Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/94

Rh control that were found to prevail, won in a marvellous degree the feelings of all classes of the people, Sardárs, chiefs, landholders, and peasantry alike, and secured their devotion to a number of the officers, as notably to Abbott in Hazára, Lumsden in Yusufzai, and John Nicholson and Edwardes on the Indus.

But with all the resulting success and personal popularity Lawrence could not escape from many serious dangers and difficulties. The Raní, as before, was in the forefront of the mischief. First she devised what was known as the Preyma plot, of which the chief aim was the assassination of Tej Singh, whom she hated; further she tried sedulously to corrupt the British Sepoy troops; and later on, a suspicious correspondence was detected with Mulráj, the Governor — and afterwards the rebel — of Múltán. So she was separated from her son, Dhulíp Singh, and removed to Firozpur, and eventually to Benares; and nothing further came, at the time, of any intrigue that may have been going on with Mulráj, as the conduct of all in high places was carefully watched. At the same time, Henry Lawrence had been obliged to check and thwart Mulráj in efforts which he had made to override the Council respecting his governorship of Múltán and its accounts.

But the matter that demanded the most sedulous and vigilant attention was the temper of the soldiery and of the warlike members of the community.

Lawrence's letter of June 2, 1847, will best show this, and that it had till then been dealt with effectively.