Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/96

Rh seemed to be well and to promise well. A real peace was reigning in the Punjab, to which it had long been a stranger. The population had settled down, and were obviously feeling the advantages of orderly rule; the Sardárs appeared loyal, and the Khálsa were no longer showing signs of any tendency to aggression.

Still, in the same letter of June 2 from which we have already quoted, he points out the springs of disaffection and danger that were still in force and must be watched and met: —

'Our position at Lahore will always be a delicate one; benefits are soon forgotten, and little gratitude is to be expected. Moreover, there are the daily refusals, the necessary resumptions, the repressing or patching up of squabbles, all leaving behind them more or less of ill-will, paltry enough in detail, but, in the mass, sufficient to affect for years to come the movements of any honest administration of the Punjab. It was but the other day reclaimed from a state of the most ignorant barbarism, and has been but little subjected to the wholesome restraints of a regular government.'

During his short leave his brother John acted for him. Henry had written of him as his chief help, without whom he should have difficulty in carrying on, and he hoped that he would be allowed to rule for him in his absence in England. But this was not to be. Sir Frederick Currie, the Foreign Secretary, was appointed to the post.

This rule under Henry Lawrence's direct guidance lasted for little more than six months, and, though carried out, by the selected officers referred to, in some