Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/98

Rh With his departure from the Punjab at the end of 1847 closed the first great administrative part of Henry Lawrence's career — it was probably the brightest. He enjoyed the complete confidence of his direct superior, Lord Hardinge, he was the almost absolute head — the virtual king — of the Punjab, and was daily winning the golden opinions and the personal regard of his subjects, and looking forward, notwithstanding an apparently hopeless prospect at the start, to securing the good-will and alliance of the kingdom for the British Government, and the permanence of the policy of a friendly buffer-state on the frontier.

Position and Prospects when Lawrence took leave.

Lawrence, then, being about to leave the control of the administration of the Punjab through its Council of Regency, it may be convenient to give here his views on various points of the policy which he had been administering. They are extracted mainly from his published article on Lord Hardinge's administration.

On the old general policy in respect of the Punjab before the war he writes thus: —

'It has ever been the wish of the British Government to assist in the maintenance of a strong Sikh Government in the Punjab. It is understood that those who had the best means of forming a judgement on this question, in whatever other points they may have differed, were all agreed in this,