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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
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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. 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.