Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/97

Rh pointed' at their thus 'politely ignoring him .' Nor was his journey out calculated to smooth his ruffled susceptibilities. Lord Dalhousie had frankly assured him, indeed, that 'my word is passed that, on your return at the end of a year, you shall be replaced at Lahore; and so you shall.' But hearing of some pretty stage effect contemplated at Múltán, in the shape of a personal surrender of the rebel Múlráj to Sir Henry in the hope of favourable conditions on his first arrival, Lord Dalhousie promptly wrote to the returning Resident: 'I have to inform you that I will grant no terms whatever to Múlráj, nor listen to any proposal but unconditional surrender .' After a scrupulously fair trial, Múlráj was sentenced to transportation.

Sir Henry did not even yet realize that he was no longer dealing with a Governor-General like Lord Hardinge, with 'something: almost feminine in his tenderness of nature .' On his arrival at the headquarters of the army, he draughted a Proclamation to the Sikhs under Lord Dalhousie's instructions, but in a very different sense from what Lord Dalhousie had prescribed. Lord Dalhousie replied in a letter which I quote at some length, for it practically laid down the conditions under which alone Sir Henry Lawrence could retain his place in the Punjab.