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 CHAPTER XIV

Lawrence's Letters to Lord Canning before the Meerut Outbreak

In the first days of May Sir Henry wrote to the Governor-General the following letters, bearing not only on the origin of the ill-feeling in the army, but on his own demeanour and policy towards the Sepoys, which led to his practical success in managing them and retaining the services of as many as he held it wise to employ: —

'I have recently received many letters on the state of the army. Most of them attribute the present bad feeling not to the cartridge, or any other specific question, but to a pretty general dissatisfaction at many recent acts of Government, which have been skilfully played upon by incendiaries. This is my own opinion. The Sepoy is not the man of consequence he was. He dislikes annexations, among other reasons, because each new province added to the Empire widens his sphere of service, and at the same time decreases our foreign enemies, and thereby the Sepoy's importance. Ten years ago a Sepoy in the Punjab asked an officer what be would do without them; another said, "Now you have got the Punjab you will reduce the army." A third remarked when he beard that Sind was to be joined