Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/69

60 itself to any subsidiary system, and, as soon as its troops are withdrawn, will decline to interfere in the internal affairs of the Sikh State except by friendly councils (? counsels) as in the time of the Mahárájá Ranjít Singh.'

Henry Lawrence, as above incidentally noted, was appointed the British Agent. Of the 1½ millions required as indemnity, only half a million was forthcoming. Government accepted the territory of Kashmír and Hazára as the equivalent for the million still required; and then, glad to separate Kashmír from the Punjab, handed it over (for a large price) as a separate kingdom to Ghuláb Singh, the ruler of Jammu, a Rájput who, it will be remembered, had been the commander of the Sikh troops during the Afghán war. This transaction is referred to in more detail later on (page 63).

The Council of Regency unfortunately contained too few of the Sikh Sardars, and too many of the old Court. It was owing to their fears of the Khálsa army that the Council pressed for the retention of the British force; and it was in their preponderance, and the consequent tendency to intrigue and to the Raní's influence becoming paramount, as well as to the feeling in the Khálsa army, that the danger lay of the failure of the arrangements. Lawrence's anxieties lay chiefly in those directions. He had good hope that Ghuláb Singh, with all his faults, would be loyal and helpful; and that the Sikh soldiery, and the peasantry from which it sprung, if well treated, might not resent their defeat, as they were brave,