Chapter 4

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot;Follow your spirit and upon this chargeCry, ‘God for Harry, England, and St. George.’”

As outbreak after outbreak occurred, he pressed for the signal and condign punishment of the leaders, as a deterrent to those who might yet be wavering between duty and revolt. But this object having been secured, he instantly tried to temper offended justice with at least a partial clemency, lest men should be tempted to rebellion by despair. When batches of red-handed mutineers were taken prisoners, he would intercede so that the most guilty only should be blown from guns, and that the lives of the rest should be spared with a view to imprisonment. In such moments, he would support his appeal by invoking his officers to look into their consciences as before the Almighty. This solemn invocation—rarely uttered by him, though its sensewas ever on his mind—attested the earnestness of his conviction.

By this time he and his were regarded as forming the military base of the operations against Delhi. Thither had he sent off many of his best troops and his ablest officers, besides stores and material. Prudential considerations had been duly brought to his notice in reference to the Punjab itself becoming denuded of its resources. But after weighing all this carefully yet rapidly, he decided that the claims of the British besiegers, encamped over against the rebellious Delhi, were paramount, and he acted on that decision.

Fortunately the arsenals and magazines in his province were fully supplied, and soon after the great outbreak in May a siege-train had been despatched to Delhi. But he knew that the siege was laid on one side only out of several sides, nothing like an investment being practicable as the besieged had perfect communication with their base in the rebellious Hindostan. So he prepared his province to supply the countless necessaries for the conduct of such a siege, against a city girdled with several miles of fortifications, possessing many internal resources which were further fed from the outside, and defended by disciplined rebels, who on rebelling had seized the treasure in the vaults, the ordnance and warlike stores in the magazine of the place. Thus for many weeks he sent convoy after convoy, even driblet after driblet, of miscellaneous ordnance stores, saddlery, tents, sand-bags and articles innumerable. For all this work a complete transport-train was organised under his orders, to ply daily on the road leading to the rear of the British forces beforeDelhi. The vehicles, the animals for draught or for baggage, the bullocks, the camels, the elephants, were hired or purchased by him in his province and its dependencies. The drivers and riders were taken from the people in his jurisdiction, and they behaved towards their trusted master with steadiness and fidelity. He sorely needed the public moneys available in the Punjab for his own operations there; still out of them he spared large sums to be sent to Delhi, knowing that from nowhere else but the Punjab could a rupee be obtained by the besiegers. If a few native troops of a special character, such as sappers and pioneers, were required, he would select old soldiers of the late Sikh armies and despatch them to the siege. As the operations of the siege advanced, a second train of heavy guns was needed, and this he sent in the nick of time by transport collected in the Punjab. He was in constant correspondence with the commanders before Delhi, and thus knew their needs, their perils, and their chances. They sent him all their requisitions, and looked upon him as their military base. It may be said that he never refused a requisition either for men, money or means; and that he hardly ever failed to fulfil any request with which compliance had been promised.

It is hard to paint the picture of his work in these days, because the canvas has to be crowded with many diverse incidents and policies. At one moment he cries in effect—disarm the rebel Sepoys, disarm them quick, inflict exemplary punishment, stamp out mutiny, pursue, cut off retreat—at another, spare, spare, temper judgment with discriminating clemency—at another, advance, advance, raise levies, place men wherever wanted—atanother, hold fast, don’t do too much, by an excessive number of new men a fresh risk is run—at another, seize such and such strategic points, guard such and such river-passages—at another, break up this or that pontoon bridge to prevent the enemy crossing—at another, press forward the transport, push on the supplies—at all moments, put a cheerful as well as a bold face even on the worst, for the sake of moral effect. He unravelled the threads of countless transactions, collated the thick-coming reports from all the districts, and noted the storm-warnings at every point of his political compass. His warfare with the rebels and mutineers was offensive as well as defensive. His word always was, attack, attack, so that the people, seeing this aggressive attitude, might not lose heart. His energy in these days might be called resplendent, as it was all-pervading, life-infusing, and ranged in all directions with the broadest sweep. But he recked little of glory, for the crisis was awful.

It may possibly be asked what the Punjab and the empire would have done, had he at this time fallen or been stricken down. Such questions, however, imply scant justice to him and his system; and he would have taken them as sorry compliments. He had ever so laboured that his work might live after him. Around him were several leaders capable of commanding events or directing affairs; and under him was an admirable band of officers civil and military, trained under his eye, on whom his spirit rested, and who were ready to follow his lieutenant or successor even as they had followed him.

Then financial difficulty stared him in the face, inrespect not only of the normal but also of the abnormal expenses in the Punjab. It will have been understood from a preceding chapter that his provincial treasury, though sufficing for the expenses of the Province and for its share in the military expenditure, was not full enough to meet the entire cost of the army cantoned in the province for the defence of the empire generally. Up to the end of April in this year, he had drawn large supplies in cash regularly from the treasuries in Hindostan and Bengal. But from May onwards these supplies were cut off, and he was left to provide money not only for the old charges of the Province, but also for the new charges on account of the extraordinary measures which had been adopted. He therefore raised loans of money locally, and moral pressure had to be applied to the Native capitalists. He observed that these men, who are usually ready and loyal and are bound to us by many ties, now hung back and showed closefistedness. This he regarded as an index of their fears for the issue of the desperate struggle in which we were engaged. He also invited subscriptions from the Native Princes and Chiefs. Having raised large sums in this way, he was able to keep the various treasuries open, and to avoid suspending payment anywhere. His first care, after the restoration of peace and plenty, was to repay the temporary creditors.

As the news from the British forces before Delhi grew more and more unfavourable during June and July, he reflected, with characteristic forethought, on the steps to be taken in the event of disaster in that quarter. Among other things he apprehended that it might become necessary to retire from Peshawur, so that the largeEuropean force cantoned there might be concentrated for the defence of the Province. This apprehension of his caused much discussion subsequently, and is likely to be fraught with historic interest. He thus expressed himself in a letter to Edwardes on June 9th.

“I think we must look ahead and consider what should be done in the event of disaster at Delhi. My decided opinion is that, in that case, we must concentrate. All our safety depends on this. If we attempt to hold the whole country, we shall be cut up in detail. The important points in the Punjab are Peshawur, Mooltan, and Lahore, including Umritsur. But I do not think that we can hold Peshawur and the other places also, in the event of disaster. We could easily retire from Peshawur early in the day. But at the eleventh hour, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible.”

On the following day, June 10th, he wrote in the same strain to Lord Canning, but adding that he would not give up Peshawur so long as he saw a chance of success. He asked that a telegram might be sent to him by the circuitous route of Bombay (the only route then open) containing one of two alternative replies—“Hold on to Peshawur to the last,”—or, “You may act as may appear expedient in regard to Peshawur.” Very soon he received Edwardes’s reply that, “With God’s help we can and will hold Peshawur, let the worst come to the worst.” On June 18th after a conversation with Nicholson, who was utterly opposed to retiring from Peshawur, he wrote to Edwardes repeating that in the event of a great disaster such retirement might be necessary. No reply being received from Lord Canning, he prepared to act upon this view as the extremity of the crisis seemed to loom nearer and nearer during June and July. He reiterated his views in two despatchesto the Governor-General, one at the end of June, the other at the end of July. But by August 1st public intelligence from India and England reached him, modifying favourably, though it did not remove, the crisis. On the 7th of that month he received Lord Canning’s reply, “Hold on to Peshawur to the last.” He immediately writes to Edwardes: “The Governor-General bids me hold on to the last at Peshawur. I do not, however, now think that we shall be driven to any extremity. The tide is turning very decidedly against the mutineers at Delhi.” This episode evinces his moral courage and single-mindedness in all that concerned the public safety, for he must have well known that proposals for retirement were invidious, and might prove unpopular with many of his supporters.

When he spoke about the turning of the tide he alluded partly to the news, which was slowly travelling to the Punjab from England, regarding the despatch to India of mighty reinforcements of European troops. These would not indeed reach him in time, but the knowledge nerved him to hold out, as every day gained was a step towards victory.

On August 6th he heard at last the tidings of his brother’s death at Lucknow, from a mortal wound while in bed from the bursting of a shell which had penetrated the chamber. Immediately he telegraphed to Edwardes, “My brother Henry was wounded on July 2nd, and died two days afterwards.” The same day he wrote to Edwardes, “Henry died like a good soldier in discharge of his duty; he has not left an abler or better soldier behind him; his loss just now will be a national calamity.”

In the middle of July he left Murri and proceeded to Lahore, where he remained at his headquarters till the end of the crisis. There he took counsel daily with Montgomery and Macleod, the very men on whose courageous alacrity he most relied for the despatch of public business. For four weary months he sustained British authority in the Punjab on the whole from end to end, notwithstanding the agitation caused by several mutinous outbreaks of the Sepoys, and despite several desperate attempts at insurrection in some districts. He kept down the disorder, which was but too ready to upheave itself when the worst example was being set in neighbouring provinces, and while stories of distant disasters were flying about. He extinguished every flame that burst forth. Having under him a matchless staff of officers, civil, political, military, he set before them all by his own bearing and conduct an example which they nobly followed. Thus throughout the crisis he maintained, intact and uninterrupted, the executive power in the civil administration, the collection of the revenue to the uttermost farthing, the operations of the judicial courts, the action of the police. He saw, not only the suppression of violent crime, but also the most peaceful proceedings conducted, such as the dispensing of relief to the sick and the attendance of children at school. He felt that during the suspense of the public mind, a sedative is produced by the administrative clock-work moving in seconds, minutes, hours of precious time won for the British cause. He was ruling over the Native population, which was indeed the most martial among all the races in India, but which also had been beaten and conquered by British prowess within livingmemory. He now took care that the British prestige should be preserved in their minds, and that the British star should still before their eyes be in the ascendant. Knowing them to have that generosity which always belongs to brave races, he determined to trust them as the surest means of ensuring their fidelity. Therefore he chose the best fighting men amongst them to aid their late conquerors in the Punjab, and to re-conquer the rebellious Hindostan. He knew that one way of keeping the fiercer and more restless spirits out of mischief was to hurl them at the common foe.

But the months wore on from May to September while Delhi remained untaken, and he knew that week by week the respect of the Punjab people, originally high, for the British Government, was being lowered by the spectacle of unretrieved disaster. He felt also that the patience of the evil-disposed, which had been happily protracted, must be approaching nearer and nearer to the point of exhaustion. He saw that sickness was creeping over the robust frame of the body politic, and that the symptoms of distemper, which were day by day appearing in the limbs, might ere long extend to the vital organs. He learned, from intercepted correspondence, the sinister metaphors which were being applied to what seemed to be the sinking state of the British cause—such as “many of the finest trees in the garden have fallen,” or “white wheat is scarce and country produce abundant,” or “hats are hardly to be seen while turbans are countless.”

Yet it was evident to him that the force before Delhi in August would not suffice to recapture the place, although he had sent all the reinforcementswhich could properly be spared from the Punjab. But if Delhi should remain untaken, the certainty of disturbance throughout the Punjab presented itself to him. He must therefore make one supreme effort to so strengthen the Delhi camp that an assault might be soon delivered. This he could do by despatching thither the one last reserve which the Punjab possessed, namely Nicholson’s movable column. This was a perilous step to take, and his best officers, as in duty bound, pointed out its perils; still he resolved to adopt it. If the column should go, grave risk would indeed be incurred for the Punjab, but then there was a chance of Delhi being taken, and of the Punjab being preserved; if the column should not go, then Delhi would not be taken, and in that case the Punjab must sooner or later be lost; and he had finally to decide between these two alternatives. His intimate acquaintance with the people taught him that if a general rising should occur in consequence of the British failing to take Delhi, then the presence of the movable column in the Punjab would not save the Province. This was the crisis not only in his career, but also in the fate of the Punjab and of Delhi with Hindostan. He decided in favour of action, not only as the safer of two alternatives, but as the only alternative which afforded any hope of safety. He was conscious that this particular decision was fraught with present risk to the Punjab, which had hardly force enough for self-preservation. But he held that the other alternative must ultimately lead to destruction. His decision thus formed had to be followed by rapid action, for sickness at the end of summer and beginning of autumn was literally decimating the European forcebefore Delhi week by week; and even each day as it passed appreciably lessened the fighting strength. So the column marched with all speed for Delhi; and then he had sped his last bolt. In his own words, he had poured out the cup of his resources to the last drop.

Thus denuded, his position was critical indeed. He had but four thousand European soldiers remaining in the Punjab, and of these at least one half were across the Indus near the Khyber Pass. Several strategic points were held by detachments only of European troops, and he could not but dread the sickly season then impending. He had eighteen thousand Sepoys to watch, of whom twelve thousand had been disarmed and six thousand still had their arms. Of his newly-raised Punjabis the better part had been sent to Delhi; but a good part remained to do the necessary duties in the Punjab; and what if they should come to think that the physical force was at their disposal?

The sequel formed one of the bright pages in British annals, and amply justified the responsibility which he had incurred. The column arrived in time to enable the British force to storm and capture Delhi; and he mourned, as a large-hearted man mourns, over the death of Nicholson in the hour of triumph. He declared that Nicholson, then beyond the reach of human praise, had done deeds of which the memory could never perish so long as British rule should endure.

His relief was ineffable when tidings came that Delhi had been stormed, the mutineers defeated and expelled, the so-called Emperor taken prisoner, the fugitive rebels pursued, the city and the surrounding districts restored to British rule. To his ear the knell of the great rebellion had sounded. He could not but feel proud atthe thought that this result had been achieved without any reinforcement whatever from England. But he was patriotically thankful to hear of the succour despatched by England, through Palmerston her great Minister—some fifty thousand men in sailing vessels by a long sea-route round the Cape of Good Hope, full twelve thousand miles in a few months, by an effort unparalleled in warlike annals.

While the peril was at its height, his preoccupation almost drowned apprehension. But when the climax was over, he was awe-struck on looking back on the narrowness of the escape. He recalled to mind the desperate efforts which he and his men had put forth. But he was profoundly conscious that, humanly speaking, no exertions of this nature were adequate to cope with the frightful emergency which had lasted so long as to strain his resources almost to breaking. The fatuity, which often haunts criminals, had affected the mutineers and the rebel leaders; error had dogged their steps, and their unaccountable oversights had, in his opinion, contributed to the success of the British cause. He used to say that their opportunity would, if reasonably used, have given them the mastery; but that they with their unreason threw away its advantages, and that in short had they pursued almost any other course than that which they did pursue, the British flag must have succumbed. Thus regarding with humility the efforts of which the issue had been happy, he felt truly, and strove to inspire others with, a sentiment of devout thankfulness to the God of battles and the Giver of all victory.

He believed that if Delhi had not fallen, and if thetension in the Punjab had been prolonged for some more months, even for some more weeks, the toils of inextricable misfortune would have closed round his administration. The frontier tribes would, he thought, have marched upon half-protected districts, and would have been joined by other tribes in the interior of the province. One military station after another would have been abandoned by the British, so that the available forces might be concentrated at Lahore the capital; and finally there would have been a retreat, with all the European families and a train of camp-followers, from Lahore down the Indus valley towards the seaboard. Then, as he declared, no Englishman would for a whole generation have been seen in the Punjab, either as a conqueror or as a ruler.

As to his share in the recapture of Delhi, the testimony may be cited of an absolutely competent witness, Lord Canning, a man of deliberate reflection, who always measured his words, and who wrote some time after the event when all facts and accounts had been collated, thus:

“Of what is due to Sir John Lawrence himself no man is ignorant. Through him Delhi fell, and the Punjab, no longer a weakness, becomes 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.”

Delhi had heretofore belonged not to the Punjab, but to the North-Western Provinces; on being re-taken by the British in September, it was, together with the surrounding territory, made over during October to his care and jurisdiction. Having removed all traces ofthe recent storm from the surface of the Punjab, he proceeded to Delhi in order to superintend in person the restoration of law and order there. Before starting, he helped the Commander-in-Chief (Sir Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde) in arranging that the Punjabi troops, raised during the summer, should be despatched southwards beyond Delhi for the reconquest of Hindostan and Oude. He also wrote to the Secretary of State entreating that his good officers might be remembered in respect of rewards and honours. His wife’s health had failed, and he had seen her start for a river voyage down the Indus on her way to England. He was at this time very anxious on her account, and would say, what avail would all worldly successes and advantages be to him if he should lose her? So he started for Delhi sore at heart; but he received better accounts of her, and his spirits rose with the approach of the winter season, which in Upper India always serves as a restorative to the European constitution.

Then crossing the Sutlej, he entered the friendly States of the Protected Sikh Chiefs, who had been saved by the British from absorption under Runjit Sing, the Lion of Lahore, and whose loyalty had shown like white light during the darkest days of recent months. Having exchanged with them all the heartiest congratulations, he passed on to Delhi and to the scenes of his younger days. With what emotions must he have revisited the imperial city—to all men associated with the majestic march of historic events, but to him fraught with the recollections of that period of life which to the eye of memory almost always seems bright,—yet just emerging from a condition of tragichorror, the darkness of which had been lighted up by the deeds of British prowess and endurance. As he rode through the desolate bazaars, the half-deserted alleys, the thoroughfares traversed by bodies of men under arms but no longer crowded with bustling traffic—he must have grieved over the fate which the rebellious city had brought on itself. His penetrating insight taught him that in this case, as in nearly all similar cases, the innocent suffer with the guilty, and the peace-loving, kindly-disposed citizens are involved in the sanguinary retribution which befalls the turbulent and the blood-seeking. He found the fair suburbs razed, the fortifications partly dismantled, the famous Muri bastion half-shattered by cannonading, the classic Cashmere Gate riddled with gunshot, the frontage of houses disfigured by musketry, the great Moslem place of worship temporarily turned into a barrack for Hindoo troops. The noble palace of the Moguls alone remained intact, and he passed under the gloomy portal where some of the first murders were perpetrated on the morning of the great mutiny, and so entered the courtyard where the Christian prisoners of both sexes had been put to the sword. Then he proceeded to the inner sanctum of the palace to see his imperial prisoner, the last of the Great Moguls. He could not but eye with pity this man, the remnant of one of the most famous dynasties in human annals, reduced to the dregs of misery and humiliation in the extremity of old age. Yet he regarded with stern reserve a prisoner who, though illustrious by antecedents and drawn irresistibly into the vortex of rebellion, was accused of murder in ordering the execution of the European captives. Hewas resolved that the ex-emperor should be arraigned on a capital charge, and abide the verdict of a criminal tribunal.

He knew, however, that by the speedy restoration of the civil authority, the harried, plundered, partly devastated city would revive; for the presence of troops in large bodies and their camp-followers created a demand, which the peasants would supply if they could bring their goods to market without fear of marauding on the way, and expose them for sale without molestation. He thus saw the closed shops reopened, the untenanted houses re-occupied, the empty marts beginning once more to be crowded; though the city must wear the air of mourning for a long while before the brilliancy and gaiety of past times should re-appear.

The re-establishment of police authority for current affairs, and of civil justice between man and man, formed the easiest and pleasantest portion of his task. A more grave and anxious part devolved upon him respecting the treatment of persons who were already in confinement for, or might yet be accused of, participation in the late rebellion. He learned that the rebellion, in itself bad enough, had been aggravated, indeed blackened, by countless acts of contumely, treachery and atrocity; that the minds of the European officers, after the endurance of such evils in the inclemency of a torrid climate, had become inflamed and exasperated; that the retribution had not only been most severe on those who were guilty in the first degree, but also on those who were guilty only in the second or the third degree; and that, in the haste of the time, those whose misconducthad been passive, and even those who had been but slightly to blame, were mixed up with the active criminals in indiscriminating condemnation. He would make every allowance for his countrymen who had borne the burden and heat of an awful day, but he was there to overlook and see that they were not hurried away by excitability into proceedings which their after judgment could never approve. Though rigid in striking down those who werein flagrante delicto, and were actively engaged in murderous rebellion, yet he would hold his hand as soon as the stroke had effected its legitimate purpose. While the emergency lasted he would not hesitate in the most summary measures of repression; it was the life of the assailed against the life of their assailants. But as soon as the emergency had been overcome, he was for showing mercy, for exercising discrimination, for putting an end to summary procedure, and for substituting a criminal jurisdiction with a view to calm and deliberate judgment. On his arrival at Delhi there were the most pressing reasons for enforcing this principle, and forthwith he enforced it with all his energy and promptitude. He immediately organised special tribunals for the disposal of all cases which were pending in respect of the late rebellion, or which might yet be brought forward. He took care that no man thus charged should be tried, executed, or otherwise punished summarily, but should be brought to regular trial, without delay indeed, but on the other hand without undue haste, and should not suffer without having had all fair chances of exculpating himself. All this may appear a matter of course to us now after the lapse of a generation, but it was hardindeed for him to accomplish then, immediately after the subsidence of the political storm; and it needed all his persistency and firmness.

It then devolved upon him to inquire officially into the circumstances of the sudden outbreak in May, 1857, and of the subsequent events. His inquiries showed that the Sepoys had been tampered with for some weeks previously, but not for any long time; that they were tempted to join the conspiracy by the fact of their being left without the control of European troops, and in command of such a centre as Delhi, with such a personality as the ex-emperor; all which lessons he took to heart as warnings for the future. He found that the city had been plundered of all the wealth which had been accumulated during half a century of secure commerce and prosperity under British rule; but that the plundering had been committed by the mob or by miscellaneous robbers, and not by the victorious soldiery, Native or European. He was rejoiced to ascertain that on the whole the European soldiery were free from any imputation of plundering, intemperance, violence, or maltreatment of the inhabitants, despite the temptations which beset them, the provocation which they had received, and the hardships they had suffered.

Having assured himself that the stream of British rule at Delhi had begun to flow peacefully in its pristine channel, he returned to Lahore by daily marches in February, 1858. The weather was bright, the climate invigorating, the aspect of affairs inspiriting; and his health was fairly good. It was on this march that he caused a despatch to be prepared, at the instance of Edwardes at Peshawar, regarding the attitude of theBritish Government in India towards Christianity. The fact of the mutinies beginning with a matter relating to caste and its prejudices, had drawn the attention of the authorities to the practical evils of the Hindoo system; the flames of rebellion had been fanned by Moslem fanaticism; the minds of all Europeans had been drawn towards their Almighty Preserver by the contemplation of deliverance from peril; thus the thoughts of men were turned towards Christianity; and he was specially disposed to follow this train of reflection. He little anticipated the influence which this despatch was destined to exercise on public opinion in England.

His carefulness in repaying the temporary loans, raised locally during the crisis, has already been mentioned. But there was another debt of honour to be discharged by him; for the Native states and chiefs, who had stood by us under the fire of peril, were to be rewarded. This he effected, with the sanction of the Governor-General, by allotting to them the estates confiscated for murderous treason or overt rebellion. He desired that the British Government should not benefit by these just and necessary confiscations, but that the property, forfeited by the disloyal, should be handed over to the loyal.

Thus he returned to Lahore, and thence went on to the Murri mountains in May, 1858, where he might have hoped to enjoy rest after a year of labour unprecedented even in his laborious life. But now a new danger began to arrest his attention. During the year just passed, from May 1857 to the corresponding month of 1858, his policy had been to organise Punjabi troops in place of the Sepoy force mutinous or disarmed, then to employthem for helping the European army in re-conquering the north-western provinces, and especially in re-capturing Lucknow. His Punjabis indeed were almost the only troops, except the Ghoorkas, employed with the European army in these important operations. Right loyally had they done their work, and well did they deserve to share in the honours of victory. They naturally were proud of the triumphs in which they had participated. They had a right to be satisfied with their own conduct. But they began to feel a sense of their own importance also. They had done much for the British Government, and might be required to do still more. Then they began to wonder whether the Government could do without them. These thoughts, surging in their minds, begat danger to the State. Information was received to the effect that Sikh officers of influence, serving in Oude, were saying that they had helped to restore British power, and why should they not now set up a kingdom for themselves. These ideas were beginning to spread among the Punjabi troops serving not only in Oude and the north-western provinces, but also in the Punjab itself, even as far as the frontier of Afghanistan. All this showed that the hearts even of brave, and on the whole good, men may be evilly affected by pride and ambition or by a sense of overgrown power. Thus the very lessons of the recent mutinies were being taught again, and there was even a risk lest that terrible history should repeat itself. The Punjabis in truth were becoming too powerful for the safety of the State. So Lawrence had to exert all his provident skill in checking the growth of this dangerous power, and in so arranging that at no vital point orstrategic situation should the Punjabis have a position of mastery.

The situation in the Punjab, too, was aggravated by the presence of considerable bodies of disarmed Sepoys still remaining at some of the large stations, who had to be guarded, and who on two occasions rose and broke out in a menacing manner.

While at Murri and on his way thither he caused a report to be drawn up for the Supreme Government regarding the events of 1857 in the Punjab, awarding praise, commendation, acknowledgment, to the civil and military officers of all ranks and grades for their services, meting out carefully to each man his due. He considered also the causes of this wondrous outbreak, as concerning not only his province but other parts of India, and as affecting the policy of the British Government in the East. He did not pay much heed to the various causes which had been ingeniously assigned in many well informed quarters. Some of these causes might, he thought, prove fanciful; others might be real more or less, but in so far as they were real they were only subsidiary. The affair of the greased cartridges, which has become familiar to History, was in his judgment really a provocative cause. It was, he said, the spark that fell upon, and so ignited, a combustible mass; but the question was, what made the mass combustible? There was, he felt, one all-pervading cause, pregnant with instruction for our future guidance. The Sepoy army, he declared, had become too powerful; they came to know that the physical force of the country was with them; the magazines and arsenals were largely, the fortresses partially, the treasuries wholly, in their keeping.They thought that they could at will upset the British Government and set up one of their own in its place; and this thought of theirs might, as he would remark, have proved correct, had not the Government obtained a mighty reinforcement from England, of which they could not form any calculation or even any idea. It was the sense of power, as he affirmed repeatedly, that induced the Sepoys to revolt. In the presence of such a cause as this, it availed little with him to examine subsidiary causes, the existence or the absence of which would have made no appreciable difference in the result. Neither did he undertake to discuss historically the gradual process whereby this excessive power fell into the hands of the Sepoys. The thing had happened, it ought not to have happened; that was practically enough for him; it must never, he said, be allowed to happen again. He took care that in his Province and its Dependencies, every strategic point, stronghold, arsenal, vantage-ground, even every important treasury, should be under the guardianship of European soldiers. He also provided that at every large station or cantonment, and at every central city, the physical force should be manifestly on the side of the Europeans. Though he reposed a generous confidence in the Native soldiery up to a certain point, and felt gratitude and even affection towards them for all that they had done under his direction, still he would no longer expose them to the fatal temptation caused by a consciousness of having the upper hand.

In reference to the Mutinies, he thought that the system of promotion by seniority to high military commands had been carried too far in the Indian Army.There would always be difficulties in altering that system, but he held that unless such obstacles could be surmounted, the British Government in the East must be exposed to unexpected disasters occasionally, like thunderbolts dropping from the sky. Despite the warning from the Caubul losses of 1842, which arose mainly from the fault of the Commander, he noticed that the Meerut disaster of 1857 at this very time was owing again to failure on the local Commander’s part, and a similar misfortune, though in a far lesser degree, occurred soon afterwards in the Punjab itself at Jullundur from the same cause. Incompetency in the Commander, he would say, neutralises the merits of the subordinates: there had been vigorous and skilful officers at Caubul, at Meerut, at Jullundur,—but all their efforts were in vain by reason of weakness in the man at the helm.

Soon were honours and rewards accorded to him by his Sovereign and the Government. He was promoted in the Order of the Bath from the rank of Knight Commander to that of Grand Cross. He was created a Baronet and a Privy Councillor. A special annuity of £2000 a year was granted him by the East India Company from the date when he should retire from the service. The emoluments, though not as yet the status, of a Lieutenant-Governor were accorded to him. He also received the Freedom of the City of London.

He marched from his Himalayan retreat at Murri during the autumn of 1858, with impaired health and an anxious mind. He trusted that the time had come when he might with honour and safety resign his high office. He knew that physically he ought to retire as soon as his services could be spared. He had every reasonto hope for a speedy and happy return to his home in England. Yet he was not in really good spirits. Perhaps he felt the reaction which often supervenes after mental tension too long protracted. Partly from his insight into causes which might produce trouble even in the Punjab, and even after the general pacification of the disturbed regions, partly also from his natural solicitude that nothing untoward should occur to detain him beyond the beginning of 1859—he was nervously vigilant. After leaving Murri he crossed the Indus at Attok and revisited Peshawur. But neuralgia pursued him as he marched. At this time the royal proclamation of the assumption by the Queen of the direct government of India had arrived, and he wished to read it on horseback to the troops at Peshawur; but he performed the task with difficulty owing to the pain in his face. Once more from the citadel height he watched the crowded marts, rode close to the gloomy mouth of the Khyber Pass, and wondered at the classic stronghold of Attok as it overhangs the swift-flowing Indus.

As he crossed the Indus for the last time, towards the end of 1858, and rode along its left bank, that is on the Punjab side of the river, he gazed on the deep and rapid current of the mighty stream. That he held to be a real barrier which no enemy, advancing from the West upon India, could pass in the face of a British force. He noticed the breezy uplands overhanging the river on the east, and said that there the British defenders ought to be stationed. His mind reverted to the question, already raised by him in the summer of 1857, regarding the relinquishment of Peshawur. And he proposed to make over that famous valley to the Afghans, as itsretention, in his view, was causing loss and embarrassment instead of gain and advantage to the British Government. The position was exposed to fierce antagonists and its occupation was in consequence costly; in it was locked up a European force which would be better employed elsewhere; that force had been decimated by the fever prevailing every autumn in the valley; the political and strategic advantages of the situation were purchased at too heavy a price, too severe a sacrifice; those advantages were possessed equally by Attok or any post on the Indus at a lesser cost. These were some of the arguments uppermost in his mind. The seasons had been even more insalubrious than usual, and he was grieved at the wear and tear of European life, the drain of European strength, in the valley. The transfer of a fertile and accessible territory to the Amir of Caubul would, he thought, give us a real hold upon the Afghans. It was not that he had any faith in the gratitude of the Afghans on the cession of Peshawur, which indeed they regard as a jewel and an object of the heart’s desire; but if after the cession they should ever misbehave, then they could easily be punished by our re-occupation of the valley, and the knowledge that such punishment would be possible must, he conceived, bind them to our interests. Notwithstanding this deliberate opinion, which he deemed it his duty to record, the prevailing view among British authorities was then, and still is, in favour of retaining Peshawur as a political and strategic post of extraordinary value. Having submitted an opinion which was not accepted, he refrained from raising the question any further. At this time on the morrow, as it were, after the war of the Mutinies, he could hardly have anticipatedthat within one generation, or thirty years, the railway at more points than one would be advanced up to this Frontier, and that the Indus, then deemed a mighty barrier, would be a barrier no longer, being spanned by two bridges equally mighty, one at Attok in the Punjab, the other at Sukkur in Scinde, and perhaps by a third at Kalabagh. To those who can vividly recall the events of this time, the subsequent march of affairs in India is wonderful.

By the end of 1858 he had received the kind remonstrances of the Governor-General, Lord Canning, in regard to his leaving the Punjab. But he replied that if the public safety admitted of his going, he was bound from ill health to go. Indeed he needed relief, as the neuralgia continued at intervals to plague him. He had always a toil-worn, sometimes even a haggard, look. Despite occasional flashes of his vivacity or scintillations of his wit, his manner often indicated depression. He no longer walked or rode as much as formerly. As he had been in his prime a good and fast rider, the riding would be a fair test of his physical condition.

At this time the Punjab and its Dependencies, including the Delhi territory, were at last formed into a Lieutenant-Governorship, and he received the status and title of a position which he had long filled with potent reality. This measure, which formerly would have been of great use in sparing him trouble and labour, now came quite too late to be any boon to him in this respect. In view of his departure at the beginning of the coming year, 1859, he had secured the succession for his old friend and comrade, Montgomery, who had for some months been Chief-Commissioner of Oude.

Before leaving his post he was present at a ceremonial which marks an epoch in the material development of his province; for he turned the first sod of the first railway undertaken in the Punjab which was destined to connect its capital Lahore with Mooltan, Scinde, and the seaboard at Kurrachi.

Then he received a farewell address from his officers, civil and military, who had been eye-witnesses of all his labours, cares, perils and successes. The view taken by these most competent observers, most of whom were present during the time of disturbance, was thus set forth, and theirs is really evidence of the most direct and positive description.

“Those among us who have served with the Punjabi troops know how, for years, while the old force was on the frontier, you strove to maintain that high standard of military organisation, discipline and duty, of which the fruits were manifest when several regiments were, on the occurrence of the Bengal mutinies, suddenly summoned to serve as auxiliaries to the European forces, before Delhi, in Oude, in Hindostan,—on all which occasions they showed themselves worthy to be the comrades of Englishmen; how you, from the commencement, aided in maintaining a military police, which, during the crisis of 1857, proved itself to be the right arm of the civil power. They know how largely you contributed to the raising and forming of the new Punjabi force, which, during the recent troubles, did so much to preserve the peace within the Punjab itself, and which has rendered such gallant service in most parts of the Bengal Presidency. All those among us who are military officers, know how, when the Punjab was imperilled and agitated by the disturbances in Hindostan, you, preserving a unison of accord with the military authorities, maintained internal tranquillity, and held your own with our allies and subjects, both within and without the border; how, when the fate of Northern India depended on the capture of Delhi, you, justly appreciating the paramountimportance of that object, and estimating the lowest amount of European force with which the Punjab could be held, applied yourself incessantly to despatching men, material, and treasure for the succour of our brave countrymen engaged in the siege; how indeed you created a large portion of the means for carrying on that great operation, and devoted thereto all the available resources of the Punjab to the utmost degree compatible with safety.”

In his reply, two passages are so characteristic that they may be quoted. He modestly recounts at least one among the mainsprings of his success, thus:

“I have long felt that in India of all countries, the great object of the Government should be to secure the services of able, zealous, and high-principled officials. Almost any system of administration, with such instruments, will work well. Without such officers, the best laws and regulations soon degenerate into empty forms. These being my convictions, I have striven, to the best of my ability, and with all the power which my position and personal influence could command, to bring forward such men. Of the many officers who have served in the Punjab, and who owe their present position, directly or indirectly, to my support, I can honestly affirm that I know not one who has not been chosen as the fittest person available for the post he occupies. In no one instance have I been guided in my choice by personal considerations, or by the claims of patronage. If my administration, then, of the Punjab is deserving of encomium, it is mainly on this account, and assuredly, in thus acting, I have reaped a rich reward. Lastly, it is with pleasure that I acknowledge how much I have been indebted to the military authorities in this Province for the cordiality and consideration I have ever received at their hands.”

Further, he thus describes the conduct of the European soldiers under the severe conditions of the time—

Back to Index Next