Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/74

Rh becoming liable to any worse government than if it had remained in the Punjab. Misrule did afterwards occur in it; but not worse than under any independent Punjab or other native ruler. Still attempts have been made — obviously unjust — to hold Lawrence (and all who were concerned in the transfer) responsible for that subsequent misrule.

Henry Lawrence's view of the case was given in his article on Lord Hardinge's Administration in the Calcutta Review, an extract from which is entered on page 91, and the following letters of Lord Hardinge — extracted from the volume of this series dealing with his rule in India — give his own account of the matter: —

'It was necessary last March to weaken the Sikhs by depriving them of Kashmir. The distance from Kashmír to the Sutlej is 300 miles, of very difficult mountainous country, quite impracticable for six mouths. To keep a British force 300 miles from any possibility of support would have been an undertaking that merited a strait-waistcoat and not a peerage.

'Ghuláb Singh was never Minister at Lahore for the administration of its affairs. Early in 1845 Jawahír Singh persuaded the army to march against Jammu. Ghuláb Singh, despairing of being able to defend himself, threw himself into the hands of the Pancháyáts and was brought a prisoner to Lahore. He was there treated with great severity; and subsequently, when the army offered him the Wazírship, he repeatedly declined the offer. When the invasion took place he remained at Jammu, and took no part against us, but tendered his allegiance on condition of being confirmed in the possession of his own territories. This was neither