Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/108

100 If, during the Mutiny of 1857, the Punjab could be denuded of its British troops, and its army set free for the Siege of Delhi and the stamping out of the revolt, it was because the powerful Sikh Chiefs, who had fought so splendidly against us in 1848, had been thus sternly broken up by Dalhousie. If Sir Henry Lawrence's half-and-half policy had been adopted, Lord Dalhousie clearly foresaw that the Punjab under annexation would have been scarcely more secure than the Punjab under the Treaties of 1846 — except indeed for the loss of the Sikh artillery. But while Lord Dalhousie insisted upon the absolute dismemberment of the Sikh Confederacy, he was willing to carry it out with the utmost measure of mercy compatible with the permanent safety of the province.

'The arrangements regarding jaghírs [the military fiefs], as lately received from your Lordship,' wrote John Lawrence to the Governor-General, after they had been carried into effect, 'have given much satisfaction, and have exceeded all expectation. A Sikh Sirdar remarked to me that they had got more than Ranjít Singh ever would have given them, and that too free of all service.' I repeat that if the Punjab was both safe and contented during the Mutiny, it was this policy of firmness tempered by consideration, and rigorously enforced by Lord Dalhousie upon Henry Lawrence, as head of the Lahore Board, which rendered it so.