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74 fidence which we have inspired up to the present time will be changed into mistrust of our intentions; the Sikh troops remaining unpaid would refuse to serve at the distant stations; and, with a British garrison at Lahore, the whole of the country beyond the Rávi would not fail to be a scene of disorder and bloodshed. I therefore adhere to the opinions expressed in my last despatch, that the British garrison ought not to remain beyond the stipulated period, if a native Government continues to administer the affairs of the Punjab.

'I have, since my arrival in India, constantly felt and expressed my aversion to what is termed the subsidiary system, and, although it was probably most useful and politic in the earlier period of British conquest in India, I have no doubt of its impolicy at the present time, but more especially on this, the most vulnerable, frontier of our empire.

'The period of the occupation of Lahore was expressly limited to the end of this year, for the purposes specified in the agreement of March 11, namely, that the Sikh army having been disbanded by the sixth article of the Treaty, a British force should be left to protect the person of the Mahárájá and the inhabitants of the city, during the reorganization of the Sikh army. By the fifteenth article of the Treaty it was stipulated that the British Government would not exercise any interference in the internal affairs of the Lahore State.

'At that time, the entreaties of the Regent for our assistance appeared to me not only reasonable, but as imposing upon me a moral duty, exacting as I was at that very time from the Lahore Government the disbandment of their mutinous army. It is true this assistance, and the whole measure of occupation, was no part of the original policy in framing the Treaty, for you are aware that the application