent the spread
of the treasonable infection. A system of passports
was introduced; guards at the ferries were doubled,
with orders to prevent the passage of suspicious
characters, especially fakirs and mendicants ; letters
addressed to mutinous regiments were opened; the
Native Press was put under censorship ; District
Officers and their Assistants did nightly patrol work,
and showed themselves more than ever in the remote
parts of their Districts ; every Officer had to be at his
post, and no leave of absence was granted except for
certified sickness. Peshdwar ‘stood in a ring of re-
pressed hostilities.’ Here a Council of War assembled,
of which the moving spirits were Herbert Edwardes,
John Nicholson, and Sydney Cotton who commanded
the troops. In communication with Sir John Law-
rence at Réwal Pindi, measures were at once planned
80 LORD LAWRENCE

for the preservation of order. Here was devised, on
Nicholson’s initiative, the famous Movable Column of
picked men, European and Punjabi, to patrol the
country and swoop down on mutiny at the first signal
of alarm. It was destined to execute terrible ven-
geance upon revolted Sepoys and in due time to be
the last bolt which Sir John Lawrence was to hurl
against Delhi.

Self-reliance so calm and resolute, vigour so manly
and so instantly displayed, showed the vitality of our
cause and drew to our side the languid current of
popular support. By the 17th of May it became
manifest that the rebels would receive no help from
the people of the Punjab. The bold measures taken
at Lahore on the morning of the 13th of May by
Montgomery and Corbett, quieted the Sikhs of the
MAanjha and secured for us Amritsar on which the
loyalty of the Khélsa depended. At Pesh4war the
leading men held aloof and watched events. ‘If
Peshawar holds firm,’ said a sagacious old Native},
‘it is well; otherwise— and he rolled up the skirt
of his muslin robe significantly between his finger and
his thumb. When the enlistments at Peshawar first
began, not a hundred men could be found to join our
cause. On the morning of the 22nd of May the
Bengal troops were to be deprived of their arms.
‘As we rode to the disarming,’ says Sir Herbert
Edwardes”, ‘a very few chiefs and yeomen of the

1 The Crisis in the Punjab, p. 33.
2 Lije, vol. ii. p. 133.
THE MUTINY 81

country attended us; and I remember judging from
their faces that they came to see which way the
tide would turn. As we rode back, friends were
as thick as summer flies; and levies began from
that moment to come in. The Malikdin Afridis
were at the time under a ban for the murder of a
Police Officer. Not long afterwards, a party of three
hundred of them marched into cantonments, armed
to the teeth, to fight for us, and begged to be forgiven.
They formed the nucleus of one of the new Punjab
regiments.

It is remarkable that the Muhammadans, especially
the Border Pathans, Edwardes’ old men, were the first
to flock to our standard. They were rigid Mussal-
mans, ‘ who never missed a prayer, and many of whom
rode with the Korén at their saddle-bow.’ Sikhs
enlisted, but not in great numbers. They held back
until Delhi had fallen, and then recruits came in
thousands from the Ménjha. The bankers and the
moneyed classes too played a trimming part. Money
was urgently needed as well as soldiers. A six per
cent. loan of £1,000,000 was put out, but only
£420,000 was taken up, of which one-third was
subseribed by the Ruling Chiefs who had already
. thrown in their lot with us. In the wealthy cities
of Lahore and Amritsar, it is said in the official
papers of the day that men worth half a million
sterling offered a subscription of a hundred pounds,
and others on the same scale. During the crisis the
securities of the local loan fell as low as twenty-six

F
82 LORD LAWRENCE

per cent. discount, affording ‘a good barometer of the
state of the feeling towards us entertained by the
moneyed classes in the province.’

Next to Pesh4war perhaps the greatest danger was
to be feared in the Cis-Sutlej States. I have already
narrated how these Chiefs were taken under British
protection and maintained in their sovereign rights.
The number of Chiefships was legion, and they varied
in size and importance from large and powerful States
like Patidla ‘to the pettiest lordship or barony con-
sisting of the tenth or twentieth share in a single
village.” Nowhere in all India had the British claim
to escheats been more systematically enforced. Up
to the time of the Mutiny nineteen Chiefships, cover-
ing an area of 811 square miles and yielding an annual
revenue of £45,000 had thus lapsed by the failure of
direct heirs. After the First Sikh War, an area of 2,774
square miles and a revenue of £75,000 were confis-
cated for failure in duty on the part of the Chiefs.
And after the Second War all the Chiefs, with nine
exceptions, were reduced to the position of ordinary
British subjects. Of the nine States excepted, two
subsequently became escheats, and one was sup-
pressed for misgovernment. In 1857 only six re-
mained'. The elements of discontent among the
influential families were therefore plentiful. Added
to this, the population consists of Jats, Rdéjputs,
Gujars, and other tribes allied to those in the Delhi

1 These are Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Maler-Kotla, Faridkot, and
Kalsia.
THE MUTINY 83

Territory, and, being close to the imperial city, they
felt the first wave of insurrection.

Sir John Lawrence lost not a day in enlisting the
active services of the Native Princes. Everything
depended on getting them to declare themselves.
Within a few hours after receiving the intelligence
from Delhi, he wrote personally to the Ruling Chiefs
and to many men of influence in the Punjab, that
now was the time to prove their loyalty and earn
a good name. And nobly they responded. The
Réjé of Kapurthala furnished a contingent of 2,000
men which took the place of the mutinied troops at
Jalandhar and, headed by the Raja in person, after-
wards marched to Oudh and fought in six actions
on our side. ‘The Raj4 of Jind, says the official
report, ‘was actually the first man, European or
Native, who took the field against the mutineers.
He openly declared at once that he should side with
the British, under whom he had lived happily for
fifty years—a speech calculated to give the right
turn to Native opinion.” He marched with a con-
tingent of 800 men to Karnal, and cleared the road
as the British troops advanced upon Delhi. The
Mahard4j4 of Patidla supplied 5,000 men, horse and
foot; and held the line of communication between
the Punjab and the army before Delhi for a distance
of 120 miles. The contingent of the Raja of N&ébha,
800 strong, occupied the fort of Ludhiana, and escorted
the siege train from Phillaur. The petty Sikh Chiefs
complained of it as a grievance if they were not called

F 2
84 "LORD LAWRENCE

on for help. Of all the Ruling Chiefs under the con-
trol of the Punjab Government, two only, one of them
a petty hill Chieftain, failed in their duty. Well
might the heart of Lord Canning warm within him
when, after peace was restored, he found himself wel-
comed in the midst of these Chiefs. ‘In other parts
of India, he said, as he addressed them at Lahore, ‘I
have received many distinguished Chiefs of ancient
lineage who have proved themselves faithful feuda-
tories of the Crown, and many of lower degree who
have been dutiful subjects in the midst of great dis-
couragements and dangers. But in the Punjab I find
a whole nation of brave and loyal men.’

But although courage and self-reliance might serve
to turn the tide of opinion for a time, the effect could
not last unless Delhi were retaken. Sir John Law-
rence saw at once the tremendous issues at stake. ‘I
consider this,’ he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief,
on the 13th of May, ‘to be the greatest crisis which
has ever occurred in India” He knew the prestige
of Delhi and the spell of the imperial name. Till
Delhi was recovered nothing was secure; if Delhi
should hold out long, all was lost. The rebellion
could not be slain except by a blow at the heart.
Delhi was not within Lawrence’s province. It was
a hundred miles beyond his frontier. But his vision
was imperial. The struggle was for the supremacy
of India, not for the safety of the Punjab. The Punjab
could not stand if the Empire fell. Every nerve must
be strained to the breaking to recover Delhi, The
THE MUTINY 85

European force was small, dangerously small; but
the resources of England were inexhaustible and re-
inforcements would come in time. Providentially,
the Persian war was over and the troops were re-
turning, bringing Outram and Havelock. Then there
was the China force, to divert which to India seems
to have occurred at once to many master-minds—to
Lord Canning, to Sir John Lawrence, to his brother
Henry, to Sir Patrick Grant, to General Hearsey.
Fortunately Lord Elgin was a statesman who could
realise the supreme need, and who shrank not from
the responsibility of yielding to Lord Canning’s call.
Meanwhile there were the regiments in the Simla
Hills. These should go down by forced marches, and
on the back of them should be poured the Punjab
troops, the contingents of the loyal Chiefs and every
man the province could spare. The season of the
year was deadly to the European soldier; but ele-
phants and Native gigs and camels would carry the
foot-sore and weary; a pony between two would
enable them to make double marches and to walk
and ride alternately.

Not a day was to be lost; time was everything.
The Chief Commissioner remembered the success of
his own rapid strokes when Kangra rose. He remem-
bered how the delay before Maltén had changed a
local émeute into the rebellion of the whole Sikh
nation. ‘ Delay,’ he knew, * was only a less misfortune
than a repulse.’ It would bring thousands to the
rebel standard. One vigorous stroke might disperse
86 LORD LAWRENCE

the mutineers before they gathered strength. The
first success would encourage the faithful, decide the
wavering and dishearten the evil-disposed. ‘Pray,
only reflect on the whole history of India, he wrote
again to the Commander-in-Chief. ‘Where have we
failed when we acted vigorously? Where have we
succeeded when guided by timid counsels?’ A com-
mon responsibility for the salvation of the Empire
rested upon all. It was no time to stand on cere-
mony. Camels, coolies, carts, bullocks, were col-
lected from every quarter. The country and the loyal
Chiefs were put under requisition. And on the 17th
of May, a week from the outbreak, the avenging force
began to move forward from Amb4la. Joining with the
troops from Meerut, who fought two successful battles
on the way, the united force was at Badli-ki-Sardi,
six miles from Delhi, on the 8th of June; defeated
the mutineers ; drove them back into the city; and
occupied the Ridge which, with an open rear and ex-
posed flanks, was to be the scene of heroic daring and
patient endurance for the next four months.

It was a small force—barely 3,800 men all told.
Some have thought that a rush on the city then and
there would have put it in our hands. Military
critics will form their opinion on data wider and
more detailed than can be cited in a little book like
this. But a rush from Meerut on the 11th of May
would have been one thing; an assault on the 8th
of June was another. The men were exhausted by
battle and march ; the defences of the city were seven
THE MUTINY 87

miles in circumference ; inside the walls would have
been street-fighting with every advantage of numbers,
cover, and local knowledge on the side of the muti-
neers; the small force would have been lost in the
great city; failure meant the loss of the Empire. The
enemy, it is true, had not yet been strongly re-in-
forced ; but though defeated, they were not dispirited.
On the roth of June the Rohtak mutineers marched
in, undeterred by the news of our three victories. In
the pride of power every one underrated the strength
of Delhi. Sir John Lawrence did not expect much
resistance. His impression was that, on the approach
of our troops, the mutineers would disperse or the
citizens would rise and open their gates. Many
believed that one battle would decide the fate of the
‘place. Re-inforcements, as they came down, feared
they might arrive too late to share in the assault.
But Native opinion made a truer estimate; it was not
till the spoils of Delhi began to pass up through the
Punjab that the country believed the city to have
fallen.

Every eye at Delhi was turned to Meerut through
that fatal 11th of May. All through the early morning
help had been looked for by the doomed victims at
the fort. All through the long day Willoughby and
his brave comrades maintained their despairing hold
on the magazine. At the main guard the Sepoys were
held to a wavering allegiance. From the cantonments
and the Flag-staff Tower the eyes of women and
children strained to catch sight of the expected relief.
8&8 LORD LAWRENCE

Even the King could not believe that there was no
pursuit. He sent out a rider on a camel along the
Meerut road who returned with the report that there
were no European troops within twenty miles!. The
evening settled down on pillage and massacre, and
there was no avenging hand. The green flag of
Muhammad was hoisted on the minaret of the Great
Mosque. With salute of guns and beat of drum the
restoration of the Mughal rule was proclaimed. Next
day a silver throne, on which the King used to sit to
receive the homage of the representative of the Go-
vernor-General, but which he had put aside when this
honour ceased to be paid to him, was brought from
its recess into the Hall of Audience. The King took
his seat upon it. The officers of our revolted Sepoys
passed before him, one by one, and as they bowed
the King put his hand on their head in acceptance
of their allegiance. At the request of the soldiers
Mirzé Mughal, one of the royal Princes, was made
Commander-in-Chief, and other Princes were made
colonels of regiments. A grand feast was given to the
whole army. On the 16th of May, forty-nine Chris-
tian captives, nearly all of them women and children,
were butchered in the palace. From that day no
white face was seen in the city, neither was there
any vestige or symbol of the rule that had been, save
the uniforms and arms of the rebel troops, and the
flutes and clarionets and drums of the five regimental

1 History of the Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there,
Pp. 39
THE MUTINY 89

bands which daily played English music before the
King.

Every day the King held court, and his proceedings,
his health, his receptions, his siesta, his cooling drinks
and the delicacies of his table, were reported for the
edification of the public. But it was only royal state
in name; the King was a puppet in the hands of the
army. Orders were brought to him ready written
out for his signature. He made a feeble attempt to
assert himself, but his orders were set at nought.
The cavalry stabled their horses in the royal gardens,
and gallopped about within the precincts of the palace,
even up to the Hall of Audience, places which, as the
King pathetically complained, ‘not even Nadir Shah
nor Ahmad Shah, nor any of the British Governor-
Generals of India ever entered on horseback.’ The
soldiers turned the palace buildings into barracks,
neglected to salute, appeared before the King without
their turbans, and even crowded into the Hall of
Devotion with their shoes on. The shops of the
merchants were broken open and plundered by the
soldiers, headed sometimes by the Princes. The
ruffians of the city put on the uniforms of Sepoys
that they might plunder with greater impunity.
Any pretext sufficed—a search for Europeans, a
forced loan—or no pretext at all. The King’s own
seal was stolen, and an attempt was made to break
into the apartments of the Queen. Even the men
at the ice-pits who supplied the royal table were
plundered, and the tinker who tinned ‘the culinary
go LORD LAWRENCE

vessels and other articles of the royal household’ was
not spared. The King himself in an address to the
army described the sack and plunder as worse than
that of Nadir Shah, and the people complained that
they ‘had a foretaste of the day of judgment.’ His
orders despised, and his commands set at nought, the
King had recourse to conciliation and entreaty. He
appealed to his soldiers as his children, and prayed
them to have respect to his old age and infirmities.
It was all unavailing. And at last, wearied out
by anarchy which he was powerless to control, the
Shelter of the World, the Monarch of the ‘royal
court at which Darius might have served as a
door-keeper, begged that he might be allowed to
retire to Mecca, and spend his few remaining days
in devotion.

It is not easy to estimate the force against which
we had to contend at Delhi. On the 11th of May
there were of trained soldiers at least the King’s own
troops, the five regiments of infantry, the cavalry,
and the artillery that composed the Native garrisons
at Meerut and Delhi. By the end of May the whole
of Rohilkhand was up, and by the middle of June
every station in Oudh was in revolt. Two days after
our handful of troops encamped on the Ridge, the
rebels streamed in from Rohtak, and thereafter regi-
ment after regiment, as it mutinied, from Jélandhar,
from Nasirébad, from Bareilly, from Nimach, made
for the imperial city. Towards the end of the siege,
in an address to the Bombay army, the rebel leaders
THE MUTINY gI

estimated their force at ‘nearly 80,000 or 90,000
regular organised military troops, besides ‘nearly
10,000 or 15,000 regular and other cavalry.’ About
half the number would probably be nearer the truth.
Writing about the same time, General Wilson esti-
mated the garrison at full 40,000 soldiers armed and
disciplined by ourselves, with 114 heavy pieces of
artillery mounted on the walls, besides some 60
pieces of field artillery all of our own manufacture
and manned by artillerymen drilled and taught by
ourselves. By the end of July, with the accession
of the Nimach brigade, the strength of the enemy
was probably at its maximum. No more regiments
remained to mutiny.

Sir John Lawrence made superhuman efforts to
re-inforce the little army before Delhi. First to arrive
were the famous Guides. They owed their origin to
Sir Henry Lawrence. The characteristic features of
this distinguished corps,as Edwardes observes +, do not
strike us now-a-days. ‘But in 1846, to set Poorbeahs
aside and to raise a corps of sharp-shooters or sports-
men of all nations, and say they should wear their
own clothes and be hampered with as few accoutre-
ments as possible, that they should have loose, dusky
shirts instead of tight red jackets, sun-proof turbans
instead of sunstroke Glengarry caps, and wide pijamas
instead of pantaloons and straps and braces,—a
change like that was literally a stroke of genius. It
was an invention.’ Starting from Mardan on the 13th

1 Life, vol. ii. p. 108.
92 LORD LAWRENCE

of May six hours after they got their orders, the
Guides, under command of Captain Henry Daly,
reached Delhi on the gth of June, covering 580 miles
in twenty-two marches with three intervening halts.
It was the hottest season of the year, and the rate of
marching could not have been performed by the
infantry on foot. But a camel was allowed to every
two men which enabled them to keep up with the
cavalry, and to get over thirty or forty miles between
sunset and sunrise. They marched into camp as light
of step as if coming off parade, and three hours after
arrival they engaged the enemy in a fight, in which
the Second in Command was killed, and two other
Officers were wounded. During the four months of
the siege these magnificent soldiers were constantly
in action, sometimes twice a day, and out of 800
men 350 were killed and wounded.

By the beginning of July the besieging force
amounted to 6,600 men—dquite enough to beat the
rebels in the open field; but it had made no impres-
sion on the city. Not a single gun of the enemy had
been silenced. The siege train that had been sent
from Phillaur was altogether too weak. Our fire was
returned four shots to one, with a precision which
showed that the enemy had got the exact range
of every point of the camp. We had by that time
been engaged in ten fights, in seven of which the
whole force was employed. In every one we were
victorious, but the capture of the city was as far off
as ever. It was the policy of the enemy to wear us
THE MUTINY 93

out. False alarms served this purpose as well as
regular attacks, for the men had to turn out and got
no rest. They chose the hottest hours for their
assaults, when the sun in its course fought against
us. Twice an escalade was arranged for and aban-
doned. It was too desperate a risk. Our losses were
very heavy. In one week twenty-five Officers and 400
men were killed or wounded. Ague, fever, dysentery,
sunstroke, and cholera too were doing their fatal work.
‘A regiment which had come in 600 strong was in
three weeks brought down to 242 out of hospital’,
At this rate the annihilation of the little British force
was an easy calculation. Matters at Delhi began to
look very serious. Withdrawal was gravely consi-
dered and was openly discussed at the mess-tables.
It was obvious to all that Delhi could not be taken
without large re-inforcements.

1 History of the Siege of Delhi, p. 232.
CHAPTER VI
Tue Mutiny (continued)

Tue long and unexpected resistance of Delhi began
to work evil in the Punjab. When the avenging
force was despatched from Ambéla, there remained
only about 7,500 European troops to watch 33,000
Hindustani soldiers. The disarmaments at Lahore on
the 13th of May, Pesh4war on 22nd, Nowshera on 26th,
and Miultén on the 1oth of June, made the work easier,
while the annihilation of the mutineers at Mardén on
the 21st of May covered the feebleness with which the
Sepoys were dealt with at Firozpur and Jalandhar.
There was no more trouble all through June. Butas the
season wore on, more Kuropeans had to be sent to Delhi,
and sickness so reduced the rest that not more than
4,700 were left effective to watch 18,000 men, of whom
6,000 were armed. Still Delhi held out. And then
again Mutiny began to raise its head. On the 7th
of July the Sepoys rose at Jehlam; nearly all were
captured or destroyed. On the gth there was Mutiny
with murder at Sialkot: the rebels were intercepted
by Nicholson and destroyed. On the 3oth there was
Mutiny with murder at Lahore: the mutineers were
THE MUTINY (continued) 95

destroyed to the last man, Evidently the English
government was not yet doomed.

Still the outlook was very gloomy. Everywhere
from below Delhi came reports of the disappearance
of the British power. Many began to doubt; some
began to trim. Even the brave heart of Lawrence
almost failed him. For a whole month he feared we
should not weather the storm. Our salvation lay in
the speedy fall of Delhi. The battle was to be won
or lost at Delhi and nowhere else. ‘Recollect,’ he
wrote on the 24th of July, ‘ if you fall back from Delhi,
our cause is gone; neither the Punjab nor anything
else can stand.’ Delhi must be taken at every cost. It
was the crisis of our fate. Then it was that Sir John
Lawrence made his last and boldest venture. He
issued letters (July 23rd) to the Sikh Chiefs calling
upon them to furnish troopers from the old Sikh
army, and he wound up with the significant words,
‘I would not put up with any delay or hesitation
on your part. He hurled at Delhi the Movable
Column. The last available European was sent. A
corps of Mazhabi? Sikhs, 1,200 strong, was raised
at the suggestion of Edwardes from the workmen
on the canals, to serve as sappers and miners. Old
Sikh artillerymen, who could strip their sleeves and
show the scars received in honourable fight against

1 Descendants of the sweepers whom Guru Govind sent to Delhi
to fetch the body of his martyred father and whom he received
into the Khalsa for their daring courage. Mazhabi is from the
Arabic and means regular due Sikhs. Trumpp, Ixxxviii.
96 LORD LAWRENCE

us, were enlisted and sent down to serve in the
trenches.

On the 4th of September, the heavy siege train
from Firozpur, drawn by sixteen elephants, and 548
country waggons, with stores of ammunition, ‘ suffi-
cient it was said to grind Delhi to powder, entered
camp. On the 6th came a remnant of Europeans
from Meerut, who had been relieved by levies from
the Punjab. On the 8th the Kashmir contingent,
2,000 strong with 200 cavalry and 6 guns, arrived.
It was now the beginning of the end for the enemy
or for us. ‘We have sent,’ wrote Sir John to Lord
Canning, ‘every man we could spare, perhaps more.’
‘IT have sent all I can, perhaps more than I ought
to have sent. Edwardes from Peshawar, becoming
alarmed for the safety of the Punjab, on which the
fate of the Empire depended, had long before en-
treated him not to be engulfed in Delhi. ‘Delhi is
not India.’ ‘Don’t let yourself be sucked to death by
inches.’ The position of the Punjab was now critical
indeed, as was shown by the defeated conspiracy in
Lower Hazara, and by the rising at Gugera on the
very evening of the assault on Delhi—émeutes arising
from no discontent, but from a belief that the knell of
the British power had rung.

The sequel is soon told. Everything was now
ready for the final trial of strength. In the city the
enemy began to see that the days of the short-lived
Mughal triumph were numbered. Reproaches, dis-
sensions, and mutual recriminations divided the rebels,
THE MUTINY (continued) 97

now depressed by constant defeat in more than thirty
fights. Women and children began to leave the city.

Twice the King made ineffectual overtures for
capitulation. On the night of the 7th of September the
first breaching battery was silently traced out. By the
13th of September the breaches were reported ready for
the assault. Before daybreak on the 14th of September,
the same day on which the King’s ancestor Shah Alam
had been delivered by us from the thraldom of the
Marathas fifty-four years before, the assault was de-
livered. On the 16th the magazine was taken with
over 170 pieces of ordnance and immense stores
almost unaffected by the great explosion and the
drain of the siege. On the 20th the British flag was
hoisted on the royal palace, and the whole city was
in the possession of the British troops. The story of
the King’s capture and the slaughter of the three
Princes by Hodson is well known. In the Hall of
Audience, where he had held mimic court, the aged
King was brought to trial on the 27th of January,
1858, on charges of rebellion, treason, and murder.
On the 9th of March he was found guilty and sentenced
to perpetual exile. He was removed to Rangoon,
where he died on the 7th of November, 1862. No
weekly lamp is lit on Thursdays at his tomb. No
verse from the Koran is inscribed over him. His
grave is probably now unknown to any living man.
So perished the Mughal name.

The effect of the fall of Delhi was instantaneous.
It was felt in the remotest corner of the province.

G
98 LORD LAWRENCE

It was felt in Afghdnistén, where, as Lumsden tells
us}, the excitement ‘entirely subsided on the fall of
Delhi.’ Peshéwar was illuminated for several nights
in succession. From sunset to sunrise the city was
brilliant with lamps and fireworks. Six per cent.
paper which had fallen to 26 per cent. discount rose
rapidly to par. Rich merchants began to apologise
for not having subscribed to the loan. Fair-weather
friends came to the front with their congratulations.
Our prestige stood higher than ever. Soon the spoils
of Delhi, which had been given over to three days’
plunder, began to pass up and to be seen in the
villages. The Sikhs of the Maénjha, who had been
waiting like eagles with trimmed and quivering wing,
now began to gather to the carcass. Many villages
were ‘almost decimated by the number of recruits’
who crowded to the new regiments. We had weathered
the gale. The Mutiny at Midnw4li and other little
incidents were only the last ripples of the expiring
storm. So ealm did the atmosphere become that,
within three months after the fall of Delhi, as many
as seven hundred new village schools were founded
in the Punjab.

But this was only a breathing time. Below Delhi
every trace of English dominion had in many Districts
been wiped out, and the country had to be recon-
quered. From Delhi the pursuit lingered, so that the
mutineers escaped and disappeared in the seething
rebellion below. Nicholson, as he lay dying of his

1 The Mission to Kandahar, para. 9.
THE MUTINY (continued) 99

wound, vexed his impatient soul because of the delay.
But the troops were too exhausted by the assault and
a week of street-fighting for immediate pursuit. Not
till the 24th of September could the column move.
The Native portion of it was all Punjabi. After them
regiment upon regiment was marched down from
the Punjab to the aid of the Commander-in-Chief as
fast as they could be raised. Recruits appeared as
if by magic. Altogether it is estimated that at
one time there were upwards of 70,000 disciplined
Punjabis under arms, of whom about 23,000 were
employed beyond the limits of the province. About
one-third of the new army were Sikhs; the rest
belonged to various races of Hindus, hillmen from
Kangra and Jammu, and Muhammadans from the Pun-
jab and beyond the border, differing in race, language,
and customs, and ‘having little in common except
religion.’

The effect of this wholesale enlistment on the peace
of the Punjab was very marked. Never had the
frontier been so quiet. The new regiments absorbed
all the ruffians of the Peshawar valley. ‘Indeed,
says Sir Herbert Edwardes, ‘it must be admitted that
one troop alone, that is now fighting at Lucknow,
contains no less than sixty outlaws headed by the
redoubted Mukarram Khén. These men had harried
our border for years, and would undoubtedly have
rioted in this hour of our weakness, if not suddenly
put in the way of an honest livelihood. As the
Native gentleman who raised the troop remarked,

G2
100 LORD LAWRENCE

“Whether they kill the Poorbeahs or the Poor-
beahs kill them, it will be an equal service to the
State!”?’

Exclusive reliance on the Punjab as a recruiting
ground was unavoidable at the time. All the rest of
Upper India was lost to us. But Lawrence was fully
aware of the danger of it. ‘It strikes me, he wrote
to Sir Colin Campbell, ‘that there is some danger that
our Officers, in their horror of John Pandy, may go
into the other extreme and make too much of John
Singh. We can no more rest our trust on the Punjabi
than on the Hindustani!’ He greatly feared lest the
Punjabis should see and feel their strength. The
faithful chief of Patiala saw the danger, and raised
his warning voice. Nothing was to be feared while
the war lasted. Excitement of battle and lust of
plunder left no room for disloyal intrigues; but ‘ wait,’
he said, ‘till you mass large bodies of Sikhs in your
cantonments, and then remember that I warned you
of the danger.” In the reconstruction of the Bengal
army this difficulty has been wisely solved. Including
the Frontier Force, it numbers in all 74,000 men of
mixed races and religion. There are 39,000 from the
Punjab and the frontier tribes which border it; and
of these 19,000 are Sikhs.

Certainly no troops ever fought more bravely or
covered themselves with more glory than did the
Punjab troops in our cause against the rebel Sepoys.
They shared with us the privations and diseases and
dangers of the Ridge, ‘ soldier all day and sentinel all
THE MUTINY (continued) 101

through the night. They shared the glory of the
assault. In the Oudh and Rohilkhand campaign they
were shoulder to shoulder with the best and the
bravest. They have sustained their reputation in
many a hard fought field since then. And what is
more, there has sprung up in the Punjab a feeling of
brotherhood to England and of loyalty to the Crown
which it will be our own fault if we alienate. In the
spring of 1885, when war with Russia was imminent,
and preparations were begun for an expected campaign,
many of the war-worn veterans of the Mutiny days
came—with white hair and bent with the weight of
years—to the present writer and laid their swords at
his feet, recounting the favours and honours they had
received, and begging, though too old and battered to
go themselves, that their sons might not be forgotten
when the roll for service was called.

Delhi after the capture became like a city of the
dead. Not an inhabitant remained. An eye-witness
describing it says that for miles not a creature was to
be seen save a half-starved cat, and here and there a
withered hag groping about among the old papers and
rags with which the city was strewn. The European
artillery were quartered in the Arabic college. The
Great Mosque, one of the finest works of the reign of
Shah Jahdn, unsurpassed in beauty by any building
of the kind in India, became a barrack for the Sikhs.
Military law was proclaimed, and a military governor
appointed. The houses of the leaders and active par-
ticipators in the rebellion were confiscated. Within
102 LORD LAWRENCE

a few days after our occupation, Sir John Lawrence
was desirous to let the people return to the city as
soon as military arrangements for the security of the
palace could be completed. He was moved by the
sufferings of the multitude, nine-tenths of whom had
taken no active share in the outbreak. But other
views prevailed. Hindus were allowed after a time
gradually to come back to their homes. The Muham-
madan population was altogether excluded. In May,
1858, it was estimated that the population did not
amount to one-fourth of its former number. Not till
1859 was the attachment taken off the houses of the
Muhammadans, and the order for their . exclusion
removed.

Of course it was necessary to make a severe ex-
ample of mutineers and all who were guilty of the
shedding of blood. Rebellion had to be crushed
remorselessly ; and that could not be done without
blood. Severity in the beginning was seen to be
mercy in the end. ‘The sooner blood be let, said
Edwardes, ‘the less of it will suffice. Sir John
Lawrence’s grip upon the mutineers was relentless.
For ringleaders and murderers -there was no mercy;
and till Delhi was taken,—so long, that is, as the fate
of the country hung in a trembling balance which a
straw might turn, so long his hand was pitiless. He
would open with grape upon insurgents who broke
into mutiny. He would raise the hue and ery against
them ; he would rouse the country by offer of rewards
for their capture ; he would hunt them down as Thags
THE MUTINY (continued) 103

and Dakdits had been hunted down. But this was in
no wantonness of severity. To spare guilty blood
meant that more innocent blood would be shed. But
if Lawrence was very stern, he was never vindictive.
First to strike, he was the first to stay his hand. He
was the first to recommend the promise of life to
those who had not committed murder and would
throw down their arms. He objected to the execution
without mercy of all the prisoners of the 55th N. I,
though taken fighting against us; and he saved the
lives of two-thirds of them by what the military
authorities considered a misplaced humanity. When
the Gugera insurrection was put down, he begged
his officers not to be too severe. ‘You can try and
punish capitally a few of the ring-leaders,’ he wrote ;
‘don’t hang too many,’

_ Lawrence was much moved by the excesses of the
Prize Agents in Delhi and did all in his power, both
by the telegraph and by letter, to put a stop to acts
which, in his opinion, reflected disgrace on our national
honour. He recommended that Delhi should be freed
from martial law. However guilty some of its in-
habitants may have been, the majority had no con-
nection with the rebellion. Many indeed would have
sided with us if they had been able. The destruction
of the city and its noble buildings was repugnant
alike to his reason and his feelings. ‘I will on no
account consent to it, was his answer to a proposal
to level the Great Mosque with the ground ; ‘ there are
many things you could persuade me to do, but you
104. LORD LAWRENCE

shall never persuade me to do this; so you may as
well spare your pains.’

While dealing severely with the principals in re-
bellion and murder, he insisted on leniency to the
many and a fair trial to all. A war of extermination
would be cruel injustice. Multitudes had been coerced
into insurrection by the force of circumstances, and
had only shifted for themselves when we were no
longer able to protect them. These would quietly
settle down if they got a chance. So long as we
classed all mutineers and rebels together, with no
distinction of degrees of guilt, so long would they hold
together ; the country would never be pacified; and
the people, getting inured to a life of rapine and law-
lessness, would fall back into a worse condition than
that from which we had rescued them. Dealing de-
struction with one hand, we should hold oui the olive-
branch of peace with the other. A place of repent-
ance given would sow distrust among the rebels and
divide their ranks. It would show the world we had
some feelings of mercy. Above all, it was demanded
by the mercy which God had shown to us. ‘There
is a judge over both them and us’. Inasmuch as we
have been preserved from impending destruction by
His mercy alone, we should be merciful to others:
reflecting that, if He were to be extreme to mark
what we have done and still do amiss, we should
forfeit that protection from on High, which alone

* Letter to Government of India forwarding the Mutiny Report,
No. 75, dated 25th May, 1858, para. ar.
THE MUTINY (continued) 105

maintains us-in India.’ Therefore he pleaded for an
amnesty to those who, not being guilty of blood,
should throw down their arms and quietly go to their
homes.

It is difficult now, even for those who lived through
it all, to realise the terrible ferocity of vengeance that
swelled in the English breast, or to appreciate how
much excuse there was for it. There was not a home
in Upper India which the bullet or the sword of the
Sepoy had not reached. Many hearts were torn by
the foul and treacherous murder of those dearest to
them; all mourned the loss of friends, slain some-
times under circumstances of diabolical cruelty. The
perfidy and blood-thirstiness which in some places
attended the outbreak inflamed every bad and bitter
passion and stirred, even in the hearts of gentle
women, a desire for indiscriminate vengeance. Many
clamoured for the destruction of Delhi; raze it, raze
it, even to the foundations thereof. A more moderate
proposal, which found much favour at the time, was
to convert the Great Mosque into a Christian church,
and on each of the thousand compartments of its
marble fioor to inscribe the name of one of the
Christian martyrs of the Mutiny. To restore the
building to the Muhammadans was scouted as mad-
ness. An officer of the Government drew on himself
the wrath of the newspapers because he took off his
hat when he went into the chamber where the old
King was kept a prisoner. Such was the excitement
of the time that the judgment of the wisest and
106 LORD LAWRENCE

calmest was carried away, and even the brave became
sometimes cruel. The provocation was unexampled,
and who will dare to judge? The very Legislature was
infected. Ferocious laws were passed; yet England
did not raise her voice.

Persons convicted of mutiny, desertion, rebellion, or
waging war against the Government, of seducing
soldiers from their allegiance, or of exciting them to
mutiny or sedition, were made liable to the punish-
ment of death and forfeiture of property. In Districts
where martial law was proclaimed, it was death to
commit or attempt to commit any crime whatever
with the intention of assisting those who were waging
war against the State or of forwarding their designs.
In those Districts, also, any heinous offence was punish-
able with death: and a heinous offence was so defined
as to include crimes ranging from murder to the
destruction of property provided for the conveyance
or subsistence of troops, to entering a dwelling-house
and stealing therein, and even to receiving property
obtained by burglary. Sepoys were liable to be
tatooed on the left side with letters an inch long,
branding them as mutineers or deserters, and so made
as to be conspicuous and not liable to be obliterated.
Offences might be tried by any person invested with
the powers of a Sessions Judge, or by a Commission
issued by the Government or by any person whom the
Governor-General in Council might authorise to issue
it. There wag no appeal. Sentences were final, and
the penalty of death might be executed immediately
THE MUTINY (continued) 107

on conviction. The terrible vengeance executed under
these Draconian laws is matter of history }-

As soon as the first wave of excitement had passed
away, Lawrence did all he could to mitigate their
severity. Delhi, as I have explained, was outside his
jurisdiction. No civil authority was yet established
there. But it was impossible to govern the country
from below through an intervening belt of rebellion,
and circumstances threw it into his hands. The con-
dition of the city and the reckless proceedings of the
Special Commissioners had long been causing him
deep anxiety. In the end of January, 1858, he set out
for Delhi. Immediately on his arrival he telegraphed
to Lord Canning and begged that the power of
sentencing men to death might be withdrawn from
Officers acting alone and without colleagues. He

1 In the Administration Report for 1856-7 and 1857-8 the follow-
ing returns of the proceedings of the Special Commissioners in the
Punjab are given :—

 

 

 

By military By Civil
tribunals. Authorities. side
Sentenced to death :
Hanged ... ... 86 300 386
Shot... ow. 628 1,370 1,998
Imprisoned ... ... 245 1,226 1,471
Flogged... ... > 1,501 1,501
Total punished ... 959 4,397 5,356

 

 

 

 

 

Nearly half (2,025) were convicted by the Special Commissioners
at Delhi.
108 LORD LAWRENCE

appointed a Commission of Three to try State offences
and required that the Commissioners should sit
together in all cases calling for a severer punishment
than three years’ imprisonment. He directed that in
every case the evidence and the defence should be
recorded, and that weekly returns of all cases tried
should be submitted to him. These measures gave
great satisfaction and did much to restore the confi-
dence of the Natives and bring them back to the
city.

Meantime, the Districts round Delhi had been
pacified. Early in the Mutiny a force of new levies
hurriedly collected, with detachments of police and
some troops supplied by the Chiefs of Bikaner and
Patidéla, had been sent under General Van Cortlandt,
to recover the Districts to the West. Disorder had
necessarily followed the collapse of British authority.
In Rohtak and Gurgdon anarchy reigned unchecked.
Gujars and Meos plundered with impartial hand, re-
specting the King’s government no more than our own.
Convoys of his treasure were attacked; the Delhi
King’s officers were robbed and beaten; and his
letters were torn into fragments and thrown in the
face of his messengers. Old feuds, some of which had
lain dormant since the days of the Mughal Emperors,
were revived and fought out. The country people
however bore the English no special ill-will, and as
soon as Delhi fell, the Districts rapidly settled down,
In the Delhi District for instance, the revenue due in
June, 1857, was collected in part, and that due in.
THE MUTINY (continued) 109

December was paid in full. The civil administration
was re-established and superintended from Lahore. By
a resolution of the Government of India dated the gth
of February, 1858, and by a subsequent enactment, the
Delhi Territory was formally separated from the North-
Western Provinces and attached to the Punjab under
the administration of Sir John Lawrence. The terri-
tory thus added to the Punjab contains, according to
the most recent statistics, an area of 12,674 square
miles, and a population of 3,357,817 souls. It yields
a land-revenue of about £275,000 and a revenue from
all sources of £350,000.
CHAPTER VII
From CHirr CoMMISSIONER TO VICEROY

AND now the time was approaching for well-earned
and honoured repose. Lawrence's wife and family
had gone to England in December 1857, but he felt
bound to stay one year more till order should be com-
pletely restored. Having put things right at Delhi,
he returned to Lahore and retreated to Murree when
the summer heat began. From there he submitted to
the Government of India a report on the events of
1857 and his recommendations for the reward of all
who had done loyal service in the dark and cloudy
day. Asa rule Sir John Lawrence was sparing in his
acknowledgment of services and seldom praised a man
to his face. But he never forgot good work or missed
a chance of pushing forward those who did their duty
with zeal and intelligence. And sometimes his feel-
ings would burst out in a gush of generous emotion.
‘Your Lahore men have done nobly,’ he wrote to
Montgomery after the disarming of Mecan Meer, ‘I
should like to embrace them.’ And to Nicholson
after Najafgarh, ‘I wish I had the power of knighting
you on the spot. He took to himself little credit.
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 111

‘Next to the indomitable valour of the European
soldiery, he wrote to Edwardes, ‘the Punjabis, white
and black, have done the deed. I however look upon
myself as only one of them. Few men in a similar
position have had so many good and true supporters
around him. But for them what could I have done ?’
But for all that, history confirms the verdict of
Edward Thornton— Looking back now on all that
happened, I can see clearly that it was he and none of
his subordinates who can be said to have saved the
Punjab.’ Oras Edwardes puts it—‘ Any treatment of
the picture, therefore, that would put John in other
than the first place would be thoroughly untrue.’
‘Through him Delhi fell, was the verdict of Lord
Canning, ‘and the Punjab, no longer a weakness,
became a source of strength. But for him, the hold
of England over Upper India would have had to be
recovered at a cost of English blood and treasure
which defies calculation.’

Leaving Murree in October, 1858, Lawrence paid
a last visit to Peshdwar, where he read out to the
paraded troops the Queen’s Proclamation transferring
the Government of India from the East India Com-
pany to the Crown; and proclaiming mercy to all
offenders in the Mutiny save and except those con-
victed of taking part in the murder of British subjects.
The royal clemency caused general rejoicing, and all
hearts were thankful to God that the day of retribu-
tive justice was over, and the torrent of blood had at
last ceased to flow. This Proclamation is the Charter
112 LORD LAWRENCE

of the rights of the people and the Princes of India.
Returning to Lahore, Sir John Lawrence made pre-
parations' for his deparature. In the meantime
honours had been showered upon him. He was made
a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, a Baronet, and a
Privy Councillor. The freedom of the City of Lon-
don was voted him, and the Court of Directors
granted him a special annuity of £2000. Sir Colin
Campbell thought he should have got a peerage, and
some dissatisfaction was caused in England by its
being withheld. But Lawrence was too much of a
philosopher to vex himself. He had, he said, lived
long enough and seen sufficient to teach him that
‘the best reward any man can have is the feeling
that he has done his duty to the best of his ability.’
On the ist of January, 1859, the territories under
his administration were constituted a Lieutenant-
Governorship, and on the same date, as was fitting,
the Gazette announced that ‘the Right Honourable the
Viceroy and Governor-General of India has been
pleased to appoint the Honourable Sir John Lawrence,
Baronet, G.C.B., to be the first Lieutenant-Governor
of the Punjab and its Dependencies.’ Lord Dalhousie
had proposed it three years before. But the Court of
Directors thought the measure premature, and ob-
jected also on financial grounds. In the end of 1858
Lord Stanley re-opened the question and, pending the
discussion and settlement of it, Sir John Lawrence
was granted the salary and establishment of a Lieu-
tenant-Governor. But the arrangement came too late
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 113

to be of much service to him either in emoluments
or in relief from work. He left Lahore on Feb-
ruary 26th, 1859, to join his family in England. No
one who was present at the parting is ever likely to
forget it. We all assembled, soldiers and civilians,
clergy and laity, Natives and Europeans, in the old
Native tomb which did, and still does, duty for a
Government House at Lahore, to bid him an affec-
tionate farewell, and presented to him an address
which was read by Mr. Macleod, afterwards Sir
Donald and Lieutenant-Governor. Few of us looked
unmoved on the strong face furrowed by care and
sickness, or on the once stalwart frame worn with
long service and broken by the anxiety of the crisis
through which India had passed. His mantle fell on
the worthy shoulders of Montgomery, whose pre-
vision in procuring the disarmament of the Native
troops at Meean Meer on the eventful morning of Mav
13th, 1857, and whose cheerful courage and prompti-
tude ever after throughout the Mutiny, have im-
perishably associated his name with the Punjab,
second only to his great Chief. Sir John made over
the government to his successor in profound peace.
He was able to write to Lord Canning :—‘ The whole
country, from end to end, is as quiet as possible.
Indeed, I never recollect. to have seen the people so
loyal and contented.’

The events of the Mutiny profoundly stirred the
deep religious nature of Sir John Lawrence. He
had seen the British power in Upper India drowned

H
114 LORD LAWRENCE

in a deluge of blood. He had seen the Punjab saved
as if by fire. In recounting the difficulties and
dangers he had surmounted, he acknowledged that
the first cause was the mercy of God. ‘No doubt,’
he said, ‘humanly speaking, the Punjab possessed
great advantages; .. . but as a protection against
the peril of the time, all such advantages were as
nothing without the support of the everlasting arm of
Almighty God. To Him alone, therefore, be all the
praise!’ ‘It was not policy, wrote Montgomery—
for there were many saintly men in the Punjab be-
sides its Chief—‘ or soldiers, or officers, that saved the
Indian Empire to England, and saved England to
India. The Lord our God, He it was. In Mont-
gomery’s expression of humble thankfulness, Sir John
Lawrence devoutly joined :—‘ It is owing to an over-
ruling Providence, and to that alone, that a single
Englishman was left alive in the Punjab.’

It is not often that the guiding hand of God is so
openly acknowledged in public documents. This
Christian confession is not to be attributed to pious
emotion excited by the solemnity of the time. Law-
rence’s religion was the moving power of his life, the
mainspring of his single-hearted devotion to duty.
No estimate of his life and work can be true that
omits to take this into account. There was in him a
strong spiritual force, working silently and unobtru-
sively, that leavened and moulded everything he did.
Of him it may be said, as Carlyle wrote of Cromwell,
to whom Lawrence has often been likened, that he
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 115

‘ believed in God, not on Sundays only, but on all days,
in all places, and in all cases.’ He never talked of his
convictions, but it never entered into his honest mind to
conceal them. His faith was simple, and he lived as
he believed ; so that his actions grounded themselves
naturally on their religious basis. I have already
noted how he begged for an amnesty to rebels in the
spirit and almost in the words of the Lord’s Prayer.
His wife has told us that his faith was the most beau-
tiful and simple she ever knew; fear God and keep
His commandments was the rule of his daily life.
‘We are told to pray and that our prayers will be
answered, and that is sufficient for me,’ he once said
to his friend Captain Eastwick, when some one in his
presence had objected to prayers for rain. When he
turned the first sod of the first railway in the Pun-
jab, on February 8th, 1859, prayers to God were
offered up in the presence of the assembled Officers
and Chiefs and a multitude of Natives, printed copies
of the prayers having been distributed to the people
beforehand.

With Lawrence the guiding policy in such ques-
tions was perfect toleration and complete religious
liberty. He would as little brook encroachment on
his own liberty of conscience as he would permit in-
terference with the freedom of belief and religious
worship of others. But in those days, strange as it
may appear, the principles of religious liberty, in
their application to servants of Government, seem to
have been imperfectly understood. A few weeks

2
116 LORD LAWRENCE

after Sir John Lawrence had laid down the reins of
office, the Government of India called the Commis-
sioner of the Amritsar Division to account for attending
the baptism of some adult Native converts in the pri-
vate house of a Christian missionary. Of course the
Commissioner vindicated himself by an unanswerable
appeal to principles of religious liberty and to the
Queen's Proclamation, claiming as a Christian official
the same rights of private judgment and conduct as
are allowed to Hindus and Muhammadans and Sikhs.
Some three years later, in the Christmas of 1862, when
a missionary conference was convened at Lahore, and
was attended by many of the heroes of the Mutiny
presided over by [Sir] Donald Macleod, there were
some who would have put a stop to it as mischievous
and not in keeping with official duty. Looked at in
the light and practice of the present day, when officers
of every degree take part in missionary meetings and
conferences, and the highest in India, not omitting
the Viceroy himself, lay the foundation stones of mis-
sion schools and churches, and acknowledge from the
public platform the indebtedness of the Government to
the Christian missionary, cases like those I have re-
ferred to provoke a smile of incredulity.

The revolution in Christian policy in India within
the last quarter of a century has been complete. And
not least among the causes which have brought about
the change is the publication of the most famous and
the most widely known of Sir John Lawrence’s de-
spatches—that of April 21st, 1858, on the doing of
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 117

Christian things in a Christian way. The circum-
stances are well known. Edwardes, as he pondered
on the Mutiny, its causes and its lessons, came to the
conclusion that the extent of suffering caused by the
revolt proved it to be a divine chastisement for na-
tional sin in withholding Christian truth from the
people. Under this conviction he wrote his cele-
brated paper on ‘the elimination of all unchristian
principles from the Government of India.’ It was
intended primarily to influence public opinion in
England. Upon this memorandum Lawrence wrote
his despatch, which, though stopping a long way short
of Edwardes’ proposals, and on some points contro-
verting his facts, was described by Edwardes him-
self as ‘a fine manifesto’ and ‘a noble expression of
the duty of the Indian Government to do whatever
Christianity requires, at whatever cost.’ After stating
his views on the teaching of the Bible in Government
schools and colleges—a religious instruction which
Lawrence thought ought to be given wherever we have
teachers fit to teach it, and pupils willing to hear it
—on the endowment of Native religions, caste, the
recognition of Native hcly-days, the administration of
heathen and Muhammadan laws, religious processions,
and on other matters in respect to which Edwardes
thought we acted in violation of Christian principles,
the despatch ended with the well-known passage :—

‘ Before concluding this letter I am to state that Sir J.

Lawrence has been led, in common with others since the
occurrence of the awful events of 1857, to’ ponder deeply on
118 LORD LAWRENCE

what may be the faults and shortcomings of the British as a
Christian nation in India. In considering topics such as
those treated of in this despatch he would solely endeavour
to ascertain what is our Christian duty. Having ascertained
that according to our erring lights and conscience, he would
follow it out to the uttermost, undeterred by any considera-
tion. If we address ourselves to this task, it may, with
the blessing of Providence, not prove too difficult for us.
Measures have indeed been proposed as essential to be
adopted by a Christian Government which would be truly
difficult or impossible of execution. But on closer considera-
tion it will be found that such measures are not enjoined by
Christianity, but are contrary to its spirit. Sir John
Lawrence does, I am to state, entertain the earnest belief
that all those measures which are really and truly Christian
can be carried out in India, not only without danger to
British rule, but, on the contrary, with every advantage to
its stability. Christian things done in a Christian way will
never, the Chief Commissioner is convinced, alienate the
heathen. About such things there are qualities which do
not provoke nor excite distrust, nor harden to resistance.
It is when unchristian things are done in the name of
Christianity, or when Christian things are done in an un-
christian way, that mischief and danger are occasioned.
The difficulty is, amid the political complications, the con-
flicting social considerations, the fears and hopes of self-
interest which are so apt to mislead human judgment, to
discern clearly what is imposed upon us by Christian duty
and what is not. Having discerned this, we have but to
put it into practice. Sir John Lawrence is satisfied that
within the territories committed to his charge he can carry
out all those measures which are really matters of Christian
duty on the part of the Government. And, further, he
believes that such measures will arouse no danger; will
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 119

conciliate instead of provoking; and will subserve the
ultimate diffusion of the truth among the people.

‘Finally, the Chief Commissioner would recommend that
such measures and policy, having been deliberately deter-
mined on by the Supreme Government, be openly avowed
and universally acted upon throughout the Empire; so that
there may be no diversities of practice, no isolated, tentative,
or conflicting efforts, which are, indeed, the surest means of
exciting distrust ; so that the people may see that we have
no sudden or sinister designs; and so that we may exhibit
that harmony and uniformity of conduct which befits a
Christian nation striving to do its duty.’

Under the Lawrences, the connection between the
Government and Christian missions had always been
as close as official duty permitted. The policy pur-
sued was that of the Charter of 1698 returned to in
the Charter Act of 1813—the policy that prevailed in
the days of Schwartz, when the East India Company
was glad even to employ missionaries on diplomatic
duties, and had not yet come to look upon the spread
of Christian truth as dangerous to its interests. The
events of the Mutiny deepened Lawrence’s views
on this subject, and elicited valuable opinions from
many eminent men on the safety and advantage
of a Christian policy. Lord Palmerston declared
that it was our interest as well as our duty to pro-
mote the diffusion of Christianity as far as possible
through the length and breadth of India; and Sir
Charles Wood saw in every additional Christian an
additional bond of union with England and an ad-
ditional source of strength to the Empire. With a
120 LORD LAWRENCE

similar conviction, Lawrence advocated the raising of
Native Christian regiments. He knew of no element
of security except that of Christianity which could
render it safe to increase the proportion of Native
troops, even when duly counterpoised as to caste and
race. He expressed a strong conviction of the duty
and wisdom of bringing into the service as many
Christian Natives as possible. With such a force at
command, he considered British rule would strike a
new root in India. It was ignorance of the true na-
ture of Christianity that made panic spread through
our Indian army. The Sepoys imagined the Chris-
tian religion to consist in ceremonial arrangements
like their own.

Valuing as he did ‘the liberty to know, to utter,
and to argue freely according to conscience, above all
liberties,’ Lawrence not only claimed it for himself,
but opposed ‘quiet persecution’ as he called it, and
the application of secular motives in any form to the
spread of Christianity. While he believed that Chris-
tianity goes hand in hand with all the objects for
which British rule exists in India, he had a profound
conviction that it could only be extended by moral
influences, voluntarily accepted. He conceded to the
Native religions the same freedom he claimed for his
own, being confident that the truth will in the end
prevail. In this spirit he resisted the clamour which
was raised for the destruction of religious buildings
at Delhi, and in due time restored the Great; Mosque
to the Muhammadans. Afterwards, when he was
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 121

Governor-General, he gave back to them the Pearl
Mosque at Agra, and, on the petition of the Muham-
madans of Lahore, he restored to them the Grand
Mosque in that city which had been desecrated by
the Sikhs and long disused. This Mosque was the
first in the Punjab in which prayers were offered for
the Queen. There, every Friday, a blessing is now
invoked on Her Majesty’s reign.

The same spirit of toleration animated all Sir John
Lawrence’s proceedings. In Central India there is
a petty State, Rajgarh, one of the many which were
rescued from destruction by the establishment of the
British Protectorate in Mélwé. The Ruling Chief, who
was a Rajput, had long shown a tendency towards
Muhammadanism, and got thereby into difficulties with
the brethren of his caste. Matters came to a head
when Sir John Lawrence was Viceroy. It was reported
that the Chief had undergone circumcision, and the
feeling against him on this account, among his rela-
tives and nobles, was so strong, that he proposed
to abdicate and retire into private life. Inquiry, how-
ever, showed there was no charge of misgovernment
against him, and that, except on the ground of change
of creed, his people were satisfied with his rule. He
was therefore maintained in power, and his people
were informed that, so long as the government
of the Chief was just, they must be loyal and obe-
dient without reference to his creed. <A year or two
later, the Chief and his sons openly renounced the
Hindu religion and embraced Muhammadanism,
122 LORD LAWRENCE

taking a Muhammadan name which the British
Government recognised, and receiving a Muham-
madan title.

This case is a leading one, and has established in
regard to the government of Native States the prin-
ciple, which has long been accepted by the Legislature
in civil affairs, that no rights shall be forfeited or
impaired merely by change of religion or loss of caste.
A Christian Government in a heathen or Muham-
madan country could not, it might be thought, ac-
knowledge any other principle. But the constitution
of a Rajput State is so intimately interwoven with
religious and caste observances, that the conversion
of the Chief to another religion, which throws him
outside the tribe or family, may involve serious con-
stitutional changes; and only a few years before,
when the leaning of the Rajgarh Chief to Muham-
madanism began and his first troubles were adjusted,
he had been told that a recurrence of the difficulties
might make it necessary for him to abdicate and
live in exile. The principle is now, however, clearly
established. As a matter of fact, the Native States of
India, other than the Rajputs, are mushroom growths,
having a shorter history than our own. In some,
like Bhopal, Haidarébad, Tonk, and others, the rulers
are Muhammadan and the people are Hindu. In
Kashmir we have a Muhammadan population under
a Hindu ruler. What the British Government, as
the imperial power, concerns itself with, is not the
religious belief, in which rulers and people are alike
FROM CHIEF COMMISSIONER TO VICEROY 123

left free to follow their convictions, but the good
government of the country.

Before he. left Lahore, Sir John Lawrence had been
offered by Lord Stanley a seat in the Council of India
which was formed when the Government was trans-
ferred to the Crown. He took his place on April
11th, 1859, soon after his arrival in London. His
name was now familiar in the mouth of every one.
The freedom of the cities of London and Glasgow was
conferred formally upon him. Ue was saluted as the
‘Organiser of Victory, and the ‘Saviour of India.’
At a public assembly presided over by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, an address was presented to him,
signed by over 8,000 persons of all ranks in society.
Oxford and Cambridge inscribed his name as a Doctor
of Civil Law on their honorary rolls. Court favour
was directed to him. He was féted and made a guest
in the houses of the great. But through it all he bore
himself with the modesty and simplicity which had
always distinguished him, and claimed a share in the
honours for those who had shared with him the perils
of the struggle, and by whose aid he acknowledged
that his efforts to maintain the supremacy of England
were crowned with success. He found his enjoyment
in the bosom of his family, in the society of his friends,
and in the quiet of his country home.

The work at the India Office was not congenial to
him. He was out of place on a Board which had no
administrative power, and where he found his cherished
views on vital questions, such as that of a local army
124 LORD LAWRENCE

for India, overruled by a system of voting in which
knowledge and experience of India counted only for
one. After four and a half years of this work, he
was nominated to be Viceroy and Governor-General
of India in succession to Lord Elgin, under circum-
stances which I have already narrated. ‘On the
morning of November 3oth, 1863,’ says his biographer,
‘Sir Charles Wood looked into Sir John Lawrence's
room at the India Office with the pregnant announce-
ment, “ You are to go to India as Governor-General.
Wait here till I return from Windsor with the Queen’s
approval.” It was not till long after office hours that
Sir Charles returned with the warm approval which
he had sought and had obtained ; and now the “im-
perial appointment, which is the greatest honour Eng-
land has to give, except the government of herself,”
belonged to John Lawrence.’ ‘The Governor-General-
ship is too good a post for a fellow like me,’ he had
said, when Sir Colin Campbell expressed a hope he
might succeed Lord Canning. Now there was only
one voice. The choice was as popular in England as
in India. Men of every grade in society and every
shade of political opinion agreed that the right man
had been selected. Leaving his family behind him,
he started from London on December gth; landed in
Calcutta on January 12th, 1864; and at once entered
on his exalted office under the usual formalities.
CHAPTER VIII
FRONTIER AND Frevupatory AFFAIRS

I HAVE said that Sir John Lawrence’s Viceroyalty
‘was an uneventful time. Great natural calamities
by famine and cyclone fell upon the country, which
called forth the philanthropic energies of Government
and people. Commerce passed through an unexampled
crisis, taxing skill and foresight. But the political
atmosphere was calm. With the exception of little
frontier wars, wasteful of resources that were sorely
needed, there was nothing to divert the Government
from the prosecution of schemes for the improvement
of the physical and moral condition of the people.

On the North the land frontier of India extends
along the range of the Himalaya mountains about
1,900 miles, across more than twenty-seven degrees of
longitude. It marches with the independent countries
of Bhutan, Nepal, and Afgh4nistan, the petty State of
Sikkim, the great feudatory State of Kashmir, and a,
multitude of small Rajput principalities round Simla
and Kangra, survivals of the Hindu period prior to
the successive waves of Muhammadan invasion. On
the East the land boundary has since Lawrence’s vice-
royalty been greatly extended, and received a new

‘
126 LORD LAWRENCE

political significance by the conquest of Upper Burma.
On the North-west also the frontier has been pushed
outward as the result of the Afghan war; but'in 1864
it ran for over 8co miles from the snow peaks which
close the Kagan valley, along the skirt of the
Suléimén range to the province of Sind, and then
by the Khelét State and adjacent territories to the
sea. Down nearly to the Sind border, the mountain
tribes flanking our territory are independent, warlike,
revengeful, fanatical Pathd4ns, who, with exception of
the Mohmands, call no man master, not even the Amir
of Kabul. Below them come the equally brave but
less bigoted Biluch tribes, who pay a more or less
fluctuating allegiance to the ruler of Khelét. It will
be no matter of surprise that causes of unrest are
always at work, and military operations are ever
impending, on so extended a frontier, having political
relations of so multiform a character with rulers who
have to be managed by persuasion and diplomacy,
with fierce clans full of religious fanaticism, with
marauding tribes that know no law but the sword,
and with naked head-hunting savages.

It was, as I have said, a dangerous war on the
North-west frontier that finally settled the appoint-
ment of Sir John Lawrence to be Governor-General.
On his way out, as he touched at Galle, he received
a memorandum, written by Sir Bartle Frere, then
Governor of Bombay, intended for the unknown
successor to Lord Elgin, and containing a severe
attack on the frontier policy pursued in the Punjab
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 127

as compared with that which prevailed in Sind. ‘I
do not know, wrote Sir John Lawrence, ‘from whom
Frere takes his information. I know he has no
personal knowledge of the country himself. His own
knowledge is limited to that of the Sind frontier,
which in many essentials is different to that of the
Punjab. From the borders of Sind northwards, the
character of the people, both in the hills and on the
plains, differs as you go along. On such a frontier
it is folly to apply a Procrustean policy. Nothing
for instance could well’ be more different than the
constitution of the Biluch tribes under their here-
ditary Chiefs and that of the Pathéns with their
tribal councils in which every man is equal, and
with their clans and sections of clans which are ever
at feud. In the one case, if you secure the Chieftain
you secure the tribe; in the other you can succeed
only by influencing general sentiment, which is to be
reached by palaver and discussion or by bribery and
self-interest, And the country is as different as the
constitution of the tribes and the character of the
people. On the Sind frontier the marauding moun-
taineers are separated from the alluvial plains of the
Indus by twenty miles of desert open to the operations
of cavalry and troops. Along the Suldimdn range,
where dwell the Pathéns, the spurs run down into the
cultivated valleys, the villages are pushed up on the
slopes of the hills, and the surrounding country is
broken up by deep ravines which render the attacks
of robbers easy and their pursuit difficult. If
128 LORD LAWRENCE

therefore there was difference in the plan of treat-
ment in the two provinces, it arose from difference
of circumstances.

The policy adopted on the Punjab frontier was one
of conciliation and defence :—

By slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Neighbourly good offices weré sedulously cultivated,
and, while the clans were made to understand that
there was no desire to interfere in their territories,
they were taught that no aggression would be per-
mitted on our own. The marches were held by a
double line, the outer by Tribal Militia and the inner
by the Frontier Force, both spread over a series of
fortified posts. These were to give account of armed
marauders. Friendly tribes were encouraged to trade.
Fairs were established for their convenience. Deputa-
tions from them were received and hospitably enter-
tained. Their sick were freely treated in our hospitals,
and their boys were taught in our schools. Their
tribesmen were taken into service, and even settled
on lands within the British frontier on easy terms.
Offences were. punished by fine and the demand of
compensation ; if that proved unavailing, the recal-
citrant tribe was excluded from our territories; and
as a last resource a force of troops might be sent to
bring them to reason. There can be no question that
year by year this watchful and firm, though peaceful
and conciliatory, policy has produced a marked change
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 129

in the conduct of the Pathan tribes and a great im-
provement in our relations with them. But to extir-
pate border crime is beyond human power. Frontier
raids, as Lord Dalhousie observed, are no more to
be regarded as interruptions of the general peace in
India, than the street brawls which appear among the
every-day proceedings of a police court in London are
regarded as indications of the existence of civil war
in England. Punitive expeditions are a necessity of
the situation. They will not cease till the other side
of the line is held by civilised governments.

Between 1864 and 1869 there were several forays
at various points, but only two’ were collisions which
really disturbed the peace. One was a petty affair
with the Bezotis of the Kohat Pass, the other a more
serious encounter with the Pathéns of the Black
Mountain. The latter was caused by an attack of
the tribes in July 1868, at the instigation of the
Chief of Agror, upon a police post, the establishment
of which he resented. Disturbances, in the course of
which more than twenty British villages were de-
stroyed, lasted till October, when troops were sent to
punish the aggressors. A force of 12,000 men was em-
ployed, which penetrated without serious opposition
to the crest of the Black Mountain, explored the
enemy’s country, occupied their strongholds, and re-
duced the tribes to submission for the time.

But a little cloud, very black while it lasted, arose
on the opposite corner of the frontier soon after Sir
John Lawrence landed in India. Our relations with

I
130 LORD LAWRENCE

Bhutan had never been intimate or even very friendly.
They began in 1772, when Warren Hastings had to
expel the Bhutanese from our border. Bhutan was a
dependency of Tibet, and at the intercession of the
Teshu Lama a treaty of peace was concluded in 1774.
The opportunity seemed favourable for establishing
a friendly understanding, and George Bogle was de-
spatched by Warren Hastings to Lassa to try to open
up commercial intercourse. He would probably have
succeeded but for the untimely death of the Teshu
Lama. Turner’s mission followed in 1783, but failed
to break through Tibetan exclusiveness. For a long
time thereafter no further attempt was made to pene-
trate into the countries on the northern frontier of
Bengal. Our acquisition of Assam, in 1826, brought
us into closer contact, chiefly in the way of depreda-
tions on villages in the plains, which the mountaineers
looked upon as a happy hunting-ground. One more
attempt was made—by Pemberton’s mission in 1838—
but the Bhutén Government rejected the treaty that
was proposed. Frontier affairs continued on a very
bad footing. We tried to improve them by taking
the management of Districts at the base of the hills
and paying to Bhutdn the surplus revenues. But
little good resulted. Bhutdén seemed to be in a
chronic state of revolution and civil war, with no
settled government. Outrages and aggressions led
to remonstrances, reprisals, and threats of severer
measures. Matters went from bad to worse, and war
was on the point of breaking out, when the Mutiny of
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 13t

the Sepoy army called the British Government to a
struggle for its own existence.

At last, in 1862, on the representations of the
Bengal Government, Lord Canning agreed once more
to try the expedient of a mission to explain our de-
mands. This course was concurred in by Lord Elgin
when he assumed the government. Owing, however,
to the evasions and delays of the Bhutdnese, and the
reluctance of the Governor-General to force their
hand, the mission did not start till the interregnum
between the death of Lord Elgin and the arrival of
Sir John Lawrence. The truth is the country was once
more in the throes of revolution; the Spiritual and
Temporal Kings of Bhutdén were puppets in the hands
of a successful insurgent, the Tongso Penlo: there
was no government with which permanent relations
could be established. The mission left Dérjiling on
December 4th, 1863, and returned on April 12th,
1864, having been not only received without honour
but subjected to insult and outrage. With difficulty
the Envoy got away from the capital under cover of
night, after he had been compelled by threats of per-
sonal violence to sign a humiliating treaty, which the
Government of India could only instantly repudiate.
War was the inevitable consequence. After some
military operations, the Bhutanese sued for peace,
gave up the treaty extorted from the Envoy, and
ceded the country lying at the foot of the hills, known
as the Eighteen Dwars, or Passes, receiving from us
an annual payment of £5000 on condition of their

12
132 LORD LAWRENCE

future friendly conduct. The treaty added to the
Queen’s dominions a strip of territory about 180
miles long and from twenty to thirty miles broad.

Much hostile criticism was expended on the treaty
at the time. European opinion in India is aggres-
sive, and military opinion is dominant. Military
men, smarting under a temporary check in which we
had lost two guns, condemned Lawrence for granting
the Bhutanese terms which were thought too easy.
But the guns were restored as a preliminary condition
of peace; and Lawrence, ‘rich in saving common
sense, fought for peace, not for prestige. Nothing
was to be gained by the prosecution of a war with
the Bhutdnese at any time, least of all when India
was overwhelmed in commercial and financial
troubles. The best proof that the terms were just
lies in the fact that our relations with Bhutén have
ever since been better than they were before. During
the recent difficulties with Tibet, the Bhutén Govern-
ment resisted the pressure put upon them to adopt an
unfriendly attitude towards us.

Frontier affairs belong to the department of work
which the Viceroy keeps in his own hands. So do
the affairs of the dependent States of India. Of these
there is a vast number—more than six hundred. They
cover more than one-third of the Continent of India},

 

a Square miles. | Population in round numbers.

 

AllIndia ... ... 1,583,276 287,850,000
Native States Ls 638,672 66,000,000

 

 
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 133

and contain more than one-fifth of the population.
Their revenues are estimated to be £19,500,000,
and they pay to the British Government an annual
tribute of £750,000. These States differ greatly in
size and importance. Hyderdb4d, for example, has an
area of 82,000 square miles, a population of ten and
a half millions, and a revenue of more than £3,000,000.
At the other extreme there are States so small as to
consist of only one or two villages with less than five
hundred inhabitants and revenues which do not
amount to £100 a year! Whatever be their political
importance or insignificance, however, they have all
some common features—they are not subject to
British laws; they are subordinate to the British Go-
vernment and under its protection and control; they
are not permitted to combine or to enter into negotia-
tions with each other or with any foreign power ; their
relations are with the British Government alone.

Our relations with them, it will easily be under-
stood, are of the most varied kind. Some, like the
great principalities of Réjputéna, have survived shock
after shock of foreign invasion, and exist from an age
which procures for them religious veneration. Others
represent the powerful lieutenants of the Great
Mughal, who bit by bit assumed independence as the
grip of the central power relaxed. Some were up-
heavals in the expiring convulsions of the Muham-
madan Empire, which the Paw Britannica stereotyped.
Some are the work of the British Government itself,
created from territories it had conquered. The treaties
134 LORD LAWRENCE

and engagements with these States are legion. But
of still greater importance, if possible, are the rela-
tions established by a long course of usage which
exhibit the acknowledged and accepted conditions of
British supremacy. The sovereign powers of all are
limited in a greater or less degree. Some few possess
the more distinctive attributes of a separate govern-
ment; in others the powers of the Chiefs have been
so reduced that the sovereignty almost disappears.
In every case the residuary sovereignty vests in the
British Crown.

In our relations with these States the Mutiny
comes as a great line of cleavage. The decade pre-
ceding the revolt of the army had seen the British
dominions largely extended by the absorption of
Native States. Oudh had been annexed because of
the King’s misrule. One after another the States of
Satéra, Jhdnsi, and Négpur had been treated as
escheats. The Rajput principality of Karauli had
been spared, but opinions had been expressed by
Lord Dalhousie in the discussion of the case which,
if acted on, would have undermined the oldest States
in Rajputéna. One small Réjput State, indeed—
Baghat, in the Simla Hills—was actually treated as a
lapse. It is true that neither the doctrine of escheat
nor the practice was new. But they had never be-
fore been so logically or systematically enforced. The
views of the Governor-General were well known. He
believed that petty principalities, intervening within
the British boundaries, might be made the means of
FRONTIER AND FEUDA TORY AFFAIRS 135

annoyanceto us, but could never be a source of strength.
He expressed the opinion that advantage should be
taken of every just opportunity to get rid of them

‘by annexing them when there were no direct heirs.
He had applied his principles to one of the largest
States, and had argued for them in the case of one of
the oldest. No Ruling Chief'felt secure for the future,
and there arose a general fear. All this was com-
pletely reversed by the Mutiny. The Native States
rendered priceless service in the day of our distress.
Lord Dalhousie’s dictum that they could never be a
source of strength was falsified. Speaking in the
fulness of his gratitude, Lord Canning described them
as ‘ breakwaters to the storm, which would otherwise
have swept over us in one great wave.’ ‘The safety
of our rule is increased,’ he wrote, ‘ not diminished, by
the maintenance of Native Chiefs well affected to us.
... And should the day come when India shall be
threatened by an external enemy, or when the interests
of England elsewhere may require that her Eastern
Empire shall incur more than ordinary risk, one of
our best mainstays will be found in these Native
States.’

Lord Canning restored the State of Baghét; and
his parting gifts to the Chiefs of India were deeds,
dated the day before he laid down the reins of office,
in which he assured them, one by one, that the Queen
desired to perpetuate their Princely Houses, that the
policy of escheat was at an end, and that adopted
heirs would be recognised. This announcement had
136 LORD LAWRENCE

already been made during Lord Canning’s celebrated
progress through the provinces of Upper India. It
was received with universal joy. At Gwalior the
good news was welcomed ‘ with rejoicing very like
that which would have marked the birth of an heir.’
The present writer was an eye-witness of the satis-
faction with which the’ announcement was hailed.
He remembers the long-drawn sigh of relief which
escaped from the assembled Chiefs when the new
policy was firsts made known at the Cawnpur
Darbar, on November 4th, 1859. He remembers the
interview at which one of the most powerful Chiefs
in Central India told Lord Canning that, though his
family had ruled for eleven hundred years, the assur-
ance given ‘had dispelled an evil wind that had long
been blowing upon him.’ A new era was at once
introduced. The Doctrine of Lapse became a dead
doctrine—buried and put away. Confidence took the
place of general mistrust. The British Government
stood out as the paramount power in India more
clearly than it had ever done before. ‘There is a
reality in the suzerainty of the sovereign of England,
wrote Lord Canning, ‘ which has never existed before,
and which is not only felt, but eagerly acknowledged,
by the Chiefs.’ Henceforth the Native States became
part and parcel of the British Empire, with whose
prosperity their interests were identified, and the
Queen became in fact the Empress of India.

Sir John Lawrence’s relation to this new policy was
twofold. It was from his province of the Punjab
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 137

that the proposal emanated to recognise adopted heirs ;
and it fell to him, almost in immediate succession to
Lord Canning, to give the first direction to the
principles which followed from the change, and which
have since gradually developed into an established
system of political law.

In his early public life Lawrence was an annexa-
tionist. He drank at the same fountain as Lord
Dalhousie and imbibed the principles of his great
master and friend. As Magistrate of Delhi he had
seen the worst side of a licentious Court, and the
rampant evils caused by a multitude of petty Native
Chiefships which the British Government preserved
from extinction, but abstained from guiding or con-
trolling. He had seen with satisfaction the little
Chiefs of the Cis-Sutlej States reduced to the position
of ordinary subjects. He had refused to re-establish
the principalities in Kangra, which the Sikhs had
destroyed. He had advocated the annexation of the
Punjab, and one of his first acts as Chief Commis-
sioner had been to deprive the Naw4b of Mamdot of
sovereign power, which he had abused, and to bring
his territory under British jurisdiction. He had seen
without a pang of regret the Kingdom of Oudh ab-
sorbed within the red line. ‘Anything short of it,’ he
wrote, ‘is a mistake. Will not all the people re-
joice, except the fiddlers, barbers, and that genus? I
wish I was thirty-five instead of forty-five, and had to
put it in order.’

But the Mutiny revealed to him, as it did to
138 = LORD LAWRENCE

Canning, the value of our Native allies, without whose
co-operation it is not too much to say that Delhi
could not have been recovered. Lawrence pressed for
an ample and generous reward to the Chiefs who had
stood by us, and he procured for them large additions
to their territories. But there was one reward dearer
to their heart than all. What advantage was an ac-
cession of territory if, after all, their States should
lapse in default of heirs? So the three Philkian
Chiefs!, in February 1858, put forth requests for
the recognition of adopted heirs. Sir John Lawrence
supported the prayer; but it was refused by the
Government of India. Under the influence and
advice of Lawrence, however, who was now in the
Secretary of State's Council, the Government in
England decided that the boon should be granted to
them as a special case. But long before Lord Can-
ning received these orders, he had discovered for him-
self that in the concession of the privilege of adoption
lay the solution of many political difficulties ; and he
had already announced his change of policy. He
conferred the right upon the Philkian Chiefs in open
Darbar, at Ambéla, on January 20th, 1860. On this
question Lawrence was prepared to go even further
than Lord Canning. One of his last acts as Viceroy
was to assure the Mahéraj4 of Kashmir that, should
heirs of his body fail him and no formal adoption

* The three Chiefs—Patidla, Jind, and Nabha—are so called
because of their descent from a common ancestor named Chaudri
Phil.
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS 139

have been made, his wishes in regard to the succession
of a collateral relation would be respected.

Loyalty to the Crown and fidelity to engagements
were the conditions on which Canning guaranteed
the perpetuity of the Native States. Good govern-
ment was the condition on which Lawrence main-
tained the ruling Chiefs in power. Kingdoms were
no longer annexed for misgovernment; but Chiefs
were deposed or visited with marks of displeasure.
Jhabua was fined and deprived of honours for a serious
abuse of power. Tonk was deposed and sent into
exile. On Chiefs who were given to evil ways Law-
rence would bring all his personal influence to bear
by kindly advice or solemn warning. ‘A Chief who
ranks so high,’ he said to’one, ‘should also take among
men a similar position for justice, for benevolence, and
for the excellence with which his affairs are managed.
It is my earnest desire that this should be the
ambition of Your Highness.’ But it was from the
education of the young Chiefs that he hoped for real
improvement. Every now and then long minorities
occur when the Native States are necessarily brought
under close supervision. Sir John Lawrence made
use of all such opportunities by requiring the regents
to associate the young Chief with them in the dis-
cussion of important matters and to train him to the
business of the State. He earnestly pressed Native
rulers to have their sons carefully trained. ‘I urge
you to instruct your sons, and even your daughters,’
he said to the Chiefs at Lahore, as he addressed them
140 LORD LAWRENCE

in their own language, which they were unaccustomed
to hear from Viceregal lips. And to the great Chiefs
of Réjputdéna and Central India, assembled at Agra,
he said, ‘The art of governing wisely and well is a
difficult one, which is only to be attained by much
thought and care and labour. .. . Of all fame that
great men can acquire, that alone is worth having
which is accorded to a just and beneficent ruler. The
names of conquerors and heroes are forgotten. But
those of virtuous and wise Chiefs live for ever.’

In all this there was nothing exactly new in
principle. It had long been admitted as a conse-
quence of our supremacy that we are bound in duty
to interfere in Native States to prevent gross oppres-
sion or injustice. The limits and conditions of that
interference had never been defined, but it was felt in
a general way that misgovernment in a Native State
upheld by British power was misgovernment for which
the British Government was to some extent responsible.
Space forbids more than a mere enumeration of some
of the seeds of political law that were sown in Law-
rence’s time. I have already noted the principle of
religious liberty established in the Rajgarh case.
Saté received its deathblow in Kotah. The practice
of burying lepers alive was stamped out in Sirohi
and Mérwér. Female infanticide was put down
among the Purihar Rajputs of Jigni. The last rem-
nants of slavery were eradicated in Kuch Behar.
Capital punishment for cow-killing was forbidden.
The British civil and criminal jurisdiction was secured
FRONTIER AND FEUDATORY AFFAIRS I41

on all main lines of railway running through Native
States,

The key to the understanding of our feudatory
relations is the principle, so luminously expounded
by Sir Henry Maine!, that the attributes of sove-
reignty over Native States are divided between the
Chiefs and the Crown in degrees which vary with each
State; and that the subjects of the Chiefs are subjects
also of the Queen to the extent to which she shares
the sovereignty. This principle was clearly formu-
lated with reference to the Rajés of Kaéthiéwér and
the Chiefs of the Central Provinces. On the same
principle the liability of the subjects of Feudatory
States to British consular jurisdiction abroad was
asserted, and the same consular protection was claimed
for them as for British subjects, inasmuch as they
are the subjects of powers that have no foreign rela-
tions, but are, in international concerns, represented
by the British Government and form in fact part of
the British Empire.

Since that time Indian political law has been
largely developed by treaty, by sufferance, by growing
usage, and by the reasonable construction of de facto
relations in actual cases which have from time to time
arisen. Vast improvement also has been made in the
administration of Native States, under the guidance
and control of the British Government. Those are
for the most part the best governed that have imitated
British methods without slavishly adopting British

1 Minutes dated March 22nd and May 11th, 1864.
142 LORD LAWRENCE

institutions. Personal rule is growing weaker, and
giving place to government by law. Codes of law
have been adopted, regular courts of justice have been
established, fixed assessments of the public burdens
have been introduced, schools and hospitals have been
opened, railways and canals have been constructed,
and, in short, the usual machinery of regular govern-
ment has been set at work. And though now and
again we may be startled by scandalous cases of
oppression and injustice, it is no longer possible for
any Native ruler to commit himself to a course of
crime, tyranny, and general misgovernment as in the
days of old.
CHAPTER IX
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS

ALTHOUGH Lawrence was fully alive to the political
advantage of maintaining Native States, and grate-
fully recognised all they had done for us, he always
adhered to the opinion he formed when he was a
District Officer as to the blessings conferred by British
rule on the people of India. He freely admitted that
it would be unreasonable to expect strong attachment
to a Government so alien as ours, from a people to
whom the miseries from which the country was de-
livered had become matter of ancient history. But
he held it to be unquestionable that the masses of the
population are more prosperous, and ought, if they
knew their own interests, to be happier in British
territory than under Native rule.

Other views had been expressed in the House of
Commons by high authority in the debate on the
restoration of Mysore to a Native ruler, and Sir John
Lawrence took the opportunity to have the question
discussed. The correspondence is interesting in so
far as it brings out points in which our Government
offends against the usages, or prejudices, or legitimate
144 LORD LAWRENCE

wishes of the people. It may be useful in so far as
it suggests measures, not inconsistent with our general
principles of administration, for making English rule
more popular. But in the main the discussion was
academic. For it is not to be seriously disputed that
in everything which affects the maintenance of peace,
the security of life and property, the administration
of humane laws, the fixing and equalising of taxation,
the prevention of disease, the relief of suffering, re-
ligious and political freedom, education, the extension
of cultivation, the development of the country by
roads and railways and canals, the promotion of com-
merce—everything, in short, that contributes to the
security, the comfort, and the convenience of life—the
British Government has conferred blessings on the
people of India such as never entered into the mind
of Hindu Kings or Muhammadan Emperors in the
most palmy days of their power. Unless, indeed, we
honestly believe this, we have no vocation in India
and had better retire to our ships.

What the masses of India above all things desire
is—to be let alone. So long as they are treated with
justice and sympathy they care not by whom they
are governed. As a matter of fact, the Mughals were
as foreign in race, in religion, and in manners as our-
selves. But it is the misfortune of the mission of
England that it cannot leave the people of India
alone. ‘In doing the best we can for the people, said
Sir John Lawrence, ‘ we are bound by our conscience,
and not by theirs. ‘We aim at being just and
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 145

strong, as Edwardes wrote, ‘and is there any such
frightful bore in the whole world as your Aristides 2’
To be popular is not always within the reach of those
who deserve it. But it is possible to ensure a general
contentment; and to make the people content, so far
as he could do so without sacrificing the higher ends
of English rule, was the aim which Lawrence put
before himself in all his measures.

A prosperous and contented peasantry he considered
to be a more solid foundation of our power than a
landed aristocracy. This principle underlay all the
differences with his brother Henry in the early Punjab
days. Largé grants of land or money to the Native
gentry seemed to him to be so much taken from the
people, with no corresponding advantage to the Govern-
ment. ‘I cannot see the political value,’ he said, ‘ of
such allies as Tej Singh, Dina Nath, and others; but
it seems to me that we have been even munificent to
them. I do not think that in the event of a dis-
turbance any of them would act against us, or, indeed,
would have any inducement to do so; and moreover,
if they did, they would do us no harm.’ Perhaps the
clash of dispute with his brother led to expression of
extreme views. For his biographer notes that, when
Sir John became Chief Commissioner and had the
undivided responsibility on his shoulders, his policy
began so to gravitate towards that of Henry as to
draw down a rebuke from Lord Dalhousie, ‘ who
appealed from the John Lawrence of the present to
the John Lawrence of former days.’ This question,

K
146 LORD LAWRENCE

like so many others, was reduced to its true propor-
tions by the Mutiny. In the Punjab the great nobles
have assumed the position of Honorary Magistrates
and Revenue Officers; and recently, on the recom-
mendation of the present writer, a concession has
been made, similar to that granted to Ruling Chiefs,
which admits of the transmission of their privileges
to adopted heirs, in the case of those who distinguish
themselves by loyalty and good service.

But the question of a landed aristocracy in the
Punjab was of little importance compared with that
of tenant-right, with which Sir John Lawrence had to
deal. The Punjab is a country of peasant-proprietors,
not of feudal barons. Out of about twenty-five
millions of acres of land, about three millions are tilled
by occupancy-tenants, six millions by tenants-at-will,
and all the rest by the proprietary communities. In the
Sikh times property in the land was never regarded.
The matter was one of revenue. Proprietors were
ousted by the Government and new men put in accord-
ing as they could or could not pay the land-tax. Land
was of no value. Often it was a burden, involving
responsibilities to the State with no corresponding pro-
tection. Competition was not for lands to cultivate, but
for tenants to cultivate them. Hence it came to pass
that difficulties between landlord and tenant never
arose; many landlords were glad to get their fields cul-
tivated for no rent at all so long as the revenue was
paid ; as a matter of fact, tenants were seldom evicted
by the landlord; and when the Punjab was annexed
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 147

the tenants were found to have held for generations a
strong position hardly inferior to that of the pro-
prietors. Those who had cultivated their holdings for
twelve years before annexation were therefore recorded
as occupancy-tenants. Landowners raised no objec-
tions ; they rather welcomed the arrangement.
Fifteen years later the revenue-settlements fell in,
and had to be revised and renewed. Meanwhile the
limitation of the Jand-tax, and the peace and security
established by British rule, had given an enormous
value to what was before worthless. Landowners
became eager to claim rights which once they had
been careless about. At the same time, some of the
Officers entrusted with the revision of the revenue-
settlement had imbibed extreme views of ownership
and were disinclined to recognise a double right in the
soil. In endeavouring to remedy mistakes which may
have been made, they fell into an opposite error and
disturbed beneficial interests which had been enjoyed
for more than a quarter of a century. In one division
of the province, out of 46,000 heads of agricultural
households who had been recorded as occupancy-
tenants, more than three-fourths were, by a stroke of
the pen, reduced to the position of tenants-at-will,
liable to eviction and rack-rent. This was really an
agrarian revolution, destroying interests in land which,
as Sir Henry Maine observed, had been ‘enjoyed by
thousands of persons for a period very little, if at all,
short of the time which in England would ripen those
interests into vested rights, even though acquired
K 2
148 LORD LAWRENCE

originally by naked wrong. Sir Donald Macleod,
who was then Lieutenant-Governor, declared the state
of things thus brought about to be ‘rapidly under-
mining all good feeling between the most important
classes of the agricultural population.’

The attitude which Sir John Lawrence took up was
very simple and very just. The property in dispute
was entirely the creation of the British Government.
The Government had sacrificed revenue in reducing
the assessment of the land: it had thus created a rent
where none previously existed. The Government
maintained law and order: it had thus given a great
value to what before was valueless. The proper way
to settle the difficulty was to deal with each interest
in a fair and liberal spirit, and so to apportion the
property we had created as to give to the proprietor
a large share and at the same time leave to the culti-
vator a sufficient reward for his labour. Thanks to
his love of justice and strong practical common sense,
the Punjab Tenancy Act, which was framed by his
Government, solved the question with singular fair-
ness, defining the circumstances under which occu-
pancy rights were to be recognised, and granting
compensation for unexhausted improvements in cases
of eviction. The immediate effect of the Act in five
Districts of the Punjab was to restore 63,000 persons
to the position of occupancy-tenants who had been
summarily reduced to the position of tenants-at-will.
Writing fourteen years afterwards, the Lieutenant-
Governor (Sir Robert Egerton) said, ‘Regarded by some
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 149

at the time as a confiscation of proprietary right, it has
been found defective only in the comprehensiveness of
its provisions for maintaining the status of the tenants,
while in the greater part of the province it is the
bulwark and charter of a contented peasantry.’

In Oudh there was a violent storm over the same
question of tenant-right under circumstances almost
the reverse of those in the Punjab. No measures
undertaken by Sir John Lawrence called forth so
much ignorant and hostile criticism as the protection
he gave to subordinate land-tenures in Oudh. Some
said he was trying to upset the policy by which Lord
Canning had pacified the country ; others that he was
deliberately sowing discord between landlord and
tenant. He was accused of breaking faith’ with the
great landowners and of bringing unfair pressure to
bear upon the nobles of the province to make them
give in to his views. The cry was taken up in
England. The authority of the Secretary of State
was invoked. But Lawrence faced the storm without
flinching. ‘One of the main causes of the excitement
in this matter,’ he wrote to his friend Captain East-
wick, ‘is that several Englishmen have obtained
estates in Oudh. The question also bears on the pre-
sent struggle in Bengal; and so nearly all the Press,
as representing the Native landholders on the one side
and the English planter on the other, are arrayed
against me. But this is no reason why I should not
stand to my guns, and do what I believe to be fair
and just!’ And to Sir Charles Wood: ‘What could
150 LORD LAWRENCE

make me take the course I have done in favour of
the Ryots of Oudh but a strong sense of duty? .. . Of
my own free will I will not move, knowing as I do
that I am right in the course which has been adopted.
Did ever any one hear of the Government of India
learning that a class of men were not having fair
play at the time of settlement, and then failing to
interfere or to issue such orders as the case appeared
to demand ?’

What happened was briefly this: Oudh is a country,
not of peasant proprietors like the Punjab, but of
feudal barons, known by the name of Talukdars;
they are two hundred and seventy-two in number,
and at the time of the annexation of Oudh, in
February 1856, they had possession of two-thirds of
the province. Under the system of revenue-adminis-
tration that was introduced the rights and position
of these barons were ignored. No one now doubts
that gross injustice was done to them. With few
exceptions they went against us in the Mutiny, and
the peasantry followed them en masse. In due time
there came a great reactionary policy. The pendulum
of prejudice swung as far in favour of the Télukdars
as it had formerly swung against them. Lord
Canning’s famous Proclamation confiscating the pro-
prietary-right in the soil of Oudh, which was issued
on the fall of Lucknow, in March 1858, had three
objects in view. It was not intended to be a per-
manent deprivation of rights, but to punish those
who persisted in rebellion after life and honour had
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 151

been guaranteed ; to provide the means of rewarding
those who should promptly submit; and to enable
Government to attach such conditions to the grants
as would remedy the injustice previously done and
secure the fealty and good service of the grantees.
And the Proclamation was so skilfully used by Sir
Robert Montgomery, then Chief Commissioner of
Oudh, that within a few months two-thirds of the
rebel nobles had tendered their allegiance, and re-
ceived back their estates. A permanent hereditary
and transferable proprietary-right in their estates
was thereupon conferred on them. ‘This right is,
however, conceded,’ their title-deeds went on to say,
‘subject to any measure which the Government may
think proper to take for the purpose of protecting
the inferior Zaminddrs and village occupants from
extortion and of upholding their rights in the soil
in subordination to the Télukdars.’

In carrying out this policy no enquiry into existing

rights was made. The local authorities assumed that
rights were to be recognised precisely as they stood
at the date of annexation, and that subordinate pro-
.prietors who had previously lost their possessions
could not recover them. They further assumed that
all beneficial interests had been destroyed in the
anarchy preceding annexation and that no distinction
between privileged tenants and tenants-at-will was
to be made.

This omission to enquire into facts appeared to
Lawrence preeminently unjust. He held that every
152 LORD LAWRENCE

man was entitled to a fair hearing. He maintained
that, while the nobility as a body were an ancient
aristocracy, who had held their estates for many
generations, others were creatures of a day, who had
sprung up during the gross misrule preceding annexa-
tion. It was, therefore, only the barest justice to
give a reasonable period of limitation for the recovery
of rights lost in the time of anarchy. Fortunately,
the Télukddérs were a reasonable body of men. A
compromise was soon effected, through the instru-
mentality of Sir John Strachey, the Chief Commis-
sioner, the result of which was that sub-proprietors
who had lost their rights within twelve years pre-
ceding annexation were reinstated, and persons who
within thirty years had fallen from the position of
proprietor to tenant obtained the position of tenant
with right of occupancy, holding at privileged rents.
By this means about one-fifth of the cultivators of
the soil in Oudh received rights of occupancy in the
lands they tilled.

So far from being an interference with Lord Can-
ning’s policy, this measure was the complement of it,
giving effect to the condition which he had inserted.
in the deeds. It was effected with the full consent
and approval of the nobles, and it adjusted the
interests of three parties in the soil—the nobles,
the under-proprietors, and the tenants. But for the
courage of Lawrence and his love of justice, the under-
proprietors would have been sacrificed and the whole
body of the cultivators of Oudh would have been left
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 153

to competition-rents, whereby agrarian troubles would
have been sharply intensified. ‘When the vast im-
portance of the interests concerned is considered,’ said
Sir William Mansfield! (Lord Sandhurst), from his
place in Council, when the Oudh Rent Bill was dis-
cussed, ‘it was not too much to say that the passage
of this law would be deemed hereafter a bright illus-
tration of the history of the Viceregal reign, and that
it would throw into the shade feats of government
and policy which the public at present might consider
more brilliant.’

I would gladly avoid the details of these questions.
They are dry and repellent. But notice of them
cannot be omitted if we would know the fundamental
principles of Lawrence’s administration. ‘ His ideal,’
says Cust, ‘which I have often heard from his lips,
of a country thickly cultivated by a fat, contented
yeomanry, each riding his own horse, sitting under
his own fig-tree, and enjoying his rude family com-
forts, may not have been the ideal of a State in’ the
nineteenth century politically free; but for a people
whose destiny it has been for centuries to be con-
quered, domestic comforts and the enjoyment of their
own customs, their own religion and their own lan-
guage, soften the sting of foreign domination.’ In
such a prosperous peasantry too he saw the sustain-
ing power of the country in seasons of drought and
famine like that which has again and again fallen
upon Districts of India. Lawrence’s sympathies with

1 Speech on Oudh Rent Bill, July 22nd, 1868.
154 LORD LAWRENCE

this class were strong. He was the first to secure to
tenants the right to improve their property by the
reclamation of waste-lands, by drainage, and by the
construction of works for the supply and storage of
water and the like. In Oudh, the North-Western
Provinces, and the Punjab, he removed some iniquitous
laws which made the property of tenants who im-
proved their holdings liable to confiscation at the
will of the landlord, and he secured to evicted tenants
fair compensation for unexhausted improvements.

It was always a matter of deep regret to Sir John
Lawrence that tenants in Bengal had been left, for
nearly three-quarters of a century, without the pro-
tection which Lord Cornwallis had promised them
when the Permanent Settlement was introduced, in
1793. Itis well known that in Bengal, as elsewhere
in India, the cultivators had beneficial rights in the
soil. These rights were no doubt indefinite, having
been greatly encroached upon during the Muham-
madan rule. But they were none the less real and
dearly prized. Local enquiry at the time would have
defined and adjusted them. But no enquiry was made.
The Government contented itself with reserving, in
the Proclamation of the Permanent Settlement, a
general right of interference for the protection of
subordinate tenures. Again and again this right to
protection was affirmed. But until 1859 no Act was
passed to give effect to it. The law remained entirely
one-sided. As a consequence, the rights of the culti-
vators which were undefined and unrecorded went
AGRARIAN AFFAIRS 155

down before those which the law distinctly recognised.
No doubt the disintegration of the rights of the
children of the soil was a very gradual process. At
first population was sparse; waste-land was abundant;
and it was long before agrarian questions became
acute. But if the mills ground slowly they ground
exceeding small. New relations of custom and con-
tract sprang up. Property changed hands. Tenures
became subdivided and complicated. The people
grew and multiplied and pressed more and more upon
the land. Every year’s delay increased the difficulty
of the problem.

In 1859 an honest attempt was made to grapple
with the question and to define the classes that
needed protection and the nature of their rights.
But the result was not fortunate. The Act which was
passed gave to many cultivators a privileged status,
but it gave no protection to customary rights, and
overlooked many important local tenures. In fact it
was passed without sufficient enquiry, and it intro-
duced disturbances more often than it quieted them.
When Sir John Lawrence became Viceroy the question
was a burning one, exciting evil passions on both sides.
‘These things,’ he wrote, ‘are never out of my mind,
night or day; but how to reconcile people to what is
wise and politic and good for both—there is the rub.
I fear that the Ryots will never have fair play. There
are too many and too strong interests against them.
There will be much abuse heaped on our heads; but
this we can bear.’
156 LORD LAWRENCE

It was not a matter to be dealt with hurriedly.
Full enquiry was what was needed; and Sir John
Lawrence pressed the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal
to take the matter up and ascertain by careful in-
vestigation the real bearings of the question on all
interests in the land. It did not fall to him to see
the final issue in the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885.
Long years of patient enquiry were needed. But
Lawrence set the stone rolling. It was he who
originated the enquiries which had their consumma-
tion in this much-needed and long-deferred measure.
CHAPTER X
FamInE—Pvusiic WorKsS—FINANCE

In the second year of his Viceroyalty the Lower
Provinces of Bengal were overtaken by a calamity
which in magnitude had not been seen for nearly a
century. The rainfall of the year 1865 had been
generally capricious, irregular, and scanty, and ceased
altogether in the middle of September. Consequently
there was a failure of the rice crop, which ripens in
December. This is the most important crop of the
year, furnishing the food of the people and regu-
lating the prices of the market. Over many Districts
scarcity extended, deepening in some into great suffer-
ing and mortality, and in Orissa into intense famine.
Symptoms of the coming distress showed themselves
at an early date. The excise revenue, which is said.
to be an index of the prosperity of the people, began
to fall off largely.

Before September was out the price of rice in some
parts of Orissa was at famine rates; and by the end
of October the whole country was in panic. The
markets were closed ; the rice trade stopped ; the land-
less and labouring classes were reduced to extreme
158 LORD LAWRENCE

destitution. From January onward the famine deep-
ened in intensity. Prices went up and up, and by
June the state of things was appalling. The ordinary
price of the rice used for food is less than a farthing
and a half per pound. Where it could be bought at
allit went up to 2d., 23d., 33d. in the chief towns ; and
in the interior of Districts to 11d. a pound. For five
months prices in the best-supplied markets ranged
from five to ten times, and in the Districts at about
thirty-five times, the ordinary rates! In many places
rice could not be purchased at all, and money was
useless. In the three Districts of Orissa the daily
average number of persons receiving charitable relief
from June to November was 52,686, two-thirds of
whom received it gratuitously and the rest in return
for light labour. Many died when they received
the food, which their exhausted powers could not
assimilate.

It was long hoped that the prices ranging in Orissa
would attract supplies from outside and bring out
the stocks that might be stored in the country. But
there were no stocks in Bengal to meet a tithe of the
demand, and nothing came in from outside markets.
Hitherto Orissa had been a rice-exporting country.
The rice stocks had been depleted by the export
of nearly 55,000 tons in the two previous years.
Orissa consists of two parts—ranges of hills running
back into the plateau of the Central Provinces, and
the alluvial country between these mountains and
the sea. The hill tract is broken up into Tributary
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 159

States, under Native Chiefs; the plains are ordinary
British territory, the creation of the ‘land-making’
rivers so graphically described in Hunter's Orissa.
From the West by the rivers no aid was to be hoped
for ; they traversed a country where scarcity prevailed.
Eastward the coast is inhospitable, exposed as the
season advances to the full force of the monsoon.
Native craft cannot live in such seas, and the coasting
trade ceases in March. From North and South the
traffic was carried by road over unbridged rivers,
‘slowly and tediously, as ancient Officers may have
travelled in the days of Asoka.’ Scarcity reigned in
the Districts round, and prices prevailed which made
it unprofitable to penetrate through to Orissa. A bag
or two came down the Mahdnadi from Sambalpur.
Otherwise not a sack of grain was attracted. In
short, as the Famine Commissioners afterwards de-
scribed the situation, ‘the people, shut up in a
narrow province between pathless jungles and an
impracticable sea, were in the condition of passengers
in a ship without provisions.’

Relief works were established at an early date, and
Local Committees were formed for the distribution of
charity. In January Sir John Lawrence made a grant
of £50,000 for works ; and afterwards of £60,000 more,
the balance of a former famine fund, for charitable
distribution. But the works very soon came to a
standstill. Wages were paid in money and not in
food; and money had no purchasing power, for rice
could not be had. In the District of Puri, which
160 LORD LAWRENCE

suffered most, only £2500 of the grant for works had
been spent up to the end of May. Slowly the con-
viction forced itself on the authorities that not money
was wanted, but food, which must be thrown into the
country by the Government. The Government of
India advanced to Bengal £200,000 for the purchase
of rice, and promised unlimited funds. The import
by steamship was vigorously taken up. But by this
time the monsoon had burst on the coast. Landing
the rice was a difficult and dangerous operation. The
country boats often ‘struggled for days against wind
and current before reaching the landing-place, and
not unfrequently went to the bottom.’ In the open
road-stead of Puri it took seven weeks to unload one
steamer! Altogether it is estimated that, allowing
for short weight and losses, only 8750 tons were im-
ported up to the end of October. ‘Every maund of
rice landed from June to October saved a life, whether
it was sold, given away, or stolen.’ That is to say,
some 245,000 souls were rescued from death.

As if to crush out of the wretched people the last pulse
of hope, the rivers opened their sluices in September,
overwhelming a thousand square miles of country,
submerging the homesteads of a million and a quarter
of people, and drowning the new crops to a depth of
from three to fifteen feet for more than thirty days.
Sir Wiliam Hunter has drawn a picture of the bene-
ficent and malignant working of these rivers, in his
chapter on The Calamities of Orissa, which no pencil

» Famine Report, par. 288.
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 161

can surpass. Drought may come once in a century
or so, but devastation is every year impending from
the rage of rivers, whose beds are hoisted by silt above
the level of the country and whose channels afford
an outlet for only half the volume of water they
receive. From the calamities of 1866 it is estimated
that one-fourth of the population of the alluvial
Districts perished.

Such an awful calamity touched the heart of the
English people; but it brought no help from England.
Distress at home absorbed the public attention. The
public of India, however, headed by the Viceroy, rose
to the occasion. The Calcutta Committee disbursed
£60,000 in relief. Sir John Lawrence was not back-
ward. His recollection of the famines in his early
service, when he was a District Officer, filled him with
apprehension. He has been blamed for want of vigour
in not pressing the Bengal Government to more active
measures. Nothing could be more unjust. He sent
the Lieutenant-Governor to Orissa to see things with
his own eyes. Personally he was in favour of the
importation of rice from the first, and urged it as
early as November 1865. But his opinion was not
shared by his Council? and was therefore not acted
upon. The Lieutenant-Governor also states? that ‘ His
Excellency the Viceroy consulted me personally as to
the proposal to import rice into Bengal and Orissa,

1 Secretary of State's Despatch, Public, No. 99, dated July 25, 1867,
para. 7.
2 Blue Book, May 31, 1867, p. 143, note.
L
162 LORD LAWRENCE

both at the time at which it was made and afterwards
when I returned from Cuttack in February. His
Excellency was strongly inclined to act upon the
proposal, but yielded to my opinion and that of others
that it was not expedient or necessary. Had Law-
rence’s proposals been adopted, many lives would have
been saved.

The first lesson taught by the famine was the
necessity of adopting effective measures for the irri-
gation of the province of Orissa, the control of its
rivers, and the improvement of communications both
by sea and land. But a powerful stimulus was also
given to schemes of irrigation all over India for the
increase of the food supply, and to railways and roads
for its distribution. For twenty years Sir John
Lawrence had been a constant and strenuous advocate
of irrigation works. During his rule in the Punjab
£880,000 had been spent on canals. He found the
question of irrigation works before the Government
when he came out as Viceroy. He took it up warmly
at once and used all his influence, publicly and
privately, to press its importance. Water in India,
as Samuel Laing said, ‘is more than gold; it is
life.’ Irrigation works had been starved. Progress
had been delayed by two causes. Barracks for the
European troops swallowed up available resources ;
and great works of irrigation could only be under-
taken on well-considered plans which took much time
to prepare.

Sir John Lawrence grappled with both difficulties.
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 163

He proposed, and the Secretary of State consented,
that when the surplus revenues are insufficient to
meet the requirements of the country in reproductive
works, the money shall be raised by loan and the
interest only charged to the expenditure of the year.
He also created a Department of Irrigation, with
Colonel Richard Strachey as its Superintendent, to
mature plans and projects, and engaged a large staff
of civil engineers from England to carry them out.
Lawrence held that it was better for the people and
the public interests that such works should be con-
structed by the State than by private companies.
‘I am strongly for the first course,’ he wrote, ‘but I
am content to accept the latter rather than have no
canals.’ When the Orissa irrigation project got into
difficulties in the hands of a private company, he
bought it up. New projects were prosecuted through
State agency. In the last two years of his Vice-
royalty £1,500,000 were borrowed for reproductive
works, and about £1,250,000 of it were spent on great
works of irrigation. Schemes were projected, under
the advice of Colonel Richard Strachey, which were
estimated to cost £30,000,000 within the next ten
years.

All through his term of office Sir John Lawrence
had to struggle with the weight of financial difficulties.
He assumed the Viceroyalty in the middle of a money
famine. Money was everywhere scarce and dear, and
the country was passing through a great commercial
crisis. The American War had thrown upon India

L2
164 LORD LAWRENCE

the whole demand of Europe for cotton. Prices went
up with startling rapidity. In 1860 the price of
cotton was about £44 a ton; in 1863 it was double;
in 1864 it stood at £189 a ton. In four years the
price had more than quadrupled. Enormous fortunes
were made and the peasantry in the cotton-growing
Districts grew rich. At the large ports wages almost
reached European rates. Bank interest at one time
touched 15 per cent. Government securities fell. As
there were few legitimate means for the investment of
the accumulating wealth, speculation was stimulated
in the wildest and most reckless way. ‘Companies
were started for every imaginable purpose—banks
and financial associations, land reclamation, trading,
cotton cleaning, pressing and spinning companies,
coffee companies, shipping and steamer companies,
hotel companies, livery stables and veterinary com-
panies, and companies for making bricks and tiles.
The shares of most of these companies were sold at
high premia as soon as they were brought into the
market!’ Shares in the Back Bay Company in
Bombay, on which only £500 had been paid up,
fetched at public auction the enormous sum of £2,650!

The effect of this wild speculation was most felt in
Bombay. But it extended to Calcutta, and in some
degree all over India. Persons with small fixed
incomes found it difficult to live; some were brought
almost to starvation. The salaries of subordinate
establishments had to be raised all over the country.

1 Report of Commissioners on Failure of Bank of Bombay, p. 2.
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 165

With the prospect of the close of the War came the
inevitable reaction. Cotton went suddenly down for
a time to about £56 a ton. Commercial houses and
banks fell together like packs of cards. One Parsi firm
failed for three millions sterling, another for two, and
soon. The Bank of Bombay, which had committed
itself to a reckless system of unsecured advances,
went into voluntary liquidation notwithstanding
the grant of Government support, having dissipated
£1,890,000 out of a total capital of £2,090,000! Com-
mercial confidence was gone. Shares were unsaleable.
Government securities became as inflated as they had
been depressed, and were for a time the principal
means of mercantile remittances. The commercial
cyclone however cleared the atmosphere, and things
gradually recovered, going up in Bombay with a leap
almost as suddenly as they went down, and then
settling into steady and sound development. No
ordinary statecraft was needed to steer the ship
safely through the storm. If Sir John Lawrence
had been furnished at the proper time with the in-
formation he called for as to the state of affairs in
the Bank of Bombay, the severity of the collapse to
the public might perhaps have been mitigated.
Added to all this commercial dislocation, there
was a strong demand for improved administration.
At best the Native Police and Judicial Services, the
subordinates in the Customs, Post Office and other
Departments, were much underpaid. Their salaries
had to be increased ; the pay of the Covenanted Civil
166 LORD LAWRENCE

Service in the old Non-Regulation provinces had to
be equalised with that elsewhere; the expenditure
on Forests was more than doubled; the grant for Edu-
cation was doubled ; the cost of the Medical Services
was nearly trebled by the increase of pay and the
creation of a Department of Sanitation. The total
expenditure went up during Lawrence’s Viceroyalty
from forty-five and three quarters to fifty-four and a
half millions sterling. It was absolutely necessary
also to house the European army properly. The
lives of the men depended on it. The barrack ac-
commodation, provided with the best scientific and
sanitary appliances of the day for the health, comfort,
and recreation of the men, was estimated to cost ten
millions sterling to be spread over five years; and it
was decided to pay the whole out of revenue. The
expenditure began in 1864, and up to 1869 only 4
millions were spent, leaving 5} millions for future
years. The army was reduced from 70,000 Europeans
and 127,000 Natives in 1864 to 62,000 Europeans and
122,000 Natives in 1869. But nearly the whole saving
was swallowed up in the increased cost of rationing
the soldiers, and in measures for the promotion of
the health and efficiency of the troops, so that the
actual expenditure on the army in India stood at
£12,990,000 at the close of Lawrence’s term of office
as compared with £13,182,000 when it began. Two
little wars were also provided for out of revenue as
well as a large share of the cost of famine relief,
more than a million for transport vessels, and nearly
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 167

half a million for the site of the India Office in
London. .

Need it be wondered at, that, with one exception,
the years of Sir John Lawrence’s Viceroyalty were
years of deficit’ to the amount of nearly 3% millions.
Had the barracks been treated as Public Works Ex-
traordinary and paid for by loan instead of from
revenue, aS some experts argued they should have
been, and as is being done with barracks in England
at the present day, there would have been a surplus
of a million on the five years. As matters stood,
there was a deficit of 32 millions, and the effect was that
the barracks came to be paid to that extent from
borrowed money and only one million from revenue.
The clear financial principle however established in
Lawrence’s reign was the provision for reproductive
works by loan, thereby affording the means so ur-
gently needed for the development of the country and
its protection against calamities of season. In the

1 The actual figures are :—

 

 

Year. Finance Minister. Surplus. Deficit.
£ £-
1864-5 Sir Charles Trevelyan _— 193,520 |

1865-6 Sir Charles Trevelyan 2,800,491 —_

 

 

 

 

1866-7 Mr. W. N. Massey 2,517,491 |
1867-8 Mr. W. N. Massey _ 1,610,157
1868-9 Sir Richard Temple _ 44144,643

5 Years ; "2,800,491 8,465,811
Actual Deficit. 2. 2. 2. 2. 6 ee ew © + «| 65,665,320
Public Works Extraordinary ...... . 1,973,075,

 

 

 

 

“Net Deficit. . ....- +e tote ns 3,692,245

4

 
168 LORD LAWRENCE

last three years of his office nearly three millions
sterling were spent on large irrigation works.

Next in importance to canals came the develop-
ment of railways and the completion of the trunk
lines projected by Lord Dalhousie. India can always
grow more than sufficient food for its population.
In famine time the question is its distribution.
Surplus food is of no use if it cannot be carried to
markets of demand. Railways and good country
roads are perhaps even of more value in general
famine than canals. They create in ordinary times
an interchange of commodities and a coming and
going of traffic which responds to the slightest call.
In devising his railway projects, as in working out
the scheme of canals, Lawrence had the benefit of the
services of Colonel Richard Strachey. But these
schemes were framed at the close of his Viceroyalty
and were left to Lord Mayo to carry out. In Sir
John Lawrence’s time, however, £26,000,000 were
spent on railways, the capital for construction rising
from £55,000,000 to £81,000,000. Notwithstanding
this, so rapid was the development of traffic that
the net amount of interest on the capital (i.e. after
deducting traffic receipts less working expenses),
which was £1,700,000 in 1863-4, was only £1,203,000
in 1868. In the interval traffic earnings rose from
£1,720,900 to £4,87 5,000.

It is to our English financiers we owe the system
of decentralisation which has worked beneficial
changes in Indian administration, and it was in
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE i69

Lawrence’s time that the’ scheme was first effectively
discussed. Under the East India Company the
financial relations between the Supreme and Local
Governments were very much those of a merchant
to his clerk. Everything was dependent on Calcutta,
and there was no principle on which the assignments
of money to subordinate Governments were regulated.
Local Governments tried to get all they could, and,
as is usual, the most clamorous, not necessarily the
most necessitous or the most deserving, often got the
biggest share. Those who had grown up under the
system did not feel its inconvenience much ; but the
detail and the pitch-and-toss way of doing things
were intolerable to administrators from England
educated in the ways of self-government. Samuel
Laing complained that the time of the Government
of India, which should have been devoted to large
and important matters, was frittered away in doing
business which an experienced secretary would pro-
bably do better. Sir Henry Maine stigmatised it as
‘parish vestry business, and feared an inevitable
collapse unless the strain were lightened. Lord
Canning, by the creation of Provincial Legislatures,
had given in one department of business the clue
to the direction in which reform was to be looked
for; and his Finance Minister, Mr. Laing, proposed
to apply a similar remedy to the finances. He
made a bold attempt to break through what he
called ‘the system of barren uniformity and pedantic
centralisation which have tended in times past to
170 LORD LAWRENCE

reduce all India to dependence on the bureaus of
Calcutta, and to give to Local Governments the
power and the responsibility of managing their own
local affairs.

His scheme was to transfer from imperial to pro-
vincial budgets charges amounting to £500,000 with
power to raise the amount by local taxation. But
the plan fell through, because it was not thought fair
to anticipate the action of the Local Legislatures
which were then being established, in a matter so
peculiarly within their province. SirCharles Trevelyan
approved of the principle, but took no active steps to
deal with it as a whole. The scheme, however, was
revived by Mr. Massey. He proposed to transfer to
local account charges amounting in all to £1,200,000,
to be raised by local taxation. Local Governments
would gladly have accepted the charges had they
been provided with the means of meeting them, but
took fright at the taxation. So the scheme was
modified to the transfer of charges together with
assignments of revenue sufficient to meet them on the
existing scale of expenditure, any future increase of
outlay under the assigned heads being met from the
growth of local revenue or economy under some other
local head of charge. General Richard Strachey was
employed to work out the details on the figures of
Mr. Massey’s budget; and the scheme, which was
favourably viewed by the Local Governments, be-
came the basis of the measures afterwards adopted
by Lord Mayo.
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 171

Personally Sir John Lawrence was not much
inclined to the plan. He believed that financial
control could be made effective by simpler measures.
He did not like to interfere with arrangements which
had been introduced by Mr. James Wilson only a few
years before. And he was afraid that the relaxation
of centralised control would end in extravagance,
waste of resources, and ultimate taxation, of which he ~
had a sincere horror. But he allowed the scheme
to be fully worked out, and it was one of the
important matters of business which he advised Lord
Mayo to carefully study before he left for India. This
excellent measure, which Lord Mayo worked out, re-
volutionised the financial administration. But as first
introduced it had many defects. The assignments
were based upon actual expenditure at the time; so
that the Governments that had been most extravagant,
and therefore presumably not most deserving, got
most benefit. The heads assigned—jails, police,
printing, roads, and so forth—were spending-heads,
and only to a very limited extent revenue-producing ;
so that material improvement in income was hardly
to be expected, even with careful management.
Provinces that had long been under British rule and
had got their wants fairly supplied out of the general
revenues were well off; backward and new provinces,
poorly provided with public buildings, jails, colleges
and hospitals, found themselves in difficulties. Some
got more than they could profitably spend; while
others were hampered in their progress.
17% LORD LAWRENCE

It was in a few years found necessary, in place
of a fixed grant, to give a fixed share in the land-
revenue and other expanding sources of income.
With the adoption of this principle all the provinces
at once entered on a career of progress and rapid
development. The provincial resources at the dis-
posal of Local Governments in the year 1889-90
amounted to the large sum of £19,500,000. While
decentralisation has led to development of revenues
and economy in expenditure on the part of Local
Governments, it has not been without effect in
checking imperial extravagance. The Government
of India has to be sure of its ground before laying
its hand upon the provincial revenues or balances.
‘I can quite conceive, said Sir Henry Maine},
‘a campaign on the Oxus or the Jaxartes being
undertaken with less precipitation, if the Supreme
Government had lost the power of summarily
stopping all public works throughout India, and
could only pay for military glory by borrowing or
taxation!’ One of the greatest advantages, however,
is that it has put an end to the craze for pedantic
uniformity of administration, and led to that variety
of expedient which is essential to the proper govern-
ment of a country so large as India, with diversities
of climate, conditions and possibilities, and with
a population in every stage of advancement from
that of almost naked savages to. a culture not sur-
passed in any of the cities of Europe.

* Minute dated September 13, 1867.
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 173

Another of the problems with which Sir John
Lawrence had to deal was the commencement of that
fluctuation in the ratio of the value of gold to silver
which has played such havoc in the exchange be-
tween India and countries possessing a gold currency.
The difficulty began to be felt in the cotton specula-
tions. The desire for a gold currency, however, had
previously manifested itself among the English
merchants. As a tentative step towards the adoption
of a gold standard, the Government decided to receive
and issue sovereigns at the rate of ten rupees and to
accept them in the Currency Office to the extent
of one-fourth of the notes represented by coin and
bullion. In this way it was hoped that the demand
in the country for a gold currency would be tested.
But the sovereigns were not made a legal tender, and
the experiment was doomed to failure. Gold began to
rise in value as measured by silver in the ordinary
market, and the treasury price had to be raised. But this
had no effect. Obviously, as the Currency Commission
reported in 1866, it was necessary either to give the
experiment up altogether or to do a great deal more.
Either some means would have to be devised to fix
the ratio of gold to silver, or silver coins would have
to be reduced to tokens for the payment of small
sums and silver demonetised in favour of a gold
currency.

Whatever opinions may be held as to the practica-
bility of a double standard, it is certain that the two
metals cannot run together as coinage at fluctuating
174 LORD LAWRENCE

values ; and that India could not by herself stereotype
in silver the value of gold. If it be possible to fix
a ratio of value between the precious metals, such a
measure can only be effected by a common under-
standing among the principal countries of the world ;
but from that condition we seem to be almost as far
off now as then. On the other hand to demonetise
silver in India was at that time impossible. Sufficient
gold did not exist in the country. The disturbance
to the revenue settlements and to obligations con-
tracted in silver was deemed prohibitive. Gold was
accordingly left to rise and fall in relation to silver
like any other commodity; and the experiment failed.
But it was a courageous attempt to grapple with a
difficult problem, and to feel the way towards
a solution of what has grown to be the largest
financial question with which India has to deal.

This is not the place to discuss the problem
whether, upon the whole, India has lost or gained by
her fidelity to silver as her standard of value. The
change in the gold value of silver from the long
customary par of 60d. the oz. or four ounces to the
pound sterling, to 4od. an oz. or six ounces to the
pound sterling, increases the burden of the fixed gold
charges of India from 140 to 210 millions of rupees—
i.e. by 70 millions of rupees, equal to £4,500,000—a
phenomenon which necessarily produces constant
financial anxiety. Nor can we predict the exact
point at which the further depreciation of silver will
be arrested. Nevertheless, India has not sunk under
FAMINE—PUBLIC WORKS—FINANCE 175

the burden; indeed she has never been more prosperous
financially than now; so that there may be com-
pensations which, though not so obvious as this great
loss, counteract and outweigh it. My present object
is to show that the importance of the question was
recognised by Sir John Lawrence on its earliest
appearance. It was not till much later that it attained
its full development. .
CHAPTER XI
Forrian AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN

Tuer temptation is strong to give a general review
of Sir John Lawrence’s dealings with the independent
Oriental powers with whom the Government of India
has diplomatic relations. The subject possesses some
interest, but space forbids. I select for notice only
the affairs of Afghénistén. They are of more interest
than the rest; they directly touch the foundations of
our Indian Empire; they have brought Indian affairs
within the range of European diplomacy; and Law-
rence’s attitude towards them has been both misunder-
stood and misrepresented. I do not purpose to linger
over their early history—the treaties of friendship
with Dost Muhammad in 1855 and 1857; the attitude
of Afghénistén during the mutiny; Sir John’s pro-
posal, first made when the Delhi cloud lowered black-
est, to abandon Peshéwar to Dost Muhammad and
concentrate our forces on Lahore and Miltén. These
and other matters of the kind are only of passing
interest. It is not until the projected shadow of
Russia fell upon the States on the North of Afgh4nistén
that Kabul affairs begin to assume permanent im-
portance.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AFGHANISTAN 1977

Seven months before Sir John Lawrence returned to
India as Viceroy, his old friend Dost Muhammad died,
at a great age. He had just captured Herdt after a
long siege, and reduced all the provinces of Afghanistan
to his sway. He left sixteen sons. His death was
the signal for family dissensions which rent his King-
dom asunder. The story is a tangled skein of treachery
and bloodshed. I will try to unravel only so much of
it as is needful for a judgment on Lawrence's policy.
Its main bearings can be sufficiently understood if all
the actors are discarded except the following five :—
(1) Sher Ali, the third son of Dost Muhammad; (2)
and (3) his two elder half-brothers, Afzal, Governor of
Turkestan in the North; and Azim, Governor of Kuram
in the East; (4) his younger, uterine brother Amin,
Governor of Kandahar; and (5) Abdul Rahman, son
of Afzal and now reigning Amir of Afghanistan.

Sher Ali was the heir designate, and had been
recognised as such by Lord Canning. He ascended
the throne in accordance with his father’s choice. The
Amir was greatly pleased with the appointment of
Lawrence, whom he could claim as a friend of former
days. In March, 1864, Sher Ali despatched an Envoy
to him with letters, in which he asked for a renewal
of the treaty made with his father, the gift of 6000
muskets, and the recognition of his son, Muhammad
Ali, as Heir Apparent. On the 4th of May Sir John
Lawrence replied, intimating that the old treaty was
still in force, recognising Muhammad Ali, but refusing
the gift of arms. Meanwhile insurrection, which had

M
178 LORD LAWRENCE

been smouldering all winter, broke out in spring. The
two brothers Afzal and Azim began to assert their
independence in April. Azim was easily defeated,
and driven to seek refuge in British territory. Afzal,
in the North, who had proclaimed himself Amir, and
made alliance with the King of Bokhara, was a more
formidable rival. But after an indecisive battle a
peace was patched up. Sher Ali swore friendship on
the Kordén, and the brothers made a tour of the
province of Turkestén together. The reconciliation,
however, was hollow. Suddenly Sher Alf put his
brother Afzal in irons, and carried him back a captive
to Kabul. Abdél Rahman fled to Bokhéra. This
treachery caused great excitement and seriously shook
Sher Ali's power. The winter of 1864 settled down
gloomily in Kabul, with forebodings of disaster and
the certainty of fresh troubles in the spring.

Early in 1865 Azim left British territory and
wandered in the Waziri Hills biding his time. Sher
Ali was informed, and expressed his thanks for the
warning. Meanwhile Amin, in Kandahar, tried to
persuade the British Government to recognise his
independence. But Sir John Lawrence told him that
our ‘treaty relations were with the Amir; and the
British Gevernment could not consent to recognise in
any way the independence of any of his relations, or
give any countenance to proceedings having for their
object the assertion and establishment of such inde-
pendence. Of these communications Sher Ali was
again duly informed. In May the Amir set out to
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 179

reduce his brother to obedience, and wrote to tell the
Viceroy; who replied, regretting the divisions in the
Barakzai family and hoping ‘that the Ruler of all
things would so order the course of events that a
compromise might be effected among his Highness’
relations which would conduce to the prosperity of his
country and the consolidation of his power. The
result of the campaign was the defeat of the Kandahdér
forces at Kujhb4z on the 6th of June. In the thick of
the battle, Amin and Muhammad Ali met face to face
and engaged in single combat. Uncle and nephew
were both slain. Sher Alf entered Kandahér in
triumph, but the loss of his son dimmed the victory.
His bereavement clouded his reason; he became
morose to his courtiers, disgraced his best general, and
gave way to extravagance of grief. For nine months
this madness lasted; and in the interval events
happened in the North which cost him the throne of
Kabul.

Abdul Rahman, having got help from the King of
Bokhara, crossed the Oxus and marched on Kabul
to release his captive father. Azim joined him on the
way. By the spring of 1866, the confederates had
made themselves masters of the capital of Afghanistan.
Throughout Turkestén prayers were said in the name
of the King of Bokhéra; in Kabul they were offered
for ‘the Ruler of the day. At this juncture the
British Agent offered compliments to Azim, for which
he was rebuked by his Government. So long, it was
said, as Sher Ali retained any material hold in

M2
180 LORD LAWRENCE

Afghdnistén, the Government of India intended to
continue to him its recognition unimpaired. Azim
now wrote reporting his successes, and received an
answer in general terms of courtesy. At this time
Lawrence defined his policy in the following terms :-—
‘We should not be hasty in giving up the Amir’s
cause as lost. We should await the development of
events, and for the present continue to recognise Sher
Ali as the Amir of Afghdnistin. If the Amir fail in
his attempt to recover Kabul, and Sardir Muhammad
Azim Khén establish his power and make overtures
to the British Government, the latter can then be
recognised as the ruler of such parts of the country as
he may possess. It should be our policy to show
clearly that we willnot interfere in the struggle; that
we will not aid either party; that we will leave the
Afghans to settle their own quarrels; and that we
are willing to be on terms of amity and good-will with
the nation and with their rulers de facto.’

At last the successes of his enemies roused Sher Ali
from his lethargy, and he put himself at the head of
his troops. Dissensions ran high at K4ébul. The
country between the capital and Kandahar was a sea
of anarchy. Sher Ali’s prospects were good. The
Kabul troops retreated as he advanced, and Azim’s
cause seemed doomed. On the 1oth of May, 1866, the
armies met in battle at Sheikhébid. Fortune was in-
clining to the Amir, and it seemed as if he would win
the day, when, all at once, the Kandahar regiments
went over to the enemy, and Sher Ali’s cause was lost.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 181

The Amir fled wounded from the field. Ghazni shut
its gates in his face, and he found no resting-place
till he reached Kandahér. All his camp and mu-
nitions of war were taken; the captive Afzal was
released and proclaimed Amir; Kabul was illumi-
nated; kettledrums were beaten at the gates; and
coins were struck in Afzal’s name. Kandahar and
Herat were all that remained to Sher Ali of his
father’s kingdom. The British Agent was now per-
mitted to present himself before Afzal as the ruler of
Kabul.

On May 30, Afzal wrote to the Viceroy reviewing
the events of the last two years, and hoping that the
relations of friendship which subsisted with Dost
Muhammad might be maintained with him. He re-
ceived an answer, dated July 11, and addressed to
him as Wali of Ka4bul, in which Sir John Lawrence
expressed sincere sorrow for the misfortunes which
had befallen the great House of the Bérakzais and the
calamities, so heavy and protracted, which had been
suffered by the people. ‘While I am desirous, he
said, ‘that the alliance between the two Governments
should be firm and lasting, it is incumbent on me to
tell Your Highness that it would be inconsistent with
the fame and reputation of the British Government
to break off its alliance with Amir Sher Ali Khan,
who has given it no offence, so long as he retains his
authority and power over a large portion of Afghdn-
istin. That Amir still rules in Kandahér and in
Herat. My friend! the relations of this Government
182 LORD LAWRENCE

are with the actual rulers of Afghdnistén. If Your
Highness is able to consolidate Your Highness’ power
in Kébul, and is sincerely desirous of being a friend
and ally of the British Government, I shall be ready
to accept Your Highness as such. But I cannot break
the existing engagement with Amir Sher Ali Khan,
and I must continue to treat him as the ruler of that
portion of Afghanistan over which he retains control.
Sincerity and fair dealing induce me to write this
plainly and openly to Your Highness.’

Gathering his forces together, Sher Ali made another
stroke for his throne. But he was disastrously de-
feated by Azim and Abdél Rahman on January 17,
1867. Once more he fled from the field of battle.
This time Kandahér shut its gates upon him, as
Ghazni had done before, and he continued his flight
to Herat. Afzal at once announced this victory to
the Government of India. He was addressed in reply
as ruler of Kébuland Kandahar. Sir John Lawrence,
in his letter, expressed great pity for Sher Ali per-
sonally and concern for the welfare of the Barakzai
House and the Afghén people. He hailed hopefully
any event that might tend to bring Afghanistén to
stable peace and strong Government under one of the
sons of Dost Muhammad. He said frankly that he
had left them to fight out the battle on their own
resources and would still do so if hostilities should
unhappily be renewed ; and that, so long as Sher Ali
held Herat, he would recognise him as ruler of Herat
and reciprocate his amity. ‘But upon the same
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 183

principle, he added, ‘I am prepared to recognise
Your Highness as Amir of K4bul and Kandahar, and
I frankly offer Your Highness in that capacity peace
and the good-will of the British Government.’

A new development was given at this time to the
policy of the Government of India by the proceedings
of Sher Ali himself. Bent upon the recovery of the
sovereignty of Afghanistan, he applied for help; and,
when the correspondence with Afzal was explained to
him, he showed an inclination to seek from Persia
and Russia the assistance he had failed to get from
us. The invocation of a foreign power entirely altered
the case. Sir John Lawrence therefore suggested |
that if Sher Alf should take such a course, it would
be for the interests of British India openly to assist
the party in power at Kabul, with a moderate subsidy
and a supply of arms, to resist Sher Alt. ‘Our
relations, he said, ‘should always be with the de
facto ruler of the day; and so long as the de facto
ruler is not unfriendly to us, we should always be
prepared to renew with him the same terms as ob-
tained under his predecessor.’ Having regard also
to the rapid advance of Russia in Central Asia,
Lawrence suggested that some understanding should
be come to with the Czar’s Government, so that up
to a certain point the relations of the British and
Russian Governments should ‘be openly acknow-
ledged, and admitted as bringing them into necessary
contact and treaty with the tribes and nations on the
several sides of such a line. If an understanding, or
184 LORD LAWRENCE

even an engagement, of this nature were come to, the
Government of India on the one hand could look on
without anxiety or apprehension at the proceedings
of Russia on her southern frontier, and welcome the
civilising effect of her border Government on the
wild tribes of the Steppe and on the bigoted and
exclusive Governments of Bokhdra and Khokand;
while Russia, on the other hand, assured of our loyal
feeling in this matter, would have no jealousy in
respect of our alliance with the Afghén and neigh-
bouring tribes, or of our negotiations to repress Persia
in her designs upon the tracts which border upon her
eastern frontier.’

Now it is important to bear in mind the time at
which these suggestions were made. It was in
September 1867. Russia had just annexed half of
Khokand and reduced the other half to the position
of a dependent State. She was only beginning those
bold and rapid advances by which she has since
lapped in her embrace the whole of the northern and
western frontiers of Afghanistén. It is well known
how, as she gradually recovered from the crushing
disaster of the Crimean War, Russia set herself to
make strong her position in Central Asia. This she
did in two ways—first, by closing the open frontier
between her advanced positions at Perovsk on the
Orenberg line and Vernoe on the line of Siberia; and,
secondly, by activity on the Caspian Sea, the occu-
pation of Krasnovodsk and the advance along the
Atrek. The second course was a later development,
, , 4
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 185

beginning in 1869 at the end of Lawrence’s reign.
The closing of the open frontier took place in 1864.'
Auliéta was taken by a force moving westward from
Vernoe, the town of Turkestan by a force moving
eastward from Perovsk, and the two detachments
completed the line by occupying Chamkand in the
centre. Thus Russia brought herself face to face with
the three Usbeg Khanates of Khokand, Bokhéra and
Khiva. Their absorption in the Russian dominions
was rapid.

Foreseeing their doom, the Khén of Khokand and
the Amir of Bokhdra endeavoured in vain to get
help from Calcutta, Constantinople, and London. The
Khokand Envoy was received at Lahore in October
1864, and was present at Sir John Lawrence's great
Darbar there. He of Bokhéra was received at Cal-
cutta in January 1867. By this time the independence
of both States had been destroyed. First of all, the
Russian frontier was advanced to the Jaxartes by the
occupation of Tashkand and Chin4z in 1865. In the
following year Khojand, Oratippa and Jizik were
annexed, adding to the Russian territory 4,183 square
miles south of the river. Bokhara fell next, by the
occupation of Samarcand and Katikurgén and the
absorption of 7,955 square miles of that Khanate.
The Jaxartes had been crossed, but Samarcand had
not yet been taken, at the time when Lawrence made,
the proposals I have quoted. When Samarcand fell,
he pressed once more for some arrangement with’
Russia, and urged ‘that it might be given to under-
186 LORD LAWRENCE

stand, in firm but courteous language, that it cannot
be permitted to interfere in the affairs of Afghdnistén
or in those of any State which lies contiguous to our
frontier.’

The proposals made by Sir John Lawrence at this
early date—viz. assistance to the established Govern-
ment of Kabul, and friendly negotiations with Russia
—are alone sufficient to relieve him from the charge,
so often brought against him, of indifference to the
Russian advance. Out of these proposals grew all
the subsequent policy—the grant of assistance to
Sher Ali himself when he recovered the throne of
Kabul, the great historical meeting with him at
Ambélé in March 1869, the policy of a neutral zone
between the Russian and the British spheres of in-
fluence in Central Asia, the negotiations with Russia
for the delimitation of the northern and western
frontiers of Afghanistan, and the measures taken for
the consolidation of the Afghin Government down to
the time of Lord Lytton.

The tedious story of the Barakzai quarrels is now
near its end. Suffice it to say that the star of Sher
Ali suffered only a temporary eclipse. Afzal died
after a lingering illness on 7th October, 1867. His
brother Azim ascended the throne and was formally
recognised by the British Government. The rule
of both brothers was detested. They were reigns of
terror, of forced loans, of confiscations, of savage
executions. Sher Ali, recovering his strength at
Herét and aided by his friends in Turkestan, ad-
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 187

vanced on Kandahér, defeated the Kabul army, and
pushing on to Kabul recovered his capital. Azim’s
army melted away like snow in summer. He fled to
Turkestan, where he and Abdil Rahmdn kept up a
show of resistance for some months. In January
1869, however, they were completely crushed. Azim
fled to Persia, where he soon after died. His nephew
found refuge in Bokhdra, to emerge from obscurity
ten years later as Amir of Afghdnistén. Sher Ali was
once more seated on the throne, undisputed ruler over
all the possessions of his father Dost Muhammad.

As soon as he had recovered K4bul, Sher Ali wrote
to the Governor-General to inform him; and received
an answer congratulating him on the success due
alone to his own courage, ability and firmness, and
begging him to deal leniently with those who had
fought against him. ‘I am prepared,’ said Sir John
Lawrence, ‘not only to maintain the bonds of amity
and good-will which were established between Amir
Dost Muhammed Khan and myself, acting on behalf of
the British Government, but so far as may be prac-
ticable to strengthen these bonds.’ To Lawrence it
chad always been a cause of sorrow that the family of
the great Dost had been broken up into contending
factions, causing the ruin of many brave Chiefs and
the general weakening of the Afghan power. He had
made no secret of his regrets, and had done his best
to encourage the brothers to be reconciled, though he
would not interfere to strengthen one against the
other. Now at last there seemed a prospect of a
188 LORD LAWRENCE

consolidated power. Sher Ali had not only recovered
his throne and beaten down all his enemies, but he
had been welcomed back to Kabul by the very soldiers
and people who had deserted him. The time seemed
to have now come when, without wrong to any one
and without committing the Government to a course
of interference in Afghdnistén, it was possible to
strengthen the Amir, to restore peace in the distracted
and ruined country, to secure the Amir’s good-will,
and at the same time to maintain a friendly power
between India and the Russian possessions in Central
Asia. ‘While strictly refusing to enter into anything
like an offensive and defensive alliance with the Amir
of Kabul, he said, ‘I think it should be carefully
explained to him that we are interested in the security
of his dominions from foreign invasion, and that, pro-
vided he remains strictly faithful to his engagements,
we are prepared to support his independence; but
that the manner of doing so must rest with ourselves.’

In pursuance of this policy Sir John Lawrence sent
the Amir a present of £60,000 and 3,500 stand of
arms. The Secretary of State gave him carte bianche.
‘Act on your own judgment in assisting Amir Sher’
Ali in the manner proposed.’ Sher Ali was very
grateful. He was preparing to go to India to meet
Sir John Lawrence when troubles in Turkestdn de-
tained him. He could not leave till he had put
down his enemies; and this was not effected till the
beginning of 1869. Meanwhile Lawrence’s Viceroyalty
was drawing to a close. Three days before handing
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 189

over his high office, he wrote the Amir a farewell
letter promising the gift of £60,000 more ‘as a further
proof of the desire of the British Government, which
fears no aggression and which wishes for no’conquest,
to see a strong, a just and a merciful Government
established by Your Highness at K4bul and through-
out Afghénistén.’ He asked for no other return from
the Amir than abiding confidence, sincerity and good-
will, and he held out hopes of future help in money
or materials of war as the Government of India might
year by year see fit. This policy Lawrence maintained
to be no change, but in perfect accordance with the
course hitherto followed, and to be justified by the
events which had replaced Sher Ali on the throne.
It commanded the assent and approval of Her Majesty
the Queen. The Amir was assured that, so long as
he continued by his actions to evince a real desire for
the alliance of the British Government, he had nothing
to apprehend in the way of a change of policy or of
our interference in the internal affairs and adminis-
tration of his Kingdom.

Having put down all his enemies in the North,
Sher Ali was at length free to visit India. On January
18, 1869, he wrote to the Viceroy reporting his
successes, and sent a message through the British
Agent renewing his request for an interview. By
this time Sir John Lawrence had left the country.
The interview, as every one knows, was the historical
meeting with Lord Mayo at Ambélé on March 27,
1869, at which, as the Russian newspapers said at the
190 LORD LAWRENCE

time, ‘the first stone of the wall was laid which the
Anglo-Indian Government is hastening to build across
the path of the Russians in Central Asia.’

It has ‘been said that to leave the contending fac-
tions, as Lawrence did, to fight out their quarrels, and
to recognise the de facto ruler, was to invite compe-
tition for the throne. But as a matter of fact, the
competition for the throne began when Sher Alf was
the recognised Amir and his son was the recognised
Heir Apparent. The attempt of Amin to throw off his
allegiance was discountenanced and condemned. The
British Agent was rebuked for his premature acknow-
ledgment of Azim. It was not till Sher Ali was a
fugitive and his cause seemed hopelessly lost, that Sir
John Lawrence recognised any other than himself.
It was not till Afzal’s power seemed firmly established
in Kabul that he was recognised as ruler of so much
of the country as he had conquered. As a matter of
fact, the provinces of Afghanistan were generally held
on what was practically an independent tenure, and
only a strong ruler, like Dost Muhammad, had suc-
ceeded in uniting them into one Kingdom.

The question of when it is right or prudent to recog-
nise a de facto Government must depend on the cir-
cumstances of each case. Moral recognition with a
denial of material support can be of little value in the
contest for a throne like that of Afghdnistén, to which
there was no recognised law of rightful succession.
Our recognition of Sher Ali did not prevent him from
losing his Kingdom; nor did our recognition of Azim
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 191

enable him to maintain the throne of Kébul. So far
as moral influence could go, Lawrence used it to recon-
cile the family quarrel. To have interfered, with
material help, to maintain upon the throne a ruler not
acknowledged by his people, was a dangerous policy
forbidden by the provisions of existing treaties. Our
experience of its evil fruits was recent and_ bitter.
This much, at any rate, is certain—that the policy
which Lawrence pursued met with general acceptance
at the time. Lord Mayo’s policy was no reversal, but
a continuation and development of it.

No one admitted this more frankly than Lord
Mayo himself. No one was more impressed than he
with the necessity of abstaining from interference in
Afghanistan. He would have no European Officers
placed as Residents in the cities; no offensive and
defensive treaty. Under no circumstances would he
send a British soldier across the frontier to coerce the
Amir’s rebellious subjects. He would, almost using
Lawrence's own words, ‘let them know that if they
chose to quarrel, they must fight it out without any as-
sistance from us.’ His promise to the Amir to ‘ view
with severe displeasure any attempts on the part of his
rivals to disturb his position as ruler of Kabul and
rekindle civil war, was carefully explained as being
limited to moral means, and went little, if at all,
.. beyond what Sir John Lawrence actually did, In

regard to pecuniary assistance to Sher Alf, Lord
Mayo did not even go so far as Lawrence. He gave
at Ambdlé only the second sum of £60,c00 which
192 LORD LAWRENCE

Lawrence had promised, but held out no hope of a
yearly subsidy. In all essential respects his policy
was a continuance of that of his predecessor. ‘I
believe,’ he said in a letter to Lord Lawrence himself,
‘that when you sent Sher Ali the money and arms
last December, you laid the foundation of a policy
which will be of the greatest use to us hereafter. I
wish to continue it.’ The Government of India, too,
was careful to explain that one of the good results of
the interview with Sher Ali was that ‘it has assured
His Highness that the policy which was adopted by
His Lordship’s predecessor, on the Amir’s regaining the
throne of Kabul in August last, will be continued.’
Lord Clarendon also took some pains to assure Prince
Gortschakoff, when he met him at Heidelberg in the
autumn of 1869, that the policy of the Indian Govern-
ment towards Sher Ali was not of recent date, and
had originated with Lord Lawrence.

There came indeed a time, nearly a decade later,
when the policy was reversed; when it was deter-
mined to interfere in Afghdénistin; when it was
resolved to force a Resident upon the Amir; when
Afghanistan was even dismembered, and a separate
ruler was set up in Kandahar. The new policy ended
in disaster, and, after the destruction of the Afghdn
Government in a war which no one now-a-days
ventures to justify, the work of consolidation had to
be begun anew. I need not here discuss the question
of the so-called scientific frontier, or enquire whether
the treasure which has been sunk in fortifications far
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. AFGHANISTAN 193

in advance of our old frontier might not have been
more usefully spent. Doubtless the frontier towards
Kandahar is now impregnable. Many, however, think
it was so before, and that the defences which nature
has provided in barren rocks, a waterless desert, and
inhospitable tribes, are stronger than those of our
military engineers. I am not competent to form a
judgment on the military question, but of this I am
sure—that, considering the conditions of our tenure
in India, no forward policy can hope to be successful
if it is not supplemented by what was the essence of
the policy of Lawrence—the contentment of the masses
of the people. If in India we were all of one blood
and language and religion, the question of frontier
defence might be left to be decided on military and
financial considerations alone. But there is a social
and a moral element which we dare not ignore. Our
dominion is that of a foreign people, few in numbers
and with a European army so limited that the con-
centration of it on an advanced frontier necessarily
weakens our hold on the rear. If at the same time
our moral hold be weak and our power be not ‘broad
based’ upon the contentment of the people, a disaster
in the front may shake the Empire to its foundations.
It was in this conviction that Sir John Lawrence's
Government explained its policy in language which
cannot be improved upon :—

‘Should a foreign power, such as Russia, ever seriously
think of invading India from without or, what is more
probable, of stirring up the elements of disaffection or

N
194 LORD LAWRENCE

anarchy within it, our true policy, our strongest security,
would then, we conceive, be found to lie in previous absti-
nence from entanglements at either Kabul, Kandahar, or
any similar outpost; in full reliance on a compact, highly
equipped and disciplined army, stationed within our own
territories or on our own border ; in the contentment if not
in the attachment of the masses; in the sense of security of
title and possession with which our whole policy is gradually
imbuing the minds of the principal Chiefs and the Native
aristocracy; in the construction of material works within
British India which enhance the comfort of the people, while
they add to our political and military strength ; in husband-
ing our finances and consolidating and multiplying our re-
sources ; in quiet preparation for all contingencies which no
Indian statesmen should disregard; and in a trust in the
rectitude and honesty of our intentions, coupled with the
avoidance of all sources of complaint which either invite
foreign aggression or stir up restless spirits to domestic
revolt.’

The wisdom of these views is not to be questioned.
CHAPTER XII
THE END

THE end had now come, and Sir John Lawrence
was to put off his armour, battered and dented in
many a conflict. ‘It was a proud moment to me,’
he said in a conversation with his son-in-law, which
is touchingly recorded by Bosworth Smith, ‘when I
walked up the steps of this house feeling as I then
did that, without political interest or influence, I had
been chosen to fill the highest office under the Crown,
the. Viceroyalty of the Queen. But it will be a
happier moment to me when I walk down the steps
with the feeling that I have tried to do my duty.’
Lord Mayo arrived on the 12th of January, 1869.
From that day a new Viceroy reigned. A public
banquet had been given to Sir John Lawrence the
night before in the town-hall of Caleutta. He took
the opportunity to defend his foreign policy, which
had been assailed. Like his great master Dalhousie,
he was sensitive to the criticisms of the local Press,
which, with one or two honourable exceptions, had not
the high sense of responsibility twenty years ago that
it has since acquired. He over-estimated its influence

N 2
196 LORD LAWRENCE

and had often been wounded by its prejudiced and
ill-informed comments. As he now took farewell of
his countrymen he spoke with visible emotion. His
last words were to beg them ‘to be just and kind
to the Natives of India.’ On the 19th of January he
left the shores of India for ever. Further honours
awaited him in his native country. He was raised
to the peerage under the title of Baron Lawrence of
the Punjab and Grateley, and his annuity of £2000
a year was extended for the life of his immediate
successor.

Lord Lawrence bore his fresh honours modestly.
All through his public career he was the plain
Englishman, as simple in his ways when he was
Viceroy as when he was a District Magistrate. The
Chief Commissioner would travel on the mail-cart
like any junior Officer. The Governor-General would
walk to church and dispense with sentries and
escorts, to the consternation of his staff. ‘I never
cared for, he remarked when laying down the Vice-
royalty, ‘and I do not regret the resignation of, all
the state, pomp, power, or patronage which appertain
to the office.’ Perhaps he was too indifferent to the
value of pomp and circumstance in the Hast, though
in his great Darbars at Lahore and Agra, in dealing
with the warrior Chiefs of the Punjab or the chivalry
of Réjaputana, he maintained a dignity and state not
inferior to the most kingly of Viceroys. But the sim-
plicity of his ways exposed him to the poisoned shafts
of malice and to misrepresentations which pained him.
THE END 197

Nor had every one eyes to see the true nobility that
was in him, and how he was,

‘As the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.’

His power of work was immense. No old bullock,
he remarked, is worked harder. ‘I have all my
life been a hard worker, he said, ‘and it has now
become a second nature to me. I work therefore
as much from habit as from principle.” His aim was
to do the day’s work within the day if he could.
Certain things had to be done; there was a certain
time to do them in; and he held that a good
administrator would distribute his time so as to do
them all. In the autumn of 1858, my office was in a
small room adjoining one in which he occasionally
worked when at Lahore. I often saw him at his
table. He used to sit at his desk with a Native clerk
squatted on the floor on each side of him and dictated
tothem his orders in short, swift sentences, as they alter-
nately read aloud to him the vernacular documents.

His English correspondence was disposed of, for
the most part, by brief notes on the margin of the
letters for the guidance of his secretaries. It was an
excellent method in the Punjab, where he was familiar
with every question that came before him and knew
its history from the beginning. But it was not so
suitable in the Government of India, where cases
had sometimes a history running back for fifty or a
hundred years, generally through several Viceroyalties,
198 LORD LAWRENCE

oceasionally with a shifting policy, and when now
and then the ‘previous correspondence’ measured a
foot or two thick! He tried it to begin with, but
was soon glad to revert to the system of historical
notes, in which a summary was given for his informa-
tion. In the notes however he always required
brevity and only the kernel of the case, with
references to letters which he could read for himself
if he wanted the details. ‘Nobody will read your
paper,’ he said to one of his secretaries, pointing to a
long memorandum on a subject which was attracting
public attention. +All the world will read that!’ he
added, as he handed to the secretary his own brief
paragraph, which contained his statement of the ques-
tion and his decision on it.

A rugged exterior and blunt manner covered the
kindliest of hearts. ‘I would give you the same
advice if you were my own son,’ he once said to me,
after he had taken infinite pains in a personal matter
about which I had consulted him. People might
wince under his abrupt touch as he laid his finger on
a fault; but he was a poor creature who took offence
or fell away from his devotion to him on that
account. He would often heal the smart of his
rebuke by a kindly joke. For he held with Horace
and with Milton, that

‘Joking decides great things ;
Stronger and better oft than earnest can.’

He had his enemies like other men—some of them
THE END 199

bitter ones. But the honesty, the truthfulness, the
guileless candour of the man were so transparent that,
as Lord Stanley said, ‘malice itself has never fastened
upon Lord Lawrence’s career the imputation of one
discreditable incident or one unworthy act.’

In the autumn of 1870, Lord Lawrence allowed
himself to be nominated for election to the London
School Board, under the Elementary Education Act
which had just come into force. It was not work for
which he was naturally suited. He hated Boards, and
considered himself constitutionally ill-fitted, as we
have seen, to be member even of a Council of Three.
He was no speaker, and the practical training of an
Indian career, in which there is much writing and
little talk, was not such as to cultivate the gifts
required for the conduct of affairs in a large Board
of fluent debaters. He had governed an Empire;
and his acceptance of the seemingly humble position
on the School Board was only an illustration of the
principle he had acted out all his life—that no work
was too insignificant to be done by his own hand,
and that it was simply his duty to do the work that
lay before him in the sphere to which his Lord and
Master was pleased to call him. For three years
he acted as Chairman of the Board, with the diligence
that was to be expected and with acceptance to his
colleagues. His term of office came to an end in
November, 1873, and he declined to stand again on
account of failing health. A cloud, that had hung
over his life now began to settle down upon him.
200 LORD LAWRENCE

When a boy he had an attack of ophthalmia which,
it is to be feared, permanently affected his eyes. The
glare of the burning sun on the dry plains of Upper
India, and the daily perusal of Oriental manuscripts,
did not tend to improve them. Early in his career
he had to beg his friends not to cross their letters, as
he was almost blind with reading manuscripts. ‘I
fear if I live to fifty,’ he once wrote, ‘I shall be blind.’
In 1876 his eyesight began to fail him altogether.
‘The difficulty which my husband had in reading the
morning prayers, says Lady Lawrence in a memo-
randum quoted at length by Bosworth Smith, ‘first
opened our eyes; for he was often obliged to hand
over the book to me.’ An operation had to be
undergone. It proved a failure. It was followed by
terrible agony and weeks of blindness and pain, ‘borne
with the most wonderful sweetness and patience, as
day followed day of ever-increasing suffering. Even-
tually it was found that the sight of one eye was
entirely gone and the other so weakened that it could
not endure strong light. The anticipation of blind-
ness was terrible to him. <A second operation had to
be undergone in March 1877 to remove the cataract,
and again a slight ‘needle-operation’ in July. The
eyesight was saved, but he was never again able to
read or write and could not go about alone. The
‘drop serene’ or ‘dim suffusion veiled’ fell not on
him, as on Milton, ere half his days were spent, but
in the evening and twilight of life. Indeed it may
be said of him that he died in harness.
THE END 201

After giving up the London School Board, he con-
tinued to take an interest in the Church Missionary
Society and other religious institutions. He attended
their meetings and bore public testimony to the value
of the work done by missionaries in India. ‘I be-
lieve,’ ho said at a meeting of the Wesleyan Missionary
Society, ‘notwithstanding all that the English people
have done to benefit that country, the missionaries
have done more than all other agencies combined.’
When he could no longer read or write, he dictated
the well-known letters to the Times by which he
helped to rouse the English people to a sense of the
iniquity of the Afghén War into which we had plunged.
Undeterred by misrepresentation and abuse, he la-
boured as Chairman of the Afghan Committee to get
hostilities at all events postponed; and by his letters
he sought to bring back the Ministry to the policy of
non-interference in Afghdnistén, and the peaceful
consolidation of the Government of that country by
friendly support, which had been pursued by himself
and two succeeding Viceroys. He took an active
share in work among the poor and in some of the
charitable institutions of London. Only a short week
before his death, he was at the anniversary festival of
the Asylum at Hampstead for the orphan daughters
of soldiers. And ‘it is a touching circumstance,’ says
Cust, ‘and worthy of record, that the Angel of Death
came to him ata time when invitations were actually in
circulation to friends to meet at his house to discuss the
affairs of the Christian Vernacular Education Society.’
202 LORD LAWRENCE

He made his last appearance in the House of Lords
on the 19th of June 1879, when he took part in the
debate on the Indian budget. He returned home
exhausted. Some days before, he had caught a cold
which settled on him. On the 27th of June he died.
‘Iam so weary.’ These, his biographer tells us, were
his last words as he entered into his rest.

‘So passed the strong heroic soul away.’

His virtues compelled eulogium even from those
who differed most from his views and who tried to
undo his policy. A notification in the Gazette of
India, from Lord Lytton’s pen, and written with all
his own aptitude, expressed the general feeling :—

“No statesman since Warren Hastings,’ it said, ‘has ad-
ministered the Government of India with a genius and an
experience so exclusively trained and developed in her
service, as those of the illustrious man whose life, now
closed in the fulness of fame though not of age, bequeaths
to his country a bright example of all that is noblest in the
high qualities for which the Civil Service of India has
justly been renowned; and in which, with such examples
before it, it will never be deficient. The eminent services
rendered to India by Lord Lawrence, both as ruler of the
Punjab in the heroic defence of British power, and as Vice-
roy in the peaceful administration of a rescued Empire,
cannot be fitly acknowledged in this sad record of the grief
which she suffers by his death, and of the pride with which
she cherishes his name.’

A grateful country made his grave in Westminster
Abbey among the heroes and the great men of England.
THE END 203

He lies close by his old friend Lord Clyde (Sir Colin
Campbell), with Sir James Outram on his left—the
motto on his tomb ‘Be ready.’ Three monuments—
in London, Calcutta, and Lahore—express the grati-
tude of the nation. In his old room at Haileybury, a
tablet bearing his name may still inspire ingenuous
youth with the same simple faith, heroic endurance,
and transparent honesty. His name and the story of
Delhi will live in the memory of his country as long
as the English language is spoken.

Note to Pace 19.

Tuer best authority on the subject is the Genealogical
Memoirs of John Knox and of the Family of Knox, by the
Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., printed for the Grampian Club,
1876.

Bosworth Smith says that Letitia Catherine Knox was
descended from the Scotch Reformer. This is certainly in-
correct. John Knox’s two sons, Nathaniel and Eleazer, both
died unmarried. Sir Herbert Edwardes, in his Life of Sir
204 LORD LAWRENCE

Henry Lawrence, makes the connection through Bishop
Andrew Knox of the Scottish House of Ranfurlie, whom he
surmises to have been a grand-nephew of the Reformer.
MCrie, in his Life of Knox, quotes David Buchanan, Historian
of the Reformation, as authority for the statement that
Knox’s ‘father was a brother’s son of the House of Ran-
furlie.’ On the other hand, there is evidence that the family
of John Knox was settled in Haddington as far back as
1488, so that the relationship to the Ranfurlie stock must
have been remote.

Andrew Knox was minister of Lochwinnoch, Ayrshire, in
1581, and afterwards (1585) of the Abbey Church of Paisley.
He became Bishop of the Isles in 1606 and Bishop of Raphoe
in 1611. He held both Sees till 1619, when he resigned
that of the Isles. He died on March 27, 1633, at the age
of 74. He seems to have been a self-willed and masterful
man, It may be worth while to rescue the following notes
of him from the mass of dry genealogical details.

It is related of him that in 1592, at the head of a party
of students from the College of Glasgow, he discomfited an
armed band who, in the service of the King of Spain, had
landed on Ailsa Craig in the hope of re-establishing the
Roman faith in Scotland. On December 16, 1597, an
Act was passed by the Estates of Parliament whereby he
was declared to have done ‘loyell and gud seruice to His
Majestie and his cuntrey.’ In October, 1604, when minister
of Paisley, it was ordered, as a punishment for a violent
assault he had committed on a Solicitor, with whom he had
a quarrel and whose head he cut open with an iron key, that
‘he sall sit in the maist patent place of the Kirk of Paisley,
vpone Sunday the 19th inst.: and... in all humiliation, sal
confess his offence to God, his brethren and the pairtie
offendit, and sall sit doun vpone his knees and ask God
mercie for the same.’ He carried away with him to Ireland
NOTE 205

the two best bells from the Priory of Ardchattan and Abbey
of Icolmkill, which his successor in the bishopric of Raphoe
was compelled, by royal edict dated March 14, 1635, to
restore.

It is a pity the connection with this old granite character
breaks down. But according to Crawford’s USS. Genealogy
(in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh), quoted by Rogers,
and written about the year 1726, the male posterity of
Bishop Andrew Knox had become extinct, though of his
daughters there were many descendants.

According to Rogers, Letitia’s father, Rev. George Knox,
Rector of Lifford, and son of George Knox of Minnymore
(otherwise Moneymore), in the county of Donegal, was of
the family of the Knoxes of Prehen, in county Londonderry,
which family is descended from the Scottish House of Ran-
furlie.
 
INDEX

Asptt Ranmdn Kun, son of
Afzal Khan, 177: fled to Bok-
hara, 178: took Kdbul, 179:
defeated Sher Alf, 182; driven
into exile, 187.

AFGHANISTAN, Lawrence’s early
relations with, I1, 12, 176:
policy as Viceroy with regard
to, 177-191 : continued. by Lord
Mayo, I91, 192: Lawrence’s
protests against interfering in,
201.

AFGHANS, made alliance with the
Sikhs, 51.

AFripis, enlisted during the
Mutiny, 12, 81.

ArzaL KHAN, son of Dost Mu-
hammad, 177: imprisoned by
Sher Alf, 178: becomes Amir,
181: death, 186.

AGNEW, VANS, murder of, 51.

AGRoR, Chief of, incites a border
attack, 129. 3

AnmaD, SarYiD, founds Muham-
madan colony on the frontier,

, 10.

eee the Emperor, fondness for
Lahore, 55. ;

ALEXANDER the Great, campaign
of, in the Punjab, 54.

AMBALA, authorities at denied
accusations against the Sepoys,
43: force despatched to Delhi
from, 86: interview between
Lord Mayo and Sher Alf at,
189, 190.

AMBELA CAMPAIGN, the, 10, II, 13.

Amin KuAv, son of Dost Muham-
mad, 177; declares himself in-
dependent at Kandahar, 178;
killed at Kujhbdz, 179.

AMRITSAR, capital of the Sikhs,
56: saved in the Mutiny, 80.

ANDERSON, Lt. W., murder of, 51.

ARMY, symptoms of uneasiness in
the native, 73, 74: causes of the
mutiny of, 74, 75: strength of
in the Punjab at the time of the
Mutiny, 76, 77: reduction in,
oe Lawrence’s viceroyalty,
166. ;

ARNOLD, Sir Edwin, quoted, on
the Kangra campaign, 46, 47:
on the Lawrences, 52.

ASSESSMENT, Lawrence’s horror of
over-, 32, 33: the danger of
over-, 34, 35.

Azim Kady, son of Dost Muham-
mad, 177: driven from Afghdn-
istdn, 178: joins Abdul Rahmén,
179: defeats Sher Alf, 182: be-
comes Amir, 186: defeat and
death of, 187.

BaDii-Kf-SARAt, battle of, 86.

BacuAr, Native State, annexed by
Dalhousie, 134: restored by
Canning, 135.

es or Bomsay, failure of the,
165.

BaREILLY, mutineers from, go to
Delhi, go.
208

Barnes, George, made settlement
of Kéngra, 48: assistant to
Lawrence in the Punjab, 57.

Brpis, addicted to female infant-
icide, 49, 50: note on, 49 n.

BENGAL, results of the Permanent
Settlement in, 154,155: enquiry
ordered, 156: scarcity in, 157.

Buzoris, troubles with the, 129.

Buourdn, history of English re-
lations with, 129-131: expedi-
tion against, 131: treaty with,
131, 132.

BIKANER, Rdjé of, sends troops to
assist in suppressing the Mutiny,
108,

Bixrama Sineu, raised rebellion
in Kangra, 45.

Bituch Tries, the, 126: con-
trasted with the Pathdns, 127.

Buiack Movuntain, expedition to
the, 129.

Botum, Sir Edgar, his statue of
Lawrence, 50, 51.

Bociz, George, mission of, to
Lassa, 130.

Boxudra, makes alliance with
Afzal Khan, 178: helps Abdil
Rahmdn, 179: conquered by
Russia, 185.

Bomsay, governorship of, refused
by Lawrence, 13.

Bristot, Lawrence partly edu-
cated at, 20.

Buppaism, the religion in Léhul
and Spiti, 42.

Catcurta, state of, at Lawrence’s
arrival in India, 21, 22.

Cannina, Lord, drew officers from
the Punjab after the Mutiny,
59: did not expect the Mutiny,
73: thanks the Punjab Native
Chiefs, 84: diverts the expedi-
tion to China, 85 : his testimony
to Lawrence, 111: resolved to
send mission to Bhutdn, 131:
policy towards Native States,
135: recognised adoption, 135,
136,138: proclamation on Oudh,
150: created provincial legisla-

INDEX

tive councils, 169: recognised
Sher Alf as Amir of Afghanistan,

177.

CaPITaL, English, brought into
India after the Mutiny, 14.

CARTRIDGES, the greased, con-
sidered by Lawrence chief cause
of the Mutiny, 74, 75, 77-

Cawnrur, right to adopt an-
nounced at Darbér at, 136.

CuamMBaA, Native State in the
Jélandhar Dodb, 48.

CHAMBERLAIN, Gen. Sir N. B.,
commanded in Ambela cam-
paign, 11.

CHHATAR SINGH, commanded Sikh
army in second Sikh war, 56.

CHILIANWALA, battlefield of, 54.

Cuina, expedition to, diverted to
India, 85.

CuristTian, George, Lawrence's
letter to, 33: settlement officer
in Jélandhar, 48.

CHRISTIAN RELIGION, change in
official attitude towards, in
India, 116-120: Lawrence's de-
spatch on, 117-119.

Cis-SutLEs Srares, the, 28, 29:
opposition to be expected from,
82: fidelity of, during the
Mutiny, 83, 84.

CuaRENDoN, Lord,attributed policy
in Afghanistdn to Lawrence, 192.

CuypE, Colin Campbell, Lord,
thought Lawrence should be
made a peer, 112: and Viceroy,
124: Lawrence buried next to,

203.

Conk, Civil, of the Punjab, 65, 66.

CorBETT, Gen., secured Amritsar,
80.

CornwaLiis, Lord, opposed ci-
vilians being made governors-
general, 16: intentions of, at the
Permanent Settlement, 154.

CorTLANDT, Gen. Van, recovered
districts west of Delhi, 108.

Corton, Gen. Sir S. J., conduct at
Pesh4war, 79.

Corton, speculative crisis caused
by rise in price of, 164, 165.
INDEX

CROMWELL, Oliver,
likened to, 114.
Cust, Robert, proclamation on the
rising in K4ngra, 45, 46: assist-
ant to Lawrence in the Jdlan-
dhar Dob, 48; in the Punjab,
57: quoted, 153, 201.

Customs-Dotisgs, Lawrenceaverse
to, 57.

Lawrence

Datuovste, Lord, proposed to stop
the Emperor's privileges, 26:
forced into the second Sikh war,
51: appointed Lawrence Chief
Commissioner of the Punjab,
53: attitude towards the Punjab
officers, 58: Lawrence’s friend,
70: proposed the Punjab should
be a Lieutenant-Governorship,
112: opinion of frontier raids,
129: policy towards Native
States, 134, 135.

Daty, Gen. Sir H., led the Guides
to Delhi, 92.

Dardnpour, Raja of, rebelled, 45.
DAdnzais, .assisted English in
suppressing the Mutiny, 12.
Dericits, during Lawrence’s vice-

royalty, 167.

Deut, Lawrence appointed to, 22:
characteristics of the Delhi ter-
ritory, 24: results of the position
of the Emperor at, 24-27: effect
of the mutineers’ occupation of,
76: Lawrencerecognised the im-
portance of retaking, 84, 95:
possibility of taking by sur-
prise, 86, 87: the Mutiny at,
87-89: position of the Emperor,
89, 90: number of the mutineers
at, go, gI: siege of, 92, 93, 96,
97: capture of, 97: effects of
capture on the Punjab, 97-100:
punishment of, 101,102: Law-
rence at, 107, 108: united with
the Punjab, 109.

Dezgsy, Earl of : see Stanley, Lord.

Doctrine or LapseE, 134-136.

Dost Mvunammap, his friendship
for England, 12: treaties with
Lawrence, 176: death, 177.

209
DusAwa, petty State near Delhi,
2

9.
DwArs, the Eighteen, annexation
of, 131, 132.

Epwarpes, Sir H. B., his treaty
with the Afghans, 11, 12; at-
tacks Miltdén, 51; assistant to
Lawrence in the Punjab, 57,
58: did not expect the Mutiny,
73: at Pesh4war, 79: quoted
on the disarmament of Peshd-
war, 80, 81: on the Guides, 91 :
raised corps of Mazhab{ Sikhs,
95: advised abandonment of
siege of Delhi, 96: quoted on
the newly raised regiments, 99,
100: in favour of severity to the
mutineers at first, 102: said
Lawrence saved the Punjab, 111:
his note on Christianity, 117:
on the English policy in India,
144, 145.

Ecrrton, Sir R. E., quoted on
the Punjab Tenancy Act, 148,
149.

Excin, Lord, Viceroy, 9: his
death, 11: his efforts to restore
India after the Mutiny, 13, 14:
diverted expedition for China
to India, 85: resolved to send
a mission to Bhutén, 131.

ELLenzoroves, Lord, foresaw the
Mutiny, 72.

ELPHinstone, M., quoted, on the
Indian village cominunities, 27,

ErAwau, Lawrence Settlement
Officer at, 37.

EXcHANGE, question of the changes
caused by the rate of, 173-
175.

EXPENDITURE, during Lawrence’s
viceroyalty, 166.

Famines in Delhi territory, 31:
in Orissa (1866), 157-160.
Fartpkot, a Cis-Sutlej State, 82.
Faruxudsan, the Mutiny at, 75.
FINANCIAL DECENTRALISATION,
history and result of, 168-172.
210

Frrozpur, the magazine at saved,
78: feebleness shown at, 94:
siege train despatched from, to
Delhi, 96

FirozsHAu, battle of, 40.

Froops in Orissa, 160, 161.
Forster, George, quoted, on the
rapacity of the Sikhs, 47, 48.
Foytz Coiuece, Londonderry,

Lawrence educated at, 20.

FrRERE, Sir Bartle, his memo-
randum on frontier policy, 126,
127.

Frontier Pouicy, Lawrence’s,
126-129.

Guaznf refused to receive Sher
Alf, 181.

GOLD, tentative coinage of, 173:
the gold and silver question,
173-175-

GovINDGARH, occupied at out-
break of the Mutiny, 78, 79.
Grant, Gen. Sir P., advised di-
version of expedition intended

for China, 85.

GuexRa, rising in, 96, 103.
GuIDEs, the, their equipment, 91:
services in siege of Delhi, 92.
Gusars, tribe in Delhi territory,
29: became plunderers during

the Mutiny, 108.

Guredon, Lawrence District
Officer in, 23: in anarchy con-.
sequent on the Mutiny, 108.

GwaLior, joy expressed at, on
Canning’s proclamation allow-
ing adoption, 136.

Hatteysury, Lawrence at, 21:
memorial plate in his study at,
203.

HTALieAe, Lord ; see Wood, Sir C.

Hamitton, Rev. Richard, Law-
rence’s father-in-law, 39.

Harpinesr, Lord, appointed Law-
rence Commissioner of the J4-
landhar Dodb, 39, 41.

Hastines, Warren, his relations
with Bhutan, 130.

INDEX

HazARa, rising in, 96.

Hearszy, Gen. Sir J., advised
diversion of expedition intended
for China, 85.

HerAt, taken by Dost Muham-
mad, 177: Sher Alf flies to,
182

Hiven Tsrane, his description of
Jdlandhar, 42.

Hopson, Major H., his capture of
the Emperor at Delhi, 97.

Huppiestong, John, gave Law-
rence his nomination, 20.

Hunter, Sir. W. W., his Orissa
referred to, 159, 160.

ImAm-up-pin, Sheikh, the Sikh
governor of the J dlandhar Dodb,

48.

INFANTICIDE, female, suppressed
by Lawrence in Jdlandhar
Dodb, 49, 50: at Jigni, 140.

Irrigation, Lawrence's advocacy
of, 162: creates special Depart-
for, 163.

JALANDHAR occupied by Raja of
Kaptrthala during the Mutiny,
83: mutineers from at Delhi,
go: feebleness shown at, 94.

J ALANDHAR DoAB, the, Lawrence’s
administration of, 41-51: its
fertility, 41, 42: population,
42: history, 42, 43: chiefs, 43-
45: rebellion suppressed in,

45-47-

Jaswan, Raja of, rebelled, 45:
estate restored, 47.

JArs, flower of the Delhi peas-
antry, 30: in the plains of the
Jdlandhar Dodb, 42.

JEHLAM, the Mutiny at, 94.

JHABUA, ruler of, fined for abuse
of power, 139.

JHANSI, annexation of, 134.

Jinv, Rajé of, a Cis-Sutlej chief,
82; his fidelity in the Mutiny,
83: receives right to adopt,
138.
INDEX

KAsut, taken by Abdi] Rahmén,
179: by Sher Ali, 187.

KaustA, Cis-Sutlej State, 82.

Kanpauir, taken by Sher Alf,
179: rejects him, 182: retaken
by him, 187.

‘KAncra VaLuey, the, its rice,
41: tea, 42: Rajput chiefs, 42:
elements of discord in, 44: im-
portance of its fort, 45: sup-
pression of rebellion in, 45-47.

Kartrtuara, Radjé of, faithful in
the Mutiny, 83.

Karavi, Native State, spared -

from annexation, 134.

Karwnai occupied by Rajé of Jind
during the Mutiny, 83.

Kasumir, its contingent at siege
of Delhi, 96: Lawrence’s promise
to Mahdrdjé4 of, 138, 139.

KuAtsa, army of the, defeated,
40, 41: derivation of the word,
40 2.

Kuiva conquered by Russia, 185.

KHokanD conquered by Russia,
184, 185.

Kwyox, Andrew, Bishop of the
Isles and Raphoe, not an an-
cestor of Lawrence, 19: sketch
of his life, 205.

Knox, family of, 19, 203-205.

KortaH, Native State, sati sup-
pressed in, 140.

Kucu Beuar, remnant of slavery
abolished in, 140,

KusHAz, battle of, 179.

Lanore, Lawrence acting Resi-
dent at, 41: his statue at, 50:
its history, 54,55: its native
garrison disarmed, 78, 80, 93:
the Mutiny at, 93.

LAxuvt, Buddhist inhabitants of,
42.

Laine, Samuel, on value of irri-
gation, 162: proposes financial
decentralisation, 169, 170.

Lakeg, Edward, assistant to Law-
rence in the Jdlandhar Dodb,

48.

211

LanD REVENUE, Lawrence's views
on assessment, 32, 33: dangers
of over-assessment, 34, 35: as-
sessment of, in the Jdlandhar
Doégb, 48.

Lawrence, Colonel Alexander,
18, I9.

Lawrence, Sir George, his return
from captivity in Afghdnistan,

39-

Lawrence, Harriet, Lady, mar-
riage, 38, 39: quoted, 115, 200.

Lawrence, Sir Henry M., quoted
on Lawrence’s soldierly charac-
ter, 19, 20: accompanied him
to India, 21: Resident at La-
hore, 41: President of the
Punjab Board, 52; differences
with Lawrence, 52,53: foresaw
the Mutiny, 72: suggested
diversion of the China expedi-
tion, 85; organised the Guides,
gt.

LawRENcE, Honoria, accompanied
Lawrence to India, 21.

Lawegencr, John Laird Mair,
Lord, circumstances of his ap-
pointment as Viceroy, I1, 12:
suitability for, 12-15: diffi-
culties to be met, 15,16: not
fitted for a Board, 16, 123, 199:
his family, 18-20: education,
20, 21: arrival in India, 21, 22:
District Officer in the Delhi
Territory, 22-37: opinion of
the village communities, 30:
description of famine, 31: op-
position to over-assessment, 32,
33: Settlement Otficer at Etd-
wah, 37: marriage, 38: com-
missioner of the Jdlandhar
Dodb, 39, 41: sent military
train to Sobréon, 40: adminis-
tration of the Jdlandhar Dodb,
41-51: suppression of the
Kéngra rebellion, 45-47: Mem-
ber of the Punjab Board, 52:
Chief Commissioner of the Pun-
jab, 53: reformed taxation, 57 :
his assistants, 57, 58 : founded
Non-Regulation system, 61:
212

administration of the Punjab,
67-71: did not expect the
Mutiny, 73, 74: opinion of its
causes, 74, 75: saved the Pun-
jab, 78, 79: precautions taken,
79: recognised importance of
taking Delhi, 84, 95: advocated
rapid blows, 85, 86: sends
columns to siege of Delhi, 86,
91, 95, 96: enlists Sikhs, 95:

but gives warning against over-
reliance on them, 100: favoured
severity at first, 102, 103 : then
leniency, I03-105, I07: at
Delhi, 107, 108: praises the
services of others, IIo, II1:
but his own were greatest, I11:
honours conferred on, 112;
Lieut.-Gov. of the Punjab, 112:
leaves India, 113: religious
nature, 113~115: despatch on
Christianity, 117-119: advo-
cated Native Christian regi-
ments, 120:. yet favoured reli-
gious toleration, 120-122: re-
ception in England, 123: at
the India Office, 123, 124: ap-
pointed Viceroy, 124: North-
West frontier policy, 126-129:
Bhutdn war, 129-132: policy to-
wards Native States, 136-141:
originally an annexationist,
137: but changed by the
Mutiny, 137-139: appreciation
of the peasantry, 145, 153,154:
his tenant-right policy in the
Punjab, 148, 149: in Oudh,
149-153: in Bengal, 156: atti-
tude towards the Orissa famine,

INDEX

on Russian advance, 183-186:
resigns office, 195: created a
peer, 196: his simplicity, 196 :
hard work, 197: manner of
doing business, 197, 198: kind-
ness of heart, 198: Chairman
of London School Board, 199 :
approaching blindness, 200: in-
terest in missions and charities,
201: death, 202: monuments
to, 203.

Lerers, burial alive of, forbidden

in Native States, 140.

Lowdru, petty State near Delhi,

29.
Lonpon Scuoot Boarp, Lawrence

first Chairman of, 199.

LonDONDERRY, effect of defence

of, on Lawrence, 20, 21.

LuDHIANA occupied by Rdjd of

Ndbha in the Mutiny, 83.

Lyrroy, Lord, his Minute on

Lawrence, 202.

Macreop, Sir Donald, assistant

to Lawrence in the Punjab, 57:
read address of farewell to him,
113: presided at a missionary
meeting, 116: on the effect of
absence of tenant right in the
Punjab, 148.

Mainz, Sir H. J. S., on the re-

lation of Native States to the
Government, 141: on tenant-
right in the Punjab, 147, 148:
on waste of Government time,
169: on financial decentralisa-
tion, 172.

161: favoured irrigation, 162, MAumr-Koria, Cis-Sutlej] State,
163: expenditure and deficits 82.

in his viceroyalty, 166, 167: Mamnot, Nawdb of, deposed by
encouragement of railways, 168: Lawrence, 137.

views on financial decentralisa- Manpi, Native State in the J4-
tion, 170, 171: on the ‘gold’ landar Dodb, 42.

question, 173: policy with re- Manga, the true home of the
gard to Afghdnistdn, 177-191: Sikhs, 56.

recognised Muhammad Alf as MansEt, Charles, member of the
heir apparent, 177: refused to Punjab Board, 52.

recognise Amin Khdn, 178: MarpAn, defeat of the mutineers
declaration of policy, 180: views at, 94.
INDEX

MArwAz, burying lepers alive for-
bidden in, 140.

Massgy, W.N., finance minister,
167: presses scheme of financial
decentralisation, 170,

Mayo, Lord, carried out Law-
rence’s railway schemes, 168 :
and financial decentralisation,
171: interview with Sher Alf,
189, I90: continued Lawrence’s
Afghaén policy, 191, 192: suc-
ceeded Lawrence, 195.

MEEAN MEER, disarmament of, in
the Mutiny, 110, 113.

Meos (Mewédtis) tribe in Delhi
territory, 29, 30: plunderers
during the Mutiny, 108.

MrAnwaui, Mutiny at, 98.

Mirzi MucHat, commander-in-
chief of Delhi mutineers, 88.

Missionanies, Lawrence’s opinion
of, 201.

Moxmanps, assisted in suppression
of the Mutiny, 12.

Monteomery, Sir Robert, mem-
ber of the Punjab Board, 52:
assistant to Lawrence, 57: drew
up Code for Punjab, 65: secured
Amritsar in the Mutiny, 80:
sueceeded Lawrence in the Pun-
jab, 113: his piety, 114: use of
Canning’s Oudh proclamation,
I5I.

iMeauunris ALf, recognised by
Lawrence as heir apparent in
Afghdnistén, 177: killed at
Kandahar, 179.

Moupammapans, more than half
the population of the Punjab,
58: persecuted the Sikhs, 77:
enlisted during the Mutiny, 81.

MuxarraM Kuay, outlaw leader,
enlisted for service in Oudh, 99.

Mbtrdn, siege of, 51; disarma-
ment of native troops at, 94.

Moureee, Lawrence retires to, 71,
I10, III.

Mutiny oF 1857, its results, 13,
14: foreseen, 72: signs of its
approach, 72, 73: not expected,
73, 74: Lawrence on its cause,

213

74, 75: its development, 75, 76:
at Delhi, 87-89: share of Pun-
jab troops in suppressing, 100,
ior: reasons for severity at
first, 102, 103: feelings roused
by, 103-107: effect of fall of
Delhi, 108: changes caused by
in attitude to Native States,
134-136.
MuzaFraRnacar, Mutiny at, 75.

NABua, Raja of, Cis-Sutlej Chief,
82: faithful in the Mutiny,
83: received right of adoption,
138.

NAgepur, annexation of, 134.

Napier, Gen. Sir Charles, his
opinion of Punjab Board, 52:
foresaw the Mutiny, 72.

NapizR oF Macpaa, Robert,
Lord, his public works in the
Punjab, 67.

NasirABAD, mutineers from, at
Delhi, go.

Native Srarss, their number and
size, 132, 133: relation to the
government of India, 133, 134,
141, 142: Dalhousie’s policy
towards, 134, 135: changed by
Canning, 135, 136: Lawrence’s
policy towards, 137-141.

NicHotson, John, assistant to
Lawrence in the Punjab, 58;
at Peshawar, 79: devised the
movable column, 80: destroyed
Sidikot mutineers, 94: death,
98: Lawrence’s appreciation of,
Ilo.

NimacuH, mutineers from, at Delhi,
99, gt.

Non-REcunatTion System, first
idea of, in Delhi territory, 36:
in the Punjab, 59-67.

NowsHERA, disarmament of, 94.

Nurpur, Wazir of, rebelled, 45.

Orissa, famine in,157-160: floods,
160, 161.

Oupu, the Mutiny in, 75, 90: an-
nexation of, 134: approved by
214

Lawrence, 137: question of
tenant-right in, 149-151: dealt
with by Lawrence, 151-153.
Oupx Rent Act, 152, 153.
Outram, Sir James, Lawrence
buried near, 203.

PaLMERSTON, Lord, views on
Christianity in India, 119.

PAnirat, Lawrence Magistrate
and Collector at, 23.

Patavpt, petty Native State near
Delhi, 29.

PatHAns, enlisted in the Mutiny,
81: contrasted with Biluch
tribes, 127.

PattaLa, Mahérdj4 of, principal
Cis-Sutlej} Chief, 82: loyalty
and assistance during the Mu-
tiny, 83. 108: warning against
over-reliance on the Sikhs, 100 :
received right of adoption, 138.

PatwA, centre of a Muhammadan
propaganda, 9.

Prasantry, Lawrence’s sympathy
with the, 27, 28, 33, 35, 145,
153, 154-

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT OF BEn-
GAL, results of, 154, 155: en-
quiry ordered into, 156.

PERSIA, supposed proclamation of
the Shah of, 73.

Persian Wak, opportune ending
of the, 85.

PrsHAwaR, taken by Sayyid Ah-
mad, 10: dangerous situation
at Mutiny, 79: its importance,
80: native troops disarmed, 80,
81, 94: illuminated at news of
fall of Delhi, 98 : Lawrence read
Queen’s proclamation at, 111:
proposal to abandon during the
Mutiny, 176.

PHILLAUR, arsenal at, saved from
mutineers, 79: siege train es-
corted from hy R4jé of Ndbha,
83: its arrival at Delhi, 92.

Putian Carers, the, granted
the right to adopt, 138.

PuiurarcH, Lawrence a reader of,
20.

INDEX

ProLemy, mentions Lahore, 54.

Pupiic Works, Napier’s, in the
Punjab, 67: Lawrence’s policy
on, as Viceroy, 163, 167, 168.

Punsas, the, annexed, 52: Law-
rence Chief Commissioner, 53:
largely Muhammadan, 55: re-
sults of Lawrence’s administra-
tion, 67, 68: prosperity of, 70:
attitude at news of the Mutiny,
78 : bad effect of loss of Delhi on,
94: became recruiting-ground,
Too: made a lieutenant-gover-
norship, 112: its North-West
frontier, 126-129.

PungaB Tenancy Act, the, 148,

149.
Puri, famine at, 159.

Ralkgs, Charles, assistant to Law-
rence at Pdénfpat, 32: quoted,

53-

Raitways, Lawrence’s schemes
as to, 168.

RAscaru, Native State, principle
established in the case of, 121,
122, 140.

Ransit Sines, fought with Sayyid
Ahmad, 10: conquered the
Jalandhar Dodb, 43: glory of
the Sikhs departed at his death,

5.
Bie Pinp1, Lawrence heard
news of the Mutiny at, 71.
RicumonD, Yorkshire, Lawrence
born at, 19.
RowILEHAND, the Mutiny in, go.
Routak, mutineers from, at Delhi,
87, 90: anarchy in, 108.
Russia, Lawrence’s policy with
regard to her advance in Asia,
183-186.

SaHARANPUR, the Mutiny at, 75.

SaMARCAND, taken by Russia, 185.

Sanpuurst, Lord, quoted on the
Oudh Rent Bill, 153.

be aaa DEPARTMENT created,
166.

SAtTARA, Native State, annexation
of, 134.
INDEX

Saté, suppressed by Lawrence in
the Jdlandhar Doéb, 49: in
Kotah, 140. ;

Scort, Hercules, assistant to Law-
rence in the Jdlandhar Dodb,

SETTLEMENT Work, importance of,
34) 35-

SHEIKHABAD, battle of, 180, 181.

SHER ALi, recognised as Amir of
Afghdnistén, 177: quarrelled
with his brothers, 178: took
Kandahdr, 179: defeated at
Sheikhabdid, 180: driven from
Kandahdr, 182: appeals to
Russia and Persia, 183 : retakes
K4bul, 187: Lawrence’s policy
of friendship with, 187-189:
meets Mayo at Ambdla, 189,
190.

S1ALKoT, Lawrence reports well
of the Sepoys at, 74: they
mutiny, 94.

SIEGE TRAINS, sent to Delhi from
Phillaur, 92: from Firozpur, 96.

Srxus, defeated in the first Punjab
war, 39-41: induce Kdngra
chiefs to rebel, 44: their op-
pressive rule in the Jdlandhar
Dodb, 47, 48: condemn female
infanticide, 49: second war
with, 51, 52: fraction only of
population of the Punjab, 55:
their head-quarters the Manjha,
56: their numerous taxes, 57:
hatred of Muhammadans, 77:
held aloof till Delhi was taken,
81: their chiefs called on by
Lawrence, 95 : their enlistment,
98-100.

SILVER, question of its deprecia-
tion relatively to gold, 173-175.

Sinp, distinction between its fron-
tier and that of the Punjab, 127.

StroH!, Native State, burying
lepers alive forbidden in, 140.

SrrAna, capital of Muhammadan
colony, burnt (1858), 10.

SuirH, R. Bosworth, Life of Lord
Lawrence, quoted or referred
to, II, 29”, 124, 195, 200.

215

Soprion, Lawrence sent up sup-
plies just before battle of, 40.
SpeciaL Commission aT DELHI,

severity of the, 107.
SPECULATIVE MANIA during Law-
rence’s viceroyalty, 164.
Spiri, its Buddhist inhabitants,

42.

SranbEy, Lord.(Earl of Derby),
re-opened question of making
the Punjab a Lieutenant-gover-
norship, 112: appointed Law-
rence to the Council of India,
123: his praise of Lawrence,

199.

STEPHEN, Sir J. F., on Lawrence’s
respect for law, 64.

Stracuey, Sir John, settles the
Oudh Télukdér difficulty, 152.

SrracHey, Gen. Richard, devised
irrigation schemes, 163: and
railways, 168: worked out de-
tails of financial decentralisa-
tion, 170.

Suxet, Native State in the J4-
landhar Dodb, 42.

TALUKDARS OF OUDH, position and
treatment of the, 150-152.

Taxation, Lawrence’s simplifica-
tion of, in the Punjab, 57.

Tay.or, Gen. Reynell G., assistant
to Lawrence in the Punjab,

58.

TEMPLE, Sir Richard, Life of Lord
Lawrence quoted, 40: drew
up Code for the Punjab, 65:
Finance Minister under Law-
rence, 167.

TENANT-RIGHT in the Punjab,
146,147: affected by the Settle-
ment Officers, 147, 148: dealt
with by Lawrence, 148, 149:
in Oudh, 150, 151: dealt with
by Lawrence, 151-153: general
reforms made by Lawrence,
154: who orders an enquiry in
Bengal, 156.

Tuornton, Edward, assistant to
Lawrence in the Punjab, 57:
testimony to Lawrence, III.
216

Tonk, Nawdb of, deposed for mis-
government, 139.

TREVELYAN, Sir Charles, Finance
Minister under Lawrence, 1677:
approved of financial decentral-
isation, 170.

Ussec KaAnatss, the, conquered
by Russia, 185.

VILLAGEComMMUNITIES, the Indian,
Lawrence’s admiration of, 27, 30.

WELLESLEY, Lord, designed to re-
move the Emperor from Delhi,
26.

INDEX

Witson, Gen. Sir Archdale, esti-
mate of the number of mutineers
at Delhi, gr.

WIizs0n, James, Finance Minister,

171.

Woop, Sir Charles (Lord Halifax),
on Christianity in India, 119:
tells Lawrence of his nomina-
tion as Viceroy, 124.

WRaXALL Hatt, Wiltshire, Law-
rence partly educated at, 20.

Yusarzats, enlisted to help in
the suppression of the Mutiny,
12.

THE END.
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XV. EARL OF AUCKLAND: and the First Afghan War, by
Caprain L. J. Trorter, Author of India under Victoria, &e.

XVI. JAMES THOMASON : and the British Settlement of North-
Western India, by Str RicuarD TEMPLE, Bart., formerly
Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and sometime Governor of
Bombay.

XVII. VISCOUNT HARDINGE: and the Advance of the British
Dominions into the Punjab, by his Son and Private Secretary,
the Right Hon. Viscount Harpines. [Published.]

XVIII. RANJIT SINGH: and the Sikh Barrier between our Growing
Empire and Central Asia, by Six Lupst GrirFin, K.C.S.1.,
Author of The Punjab Chiefs, &e. [Published.]

XIX. THE MARQUESS OF DALHOUSIE: and the Final
Development of the Company’s Rule, by Sir WinL1am WILSON
Hunter, K.C.8.1., M.A. [Published.] Fourth thousand.

XX. CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN: and the Suppression of
the Great Revolt, by Mason-GEneRAL Siz OwEn TUDOR
Burve, K.C.S.I., sometime Military Secretary to the Com-
mander-in-Chief in India. [Published.] Third thousand.

XXI. EARL CANNING: and the Transfer of India from the
Company to the Crown, by Sir Henry S. CunnincHaM,
K.C.LE., M.A., Author of British India and its Rulers, &e.
[Published.]

XXII. LORD LAWRENCE: and the Reconstruction of India under
the Crown, by Sir CHARLES UmpueErston Aircnison, K.C.S.1.,
LL.D., formerly Foreign Secretary to the Government of India,
and late Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. [Published.]

XXII THE EARL OF MAYO: and the Consolidation of the
Queen’s Rule in India, by Sir Wituiam Witson HUNTER,
K.C.8.1, M.A. [Published.]

OxForD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AMEN CoRNER, Lonpon,
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. Price 2s. 6d. each volume.

 

 

Mpinions of the jpress
ON
SIR WILLIAM HUNTER’S ‘DALHOUSIE.’

‘ An interesting and exceedingly readable volume. .... Sir William
Hunter has produced a valuable work about an important epoch in
English history in India, and he has given us a pleasing insight into
the character of a remarkable Englishman. The “ Rulers of India”
series, which he has initiated, thus makes a successful beginning in his
hands with one who ranks among the greatest of the great names which
will be associated with the subject.’—The Times.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON ‘ DALHOUSIE’ (continued).

‘To no one is the credit for the improved condition of public intelli-
gence [regarding India] more due than to Sir William Hunter. From
the beginning of his career as an Indian Civilian he has devoted a rare
literary faculty to the task of enlightening his countrymen on the subject
of England’s greatest dependency .... By inspiring a small army of
fellow-labourers with his own spirit, by inducing them to conform to his
own method, and shaping a huge agglomeration of facts into a lucid and
intelligible system, Sir W. Hunter has brought India and its innumer-
able interests within the pale of achievable knowledge, and has given
definite shape to the truths which its history establishes and the
problems which it suggests. ... Such contributions to literature are apt to
be taken as a matter of course, because their highest merit is to conceal
the labour, and skill, and knowledge involved in their production ; but
they raise the whole level of public intelligence, and generate an
atmosphere in which the baleful influences of folly, ignorance, prejudice,
and presumption dwindle and disappear. ... No one we think, who fairly
studies Sir W. Hunter’s exact and lucid narrative of these transactions,
can question the result which he seeks to establish—namely, that Lord
Dalhousie merely carried out with moderation and skill a policy
deliberately adopted by the Government before his arrival in the country
—a policy the strict legality of which cannot be disputed, and which was
inspired by the growing sense that sovereigns exist, not for their own
enjoyment, but for the happiness of their subjects. —Saturday Review.

‘ Admirably calculated to impart ina concise and agreeableform a clear
general outline of the history of our great Indian Empire.’— Economist.

© A skilful and most attractive picture. ... The author has made good
use of public and private documents, and has enjoyed the privilege of
being aided by the deceased statesman’s family. His little work is,
consequently, a valuable contribution to modern history..—Academy.

©The book should command a wide circle of readers, not only for its
author’s sake and that of its subject, but partly at least on account of
the very attractive way in which it has been published at the moderate
price of half-a-crown. But it is, of course, by its intrinsic merits alone
that a work of this nature should be judged. And those merits are
everywhere conspicuous. ... A writer whose thorough mastery of all
Indian subjects has been acquired by years of practical experience and
patient research. —The Atheneum.

Never have we been so much impressed by the great literary abilities
of Sir William Hunter as we have been by the perusal of ‘“The Marquess
of Dalhousie.” . .. The knowledge displayed by the writer of the motives
of Lord D.lhousie’s action, of the inner working of his mind, is so com-
plete, that Lord Dalhousie himself, were he living, could not state them
more clearly. ... Sir William Hunter’s style is so clear, his language
so vivid, and yet so simple, conveying the impressions he wishes so per-
spicuously that they cannot but be understood, that the work must have
a place in every library, in every home, we might say indeed every
cottage.’— Evening News.

‘Sir William Hunter has written an admirable little volume on
“The Marquess of Dalhousie” for his series of the ‘“ Rulers of India.”
It can be read at a sitting, yet its references—expressed or implied—
suggest the study and observation of half a life-time. —The Daily News.
Mpinions of the joress

SIR WILLIAM HUNTER’S ‘LORD MAYO.’

‘Sir William W. Hunter has contributed a brief but admirable
biography of the Earl of Mayo to the series entitled ‘‘ Rulers of India,”
edited by himself (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press).’—The Times.

‘In telling this story in the monograph before us, Sir William
Hunter has combined his well-known literary skill with an earnest
sympathy and fulness of knowledge which are worthy of all commenda-
tion... . The world is indebted to the author for a fit and attractive
record of what was eminently a noble life.’— The Academy.

‘The sketch of The Man is full of interest, drawn as it is with com-
plete sympathy, understanding, and appreciation. But more valuable
is the account of his administration. No one can show so well and
clearly as Sir William Hunter does what the policy of Lord Mayo con-
tributed to the making of the Indian Empire of to-day.’—The Scotsman.

‘Sir William Hunter has given us a monograph in which there is a
happy combination of the essay and the biography. We are presented
with the main features of Lord Mayo’s administration unencumbered
with tedious details which would interest none but the most official of
Anglo-Indians; while in the biography the man is brought before us,
not analytically, but in a life-like portrait.’—Vanity Fair.

‘ The story of his life Sir W. W. Hunter tells in well-chosen language
—clear, succinct, and manly. Sir W. W. Hunter is in sympathy with
his subject, and does full justice to Mayo’s strong, genuine nature.
Without exaggeration and in a direct, unaffected style, as befits his
theme, he brings the man and his work vividly before us.’—The
Glasgow Herald.

‘All the knowledge acquired by personal association, familiarity with
administrative details of the Indian Government, and a strong grasp of
the vast problems to be dealt with, is utilised in this presentation of
Lord Mayo’s personality and career. Sir W. Hunter, however, never
overloads his pages, and the outlines of the sketch are clear and firm.’
—The Manchester Express.

‘This is another of the ‘ Rulers of India” series, and it will be hard
to beat. .. . Sir William Hunter’s perception and expression are here at
their very best..—The Pall Mall Gazette.

‘The latest addition to the ‘‘ Rulers of India” series yields to none of
its predecessors in attractiveness, vigour, and artistic portraiture. ...
The final chapter must either be copied verbally and literally—which
the space at our disposal will not permit—or be left to the sorrowful
perusal of the reader. The man is not to be envied who can read it with
dry eyes.’—Allen’s Indian Mail.

‘The little volume which has just been brought out is a study of Lord
Mayo’s career by one who knew all about it and was in full sympathy
with it....Some of these chapters are full of spirit and fire. The
closing passages, the picture of the Viceroy’s assassination, cannot fail
to make any reader hold his breath. We know what is going to
happen, but we are thrilled as if we did not know it, and were still
held in suspense. The event itself was so terribly tragic that any
ordinary description might seem feeble and laggard. But in this
volume we are made to feel as we must have felt if we had been on
the spot and seen the murderer “‘ fastened like a tiger” on the back of
the Viceroy. —Daily News, Leading Article.
Mpinions of the JPress
ON
MR.W.S.SETON-KARR’S‘CORNWALLIS.’

_‘ This new volume of the “Rulers of India” series keeps up to the
high standard set by the author of “The Marquess of Dalhousie.” For
dealing with the salient passages in Lord Cornwallis’s Indian career no
one could have been better qualified than the whilom foreign secretary
to Lord Lawrence.’—The Atheneum.

‘ Lord Cornwallis has been very properly included in the list of those
“Rulers of India” whose biographies are calculated to illustrate the
past growth and present development of the English administration in
that country. His name is connected with several great measures,
which more, perhaps, than any others have given a special colour to our
rule, have influenced the course of subsequent legislation, and have made
the Civil Service what it at present is. He completed the administrative
fabric of which Warren Hastings, in the midst of unexampled difficulties
and vicissitudes, had laid the foundation.’—The Saturday Review.

‘We hope that the volumes on the “Rulers of India” which are
being published by the Clarendon Press are carefully read by a large
section of the public. There is a dense wall of ignorance still standing
between the average Englishman and the greatest dependency of the
Crown ; although we can scarcely hope to see it broken down altogether,
some of these admirable biographies cannot fail to lower it a little... .
Mr. Seton-Karr -has succeeded in the task, and he has not only pre-
sented a large mass of information, but he has brought it together in an
attractive form. ... We strongly recommend the book to all who wish
to enlarge the area of their knowledge with reference to India. —New
York Herald.

‘The ‘Rulers of India” series. This outcome of the Clarendon
Press grows in value as it proceeds. The account of Cornwallis is from
the pen of Mr. W. Seton-Karr, who was formerly Foreign Secretary to
the Government of India, and whose acquaintance with Eastern affairs
has been of obvious service to him in the compilation of this useful
manual.’—The Globe.

“One might almost say that the history of our great Indian Empire
might be read with comparative ease in the excellent “ Rulers of India
Series,” published at the Clarendon Press at Oxford. ... Of Cornwallis
it might be said he transformed the East India Company’s servants
from merchants to administrators, and determined to place them above
jobbery, which he despised.’—The Independent.

‘We have already expressed our sense of the value and timeliness of
the series of Indian historical retrospects now issuing, under the editor-
ship of Sir W. W. Hunter, from the Clarendon Press. It is somewhat
less than fair to say of Mr. Seton-Karr’s monograph upon Cornwallis
that it reaches the high standard of literary workmanship which that
series has maintained... . His accurate and lucid summary of the necessi-
ties which dictated Cornwallis’s policy, and the methods by which he
initiated and, to a great extent, effected, the transformation of our rule
in India from the lines of an Oriental despotism to those with which we
are now familiar, is as attractive as it.is instructive. —The Literary
World.
Mpinions of the JPress

oN

COLONEL MALLESON’S ‘DUPLEIX.’

‘In the character of Dupleix there was the element of greatness
that contact with India seems to have generated in so many European
minds, French as well as English, and a broad capacity for govern-
ment, which, if suffered to have full play, might have ended in giving
the whole of Southern India to France. Even as it was, Colonel
Malleson shows how narrowly the prize slipped from French grasp.
In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles arrived just in time to save the
British power from extinction.’— Times.

‘Colonel Malleson’s Life of Dupleix, which has just been published,
though his estimate of his hero differs in some respects from Lord
Stanhope’s and Lord Macaulay’s, may be accepted as, on the whole, a
fairly faithful portraiture of the prophetic genius to whom the possi-
bility of a great Indo-European Empire first revealed itself. Had the
French profited by all the advantages they possessed when Clive
exchanged the counting-house for the army, the history of India, and

perhaps of Europe also, might have been different.’— Standard
(leading article).

‘The “Rulers of India” series, edited by Sir W. W. Hunter, and
published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, is one of the very best of
the serial collections which are now so popular. All the writers of
these little volumes are well-known and acknowledged authorities on
the subjects with which they deal. Not the least interesting volume
in this particular series is Colonel Malleson’s biography of Dupleix . . .
It was to Dupleix, and not to Clive, that the idea first occurred of
founding a European Empire in India... It is a stirring story, and
full of moral for the administrators of India at this hour.’—Echo.

‘One of the best of Sir W. Hunter’s interesting and valuable series.
Colonel Malleson writes out of the fulness of familiarity, moving with
ease over a field which he had long ago surveyed in every nook and
corner. To do a small book as well as this on Dupleix has been done,
will be recognised by competent judges as no small achievement.
When one considers the bulk of the material out of which the little
volume has been distilled, one can still better appreciate the labour
and dexterity involved in the performance.’— Academy.

‘Colonel Malleson has here written 4 most compact and effective
history of the French in India in a little handbook of 180 pages, He
gives a brief summary of French enterprise in India from the first,
and clearly outlines the grand designs that rose in the fertile brain of
Dupleix. Colonel Malleson’s chapter on the “ Downfall of Dupleix”
is as touching as anything we remember to have recently read, and his
chapter on Clive and his work may be read with interest and pleasure,

even after the glowing and brilliant account of Macaulay.’—Noncon-
formist.

‘Well arranged, lucid and eminently readable, an excellent addition
to a most useful series.’—Record.
Mpinions of the jPress
ON
COLONEL MALLESON’S ‘AKBAR.’

‘ Colonel Malleson’s interesting monograph on Akbar in the “Rulers
of India” (Clarendon Press) should more than satisfy the general
reader. Colonel Malleson traces the origin and foundation of the
Mughal Empire ; and, as an introduction to the history of Muhamma-
dan India, the book leaves nothing to be desired.’ —St. James’s Gazette.

‘ Akbar was certainly a great man. Colonel Malleson has done well
to tell his story thus succinctly and sympathetically: hitherto it has been
mostly buried from the mass of readers. The book is in our idea a
piece of thoroughly well-executed work, which cannot fail to recommend
still further a series which has begun right well.’—Nonconformist.

‘The chief interest of the book lies in the later chapters, in which
Colonel Malleson presents an interesting and singularly pleasing
picture of the great Emperor himself and the principles which governed
his enlightened and humane administration.’ —Literary World.

‘It is almost superfluous to say that the book is characterised by
the narrative vigour and the extensive familiarity with Indian history
to which the readers of Colonel Malleson’s other works are accus-
tomed.’— Glasgow Herald.

‘This volume will, no doubt, be welcomed, even by experts in
Indian history, in the light of a new, clear, and terse rendering of an
old, but not worn-out theme. It is a worthy and valuable addition
to Sir W. Hunter's promising series.’—_Atheneum.

‘Colonel Malleson has broken ground new to the general reader.
The story of Akbar is briefly but clearly told, with an account of what
he was and what he did, and how he found and how he left India... .
The native chronicles of the reign are many, and from them it is still
possible, as Colonel Malleson has shown, to construct a living portrait
of this great and mighty potentate.’—Scots Observer.

‘ Akbar is, after Mohammed himself, the most striking and interest-
ing figure in Mussulman history. Few men of any age or country
have united in equally successful measure the gifts of the conqueror,
the organiser, and the philosophic statesman .. . His personal charac-
ter is even more exceptional among Oriental rulers than his intel-
lectual brilliance ... He is the only great Mussulman ruler who
showed himself capable of rising out of the narrow bigotry of Islam to
a lofty and comprehensive view of religious truth. The life and rule
of such a man is a noble theme for a great historian.’-— Speaker.

‘The brilliant historian of the Indian Mutiny has been assigned in
this volume of the series an important epoch and a strong personality
for critical study, and he has admirably fulfilled his task. A luminous
exposition of the invasions of India by Babar, Akbar’s grandfather,
makes a good introduction to Asiatic history of the sixteenth century.
Akbar’s own career is full of interest, and to the principles of his in-
ternal administration Colonel Malleson devotes in the final chapter more
than a quarter of the pages of his book, Alike in dress and style, this
volume is a fit companion for its predecessor. —Manchester Guardian.
Mpinions of the JPress

On

CAPTAIN TROTTER’S ‘WARREN HASTINGS.’

‘The publication, recently noticed in this place, of the “ Letters,
Despatches, and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Depart-
ment of the Government of India, 1772-1785,” has thrown entirely new
light from the most authentic sources on the whole history of Warren
Hastings and his government of India. Captain L. J. Trotter’s
Warren Hastines, a volume of the “‘ Rulers of India” series, edited
by Sir W. Hunter (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), is accordingly
neither inopportune nor devoid of an adequate raison @étre. ‘‘The
present volume,” says a brief preface, ‘“‘ endeavours to exhibit for the
first time the actual work of that great Governor-General, as reviewed
from the firm stand-point of the original records now made available to
the students of Indian history.” Captain Trotter is well known as a
competent and attractive writer on Indian history, and this is not the
first time that Warren Hastings has supplied him with a theme.—
The Times.

‘He has put his best work into this memoir . . . Captain Trotter’s
memoir is more valuable [than Sir A. Lyall’s] from a strictly historical
point of view. It contains more of the history of the period, and it
embraces the very latest information that casts light on Hastings’ re-
markable career ... His work too is of distinct literary merit, and is
worthy of a theme than which British history presents none nobler.
It is a distinct gain to the British race to be enabled, as it now may,
to covnt the great Governor-General among those heroes for whom
it need not blush.’—Scotsman.

‘Captain Trotter has done his work well, and his volume deserves
to stand with that on Dalhousie by Sir William Hunter. Higher
praise it would be hard to give it.—New York Herald.

‘This is an able book, written with candour and discrimination.’—
Leeds Mercury.

‘Captain Trotter has done full justice to the fascinating story of the
splendid achievements of a great Englishman.’—Manchester Guardian.

‘This neat little volume contains a brief but admirable biography of
the first Governor-General of India. The author has been fortunate in
having had access to State papers which cover the period of the
entire rule of Warren Hastings.’—The Newcastle Chronicle.

‘In preparing this sketch for “The Rulers of India,” Captain
Trotter has had the advantage of consulting the ‘‘ Letters, Despatches,
and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Department of the
Government of India, 1772-85,” a period which covers the entire
administration of Warren Hastings. The present volume, therefore,
may truly claim that it “exhibits for the first time the actual work of
the great Governor-General, as reviewed from the firm stand-point of
original records.” It is a book which all must peruse who desire to
be “ up to date” on the subject.’—The Globe. «
Mypinions of the jPress

on

VISCOUNT HARDINGE’S ‘LORD HARDING,’

‘ An exception to the rule that biographies ought not to be entrusted
to near relatives. Lord Hardinge, a scholar and an artist, has given
us an accurate record of his father’s long and distinguished services.
There is no filial exaggeration. The author has dealt with some con-
troversial matters with skill, and has managed to combine truth with
tact and regard for the feelings of others. —The Saturday Review,

‘This interesting life reveals the first Lord Hardinge as a brave,
just, able man, the very soul of honour, admired and trusted equally
by friends and political opponents. The biographer . .. has produced a
most engaging volume, which is enriched by many private and official
documents that have not before seen the light.’—The Anti-Jacobin.

‘Lord Hardinge has accomplished a grateful, no doubt, but, from
the abundance of material and delicacy of certain matters, a very
difficult task in a workmanlike manner, marked by restraint and
lucidity. —The Pall Mall Gazette.

‘ His son and biographer has done his work with a true appreciation
of proportion, and has added substantially to our knowledge of the
Sutlej Campaign.’— Vanity Fair.

‘The present Lord Hardinge is in some respects exceptionally well
qualified to tell the tale of the eventful four years of his father’s
Governor-Generalship.’—The Times.

‘It contains a full account of everything of importance in Lord
Hardinge’s military and political career; it is arranged... so as to
bring into special prominence his government of India; and it gives a
lifelike and striking picture of the man.’—Academy.

‘The style is clear, the treatment dispassionate, and the total result
a manual which does credit to the interesting series in which it figures.”
—The Globe.

‘The concise and vivid account which the son has given of his
father’s career will interest many readers. —The Morning Post.

‘Eminently readable for everybody. The history is given succinctly,
and the unpublished letters quoted are of real value.’—The Colonies
and India. ‘

‘Compiled from public documents, family papers, and letters, this
brief biography gives the reader a clear idea of what Hardinge was,
both as a soldier and as an administrator.’—The Manchester Examiner.

* An admirable sketch. — The New York Herald.

‘The Memoir is well and concisely written, and is accompanied by
an excellent likeness after the portrait by Sir Francis Grant,’—The
Queen.

Pp
Mpinions of the JPress

on

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OWEN BURNE’S
‘CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN,’

‘In “Clyde and Strathnairn,” a contribution to Sir William Hunter’s
excellent ‘‘ Rulers of India” series (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press),
Sir Owen Burne gives a lucid sketch of the military history of the
Indian Mutiny and its suppression by the two great soldiers who give
their names to his book. The space is limited for so large a theme, but
Sir Owen Burne skilfully adjusts his treatment to his limits, and rarely
violates the conditions of proportion imposed upon him.’ .. . ‘Sir Owen
Burne does not confine himself exclusively to the military narrative.
He gives a brief sketch of the rise and progress of the Mutiny, and
devotes a chapter to the Reconstruction which followed its suppression.’
...‘—well written, well proportioned, and eminently worthy of the
series to which it belongs.’ —The Times.

‘Sir Owen Burne who, by association, experience, and relations with
one of these generals, is well qualified for the task, writes with know-
ledge, perspicuity, and fairness. —Saturday Review.

‘As a brief record of a momentous epoch in India this little book is
a remarkable piece of clear, concise, and interesting writing.’— The
Colonies and India.

‘Sir Owen Burne has written this book carefully, brightly, and
with excellent judgment, and we in India cannot read such a book
without feeling that he has powerfully aided the accomplished editor
of the series in a truly patriotic enterprise. —Bombay Gazette.

‘The volume on “Clyde and Strathnairn” has just appeared and
proves to be a really valuable addition to the series. Considering its
size and the extent of ground it covers it is one of the best books about
the Indian Mutiny of which we know.’—Englishman.

‘Sir Owen Burne, who has written the latest volume for Sir William
Hunter’s “‘ Rulers of India” series, is better qualified than any living
person to narrate, from a military standpoint, the story of the suppres-
sion of the Indian Mutiny..—Daily Telegraph.

‘Sir Owen Burne’s book on “Clyde and Strathnairn” is worthy to
rank with the best in the admirable series to which it belongs.’—
Manchester Examiner.

‘The book is admirably written; and there is probably no better
sketch, equally brief, of the stirring events with which it deals.’
Scotsman.

‘Sir Owen Burne, from the part he played in the Indian Mutiny, and
from his long connexion with the Government of India, and from the
fact that he was military secretary of Lord Strathnairn both in India
and in Ireland, is well qualified for the task which he has undertaken.’—
The Atheneum.
Mypinions of the Oress
MR. KEENE’S ‘MADHAVA RAO SINDHIA,’

‘The life ofsuch a man should be interesting to all those who have en-
tered, however remotely, into theinheritance of his labours: and Mr. Keene
is well qualified, both by his knowledge of Indian history and his literary
dexterity in its treatment, to do justice to his subject,’—The Times.

‘Mr. Keene has the enormous advantage, not enjoyed by every
producer of a book, of knowing intimately the topic he has taken up.
He has compressed into these 203 pages an immense amount of informa-
tion, drawn from the best sources, and presented with much neatness and
effect ... Such a life was worth tracing in connection with the general
history of the times; and that is the task which Mr. Keene has so well
fulfilled in this concise, yet attractive, little volume.’—The Globe.

‘In this brief monograph Mr. Keene goes over the ground already tra-
versed by him in his “ Fall of the Moghul Empire.” But the particular
work which gives Sindhia his place in Indian history. . . is here made
more clearly manifest,while the book deals almost as much in general his-
tory as in biography . . It is valuable as bringing out the originality as well
as the greatness of the unacknowledged ruler of Hindustan ... The book
is interesting . .. and forms a valuable addition to the series.’— Scotsman.

‘Mr. Keene tells the story with knowledge and impartiality, and also
with sufficient graphic power to make it thoroughly readable. The
recognition of Sindhia in the ‘‘ Rulers” series is just and graceful,
and it cannot fail to give satisfaction to the educated classes of our
Indian fellow-subjects.’—North British Daily Mail.

‘This is probably the most romantic volume in the whole series, and
the Sindhia’s difference in attitude towards De Boigne and Warren
Hastings is very interestingly stated. The history of the foundation of
our Indian Empire receives much elucidation from this admirable
volume.’—Liverpool Mercury.

‘Mr. H.G. Keene, C.I.E., M.A., has added a very acceptable volume to
the popular half-crown series of works on former potentates in England’s
vast Indian dependency . . . From the signal defeat of the Marathas at
Panipat, in 1761, in which engagement Sindhia, after fighting valiantly,
very nearly lost his life, until his death in 1794, his varying fortunes are
traced. The important affairs in which he figured so prominently, as also
the intrigues and machinations that were directed against him, are re-
corded, whilst the desirable effect of his policy in assuaging the fierce
passions and civilising the habits of the people is depicted. The volume
bears incontestable proofs of the expenditure of considerable research
by the author, and sustains the reputation he had already acquired
by his “‘ Sketch of the History of Hindustan.” ’—Freeman’s Journal.

* Among the eighteen rulers of India included in the scheme of Sir
William Hunter only five are natives of India, and of these the great
Madhoji Sindhia is, with the exception of Akbar, the most illustrious.
Mr. H. G. Keene, a well-known and skilful writer on Indian questions,
is fortunate in his subject, for the career of the greatest bearer of the
historic name of Sindhia covered the exciting period from the capture
of Delhi, the Imperial capital, by the Persian Nadir Shah, to the occu-
pation of the same city by Lord Lake. ...Mr. Keene gives a lucid
description of his subsequent policy, especially towards the English
when he was brought face to face with Warren Hastings. The conclu-
sion of his hostility to us was the real beginning of his own political
career in Jndia.’— The Daily Graphic.

P2
Mypinions of the JOress

SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAW’S ‘EARL
CANNING.’

‘The life of Earl Canning, the Viceroy of the Indian Mutiny, affords
an excellent subject for a biographer who knows his business, and
therefore we need hardly say that ‘‘ Earl Canning,” by Sir H. S.
Cunningham, K.C.I.E., is an admirable contribution to the series of
the “Rulers of India” edited by Sir W. W. Hunter (Oxford, at the
Clarendon Press). Sir Henry Cunningham’s rare literary skill and his
knowledge of Indian life and affairs are not now displayed for the first
time, and he has enjoyed exceptional advantages in dealing with his
present subject. Lord Granville, Canning’s contemporary at school
and colleague in public life and one of his oldest friends, furnished his
biographer with notes of his recollections of the early life of his friend.
Sir Henry Cunningham has also been allowed access to the Diary of
Canning’s private secretary, to the Journal of his military secretary,
and to an interesting correspondence between the Governor-General
and his great lieutenant, Lord Lawrence. Of these exceptional ad-
vantages he has made excellent use, and the result is a biography
second in interest to none in the series to which it belongs,’—The Times.

‘Sir Henry Cunningham’s “Earl Canning” is a model monograph.
The writer knows India, as well as Indian history, well ; and his story
has a vividness which none but an Anglo-Indian could so well have
imparted to it. It has also the advantage of being founded to a large
extent on hitherto unused material.’—The Globe.

‘Sir H. 8. Cunningham has succeeded in writing the history of a
critical period in so fair and dispassionate 4 manner as to make it
almost a matter of astonishment that the motives which he has so
clearly grasped should ever have been misinterpreted, and the results
which he indicates so grossly misjudged. Nor is the excellence of his
work less conspicuous from the literary than from the political and
historical point of view. The style is clear and vivid, the language
well chosen and vigorous, the disposition of details and accessories
striking and artistic, and, indeed, under whatever aspect the work be
considered, it reaches the high standard of workmanship which, from
the outset, has been a distinguishing feature of the series.’ — Glasgow
Herald.

‘Sir H. 8. Cunningham was fortunate, in u literary sense, in the
particular Viceroy and period of Indian history allotted to his pen in
the important and valuable series of biographical volumes on “‘ Rulers
of India,” being published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, under the
editorship of Sir William Wilson Hunter. In Earl Canning, first
Viceroy of India, Sir H. S. Cunningham had a subject sufficiently
inspiring to all who admire honour, courage, patience, wisdom, all the
virtues and qualities which go to the building up of the character of an
ideal English gentleman ; while the episode of the Mutiny, culminating
in the fall of Lucknow, lends itself to the more picturesque and
graphic description. Sir H. 8. Cunningham has treated his subject ade-
quately. In vivid language he paints his word-pictures, and with calm
judicial analysis he also proves himself an able critic of the actualities,
causes, and results of the outbreak, also a temperate, just appreciator
of the character and policy of Earl Canning.’— The Court Journal.
Mypinions of the JPress

ON

MR. DEMETRIUS BOULGER'’S ‘LORD
WILLIAM BENTINCK,

‘The “ Rulers of India” series has received a valuable addition in
the biography of the late Lord William Bentinck. he subject of this
interesting memoir was a soldier as well as a statesman. He was
mainly instrumental in bringing about the adoption of the overland
route and in convincing the people of India that a main factor in Eng-
lish policy was a disinterested desire for their welfare. Lord William's
despatches and minutes, several of which are textually reproduced in
Mr. Boulger’s praiseworthy little book, display considerable literary
skill be are one and all State papers of signal worth.’—Daily Tele-
graph.

‘Mr. Boulger is no novice in dealing with Oriental history and
Oriental affairs, and in the career of Lord William Bentinck he has
found a theme very much to his taste, which he treats with adequate
knowledge and literary skill.’— The Times.

‘ His frontier policy was conciliatory, but full of foresight. His minute
on the subject of Afghanistan and the advance of Russia in Asia may
be read with advantage to-day, nearly sixty years after it was written.
Similarly, his observations on the armies of India have lost by no means
all of their force, and Mr. Boulger has done a public service in printing
the document.’—Daily News.

‘ How all this was effected has been clearly and forcibly set forth by
Mr. Boulger. Though concisely written, his memoir omits nothing
really essential to « thorough understanding and just appreciation of
Bentinck’s work, and of the results which flowed from it, even after he
had ceased to be at the head of Indian affairs. Mr. Boulger’s estimate
of the statesman is eminently fair and dispassionate, based on a
thorough knowledge of his admizistration in all its details. Altogether
the little work is a valuable addition to a most useful series.’—Glasgow
Herald.

© Mr. Boulger writes clearly and well, and his volume finds an ac-
cepted place in the very useful and informing series which Sir William
Wilson Hunter is editing so ably.’—Independent,

‘Lord William Bentinck occupies a distinct place among Indian
Governors-General. His rule may be regarded as the commencement of
an epoch. Mr. Boulger has not to tell a stirring story of war and conquest,
but the record of Lord William Bentinck’s domestic reforms, by which he
began the regeneration of India, is as deeply interesting and certainly
as well worth studying as any chapter of preceding Indian history.
Mr. Boulger has produced an excellent brief history of the period, and
a capital life of the Governor-General. The volume is one of the series
of “ Rulers of India,” and none of them is better worthy of perusal.’—
The Scotsman.

‘Mr. Boulger, it should be added, has done his work with care and
judgment.’— Globe,
Mpinions of the Press

MR. J. S. COTTON’S ‘MOUNTSTUART
ELPHINSTONE.’

‘Sir William Hunter, the editor of the series to which this book
belongs, was happily inspired when he entrusted the Life of Elphin-
stone, one of the most scholarly of Indian rulers, to Mr. Cotton, who,
himself a scholar of merit and repute, is brought by the nature of his
daily avocations into close and constant relations with scholars. ... We
live in an age in which none but specialists can afford to give more time
to the memoirs of even the most distinguished Anglo-Indians than will
be occupied by reading Mr. Cotton’s two hundred pages. He has per-
formed his task with great skill and good sense. This is just the kind
of Life of himself which the wise, kindly, high-souled man, who is the
subject of it, would read with pleasure in the Elysian Fields.’—Sir M.
E. Grant Duff, in The Academy.

‘To so inspiring a theme few writers are better qualified to do ample
justice than the author of ‘The Decennial Statement of the Moral and
Material Progress and Condition of India.” Sir 'T. Colebrooke’s larger
biography of Elphinstone appeals mainly to Indian specialists, but
Mr. Cotton’s slighter sketch is admirably adapted to satisfy the growing
demand for 4 knowledge of Indian history and of the personalities of
Anglo-Indian statesmen which Sir William Hunter has done so much
to create.’-— The Times.

‘This is the story of a brilliant life, brilliantly told. Mr. Cotton has
a crisp style, a wide knowledge of Indian history, and a strong sympathy
for his hero’—The Pall Mall Gazette.

‘Mr. Cotton’s “ Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone ” is one of the most
readable of the valuable volumes that have appeared in the series of
“Rulers of India.” Mr. Cotton has avoided tediousness by the con-
densation of matter, and has secured the interest and close attention of
his reader by a bright and nimble style which carries him along with
quite exhilarating rapidity, yet without skipping the really salient
features of the period.’— The Scotsman.

‘Mr. Cotton has evidently performed a congenial task in writing
this excellent little biography, for he has produced a volume so pleasant
to read that it can scarcely be the result of labour against the grain.
He has given us an account of the public career of a man who, though
he declined the post of Governor-General, well deserves to rank among
the ablest “ Rulers of India,” and of those literary pursuits which occu-
pied Elphinstone’s spare time during his period of office, and bore good
and abiding fruit both in his despatches and his historical work.’— The
Journal of Education.

‘The author has evidently taken great pains to make the book what
a monograph of the kind ought to be; and those who are familiar with
Anglo-Indian history during the early part of the current century will
appreciate the praise we offer when we say that he has succeeded in
making it worthy of its subject..—The World.

‘A masterpiece of skilful and sympathetic workmanship. . . . Such
a life could scarcely be told without exciting interest: told as it is by
Mr. Cotton, it combines all the qualities of that oft-abused word—fas-
cination.’—The Queen,
Mypinions of the jPress

SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN’S ‘ RANJIT SINGH.’

‘Sir Lepel Griffin treats his topic with thorough mastery, and his
account of the famous Mahdrdjé and his times is, consequently, one of
the most valuable as well as interesting volumes of the series of which
it forms a part.’—_The Globe.

‘We can thoroughly praise Sir Lepel Griffin’s work as an accurate
and appreciative account of the beginnings and growth of the Sikh
religion and of the temporal power founded upon it by a strong and
remorseless chieftain.’—The Times.

‘One of the best books recently published on any Indian question.’—
The Manchester Guardian.

‘The reading public has here the essence of all that is worth know-
ing about the period.’—The Glasgow Evening News. :

‘From first to last it is a model of what such a work should be, and
a classic. The book is one of the most interesting historical sketches
ever given to the public, and illustrated throughout by a unique
acquaintance with the subject, and exquisite point.’-—The St. Stephen's
Review.

‘Sir Lepel has done justice to one of the most interesting and pic-
turesque episodes of Indian history. In every respect, but perhaps
most of all from the point of view of the general reader who does not
wholly subordinate enjoyment to instruction, the volume is a most
acceptable addition to the series.’—The Glasgow Herald.

‘The monograph could not have been entrusted to more capable
hands than those of Sir Lepel Griffin, who spent his official life in the
Punjaub, and is an expert in all the knowledge appertaining to a
thorough acquaintance, practical and bookish, with that province. This
is an excellent sketch of Ranjit Singh, his people, and his short-lived
kingdom.’— The Scotsman.

“At once the shortest and best history of the rise and fall of the
Sikh monarchy.’"—The North British Daily Matt.

*An excellent piece of work—candid, discriminating, and well-
balanced.’—The Yorkshire Post.

“Not only a biography of the Napoleon of the East, but a luminous
picture of his country; the chapter on Sikh Theocracy being a notable
example of compact thought. For grasp of subject, careful treatment,
and charm of narration, this volume is second to none in the series. It
may fairly be said to “speak volumes,” and possesses an exceptional
value as being by our chief authority on Punjab matters.’—The Liver-
pool Mercury.

‘The career of no Indian ruler since the Moghul Aurungzebe and
the Mahratta Sivaji presents a finer subject for the historian; and it
would be difficult to find a writer better qualified than Sir Lepel Griffin
to deal with such a subject.’—The St. James's Gazetie.

‘A traly masterly account of Ranjit Singh and the short-lived Sikh
monarchy of Lahore.’—The World.

‘The sketch is in every respect a masterly one, and proves its author
to be capable of producing something on a larger scale that would be
unsurpassed among histories of our great dependency.’—The Literary
World.
Mpinions of the JPress

MR, MORSE STEPHENS’ ‘ALBUQUERQUE,’

‘Mr. Stephens’ able and instructive monograph. .. We may commend
Mr. Morse Stephens’ volume, both as an adequate summary of an
important period in the history of the relations between Asia and
Europe, and as a suggestive treatment of the problem of why Portugal
failed and England succeeded in founding an Indian Empire.’—The
Times.

‘Mr. H. Morse Stephens has made a very readable book out of the
foundation of the Portuguese power in India. According to the
practice of the series to which it belongs it is called a life of Affonso de
Albuquerque, but the Governor is only the central and most important
figure in a brief history of the Portuguese in the East down to the time
when the Dutch and English intruded on their preserves... <A plea-
santly-written and trustworthy book on an interesting man and time.’
—The Saturday Review. ,

‘It is ever with a sense of pleasure that the experienced critic sees
upon a title-page the name of Mr. Morse Stephens. He is always clear
and cogent, ever a profound master of his subject. ... Albuquerque
had more, perhaps, than the average defects of his qualities, but he
was a great man, and his career has all the charm of a romance com-
bined with a lesson in thoroughness. Mr. Stephens has never done
better work than in this book, though in’ extent it will hold but a small
space in comparison with his other works.—The Daily Chronicle.

‘Mr. Morse Stephens’ Albuquerque is a solid piece of work, well put
together, and full of interest.’— The: Atheneum.

‘Mr. Morse Stephens’ studies in Indian and Portuguese history have
thoroughly well qualified him for approaching the subject ... He has
presented the facts of Albuquerque’s career, and sketched the events
marking the rule of his predecessor Almeida, and of his immediate
successors in the Governorship and Viceroyalty of India in a compact,
lucid, and deeply interesting form.’—The Scotsman.

‘The story is told by Mr. Stephens with his usual ability and care,
and the book as a whole may be recommended as one of the most
interesting in a very interesting series. —The Manchester Guardian.

‘An admirable monograph on Affonso de Albuquerque.’— The Rock.

‘This is an interesting series, but it has no more readable volume
than that which deals with the broad-minded, tenacious Albuquerque.’
—The Yorkshire Post.

‘Sir William Hunter is again exceptionally fortunate in being able
to enlist so distinguished a specialist as Mr. H. Morse Stephens . .. The
accomplished author of the ‘Story of Portugal’ has been fully equal to
his high reputation in this monograph, and within the space of some two
hundred pages Mr. Stephens furnishes a bright and interesting sketch
of the rise of the Portuguese power in India.’—The English Mail.