Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/130

Rh and also that the fundamental undertaking of which he was specially in charge — the pacification of the Province — was being jeopardized. The former was a personal matter, but was not consonant either with his present position nor with that of Resident and Chief Commissioner, which he had been holding when appointed to the Board. The latter was serious as affecting the welfare and outlook of the Province and the country; besides also causing him the most intense depression, as it lowered him in the eyes of his old friends, the Sikh Sardárs, and tended to the conclusion that he had failed to secure for them, and that they had no further hope of obtaining, the justice they had expected of him — even those of them who had been members of the Council of Regency, and had been present at the meeting on the day before the annexation was proclaimed.

He therefore tendered his resignation; and so did his brother John. Lord Dalhousie's reply to Sir Henry ran thus: —

'You are aware that by the unreserved communications of yourself and your brother for several years past I have been made fully cognizant of your differences of opinion and of the partial estrangement they had created. On every occasion I have spoken frankly to each of you; I have repeated to each what I had said to the other, and up to the last occasion on which we met I stated my conviction that, however irksome or painful such conflict of opinion might be to yourselves, the public service had, I conceived, been promoted rather than injured by it.

'I am bound to say that during the present year I have