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76 raised, and the British troops were drawn off to a position of safety. Meanwhile the new Governor-General had, from his distant post in Calcutta, watched with profound dissatisfaction the tardiness of the military authorities in the Punjab. During his first months of office he prudently abstained from overruling the local knowledge and long experience of his Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gough. But before the summer was over he determined to act on his own judgment. 'There is no other course open to us,' he wrote to the Secret Committee, 'but to prepare for a general Punjab War, and ultimately to occupy the country.' With swift resolution he ordered an addition of 17,000 men to the army, and hurried up troops to the Punjab from Sind and Bombay. 'If our enemies want war,' said Lord Dalhousie in a speech at a great military ball at Barrackpur on October 5, 1848, a ball which may well compare with the festivities on the eve of Waterloo, 'war they shall have, and with a vengeance.'

The Governor-General promptly started for the British frontier on the Sutlej. Sir Richard Temple describes him as he passed through Agra, 'fresh and youthful for his great office, but vigilant and self-sustained.' In November, 1848, Lord Gough moved out his grand army to the task. Twenty thousand men, and nearly 100 guns swept across the Punjab under his command. His tardiness to start was