Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/173

Rh the army, as reductions always must be; but the question involved was whether the force that remained was adequate for any emergency that might arise. The strength left was not, indeed, the strength of numbers; it was the strength of a better distribution from a strategical point of view. The garrisons on the North-West Frontier had been doubled. On the Sutlej there were 50,000 men, with sixty guns; at Firozpur 10,000 men, complete in every detail; and at Lahore 9000 men. The Punjab was quiet; and when the insurrection subsequently broke out at Múltán, Lord Gough had an ample force for the operations which followed.

While dealing with questions relating to the army, I must not forget to mention the various boons conferred upon the Sepoys. As before mentioned, twelve months' 'batta' was granted to them at the end of the war; their pension for wounds was increased from four to seven rupees a month; hutting money was allowed; and all wounded men received a free ration in hospital. Lord Hardinge had been called in England the ' soldier's friend.' Might he not also be called the friend of the Sepoy?

Looking to the fact that Lord Hardinge was less than four years in India, this catalogue of work done shows what an active mind, untiring labour, and complete confidence in subordinates, can achieve. Now he was longing for his holidays, like a schoolboy. In one of the last letters which he wrote to his wife are these words: — 'I must shrink from no duty to a