At this great meeting let me impress upon you, that all previous animosities among yourselves be forgotten, and while the great English nation now regard you as British subjects and brothers, love your neighbours as yourself, fear God, honour your King, and the Governor, his representative.
APPENDIX VI.
Extracts from Sir Harry Smith’s Letters from India, to his Sister, Mrs Sargant.
Loodhiana, 12th Feb. 1842.
You must excuse, dear Alice, my referring you to Sir James’s letter for information as to the tragedy of Cabool, but my labours now are great. He sent me such a character to give Lord Ellenborough. I had also a very handsome letter from dear Lord Fitzroy Somerset, saying his son was with Lord E., and he would thank me “to instil into him some of that chivalrous and gallant spirit which has been your guide in your military career.”
Juana unites with me in love to you all, dearest sister, and if I am actively employed you shall not have cause to accuse me of a want of energy, pluck, or decision, with a jealousy of time, that thing of all others in war for which all great generals have been remarkable. “Time is everything in War,” says Wellington, and daily experience verifies it.
Harry.
I suppose you started, like a half-broken horse, when I told you I was driving four-in-hand. You will start again, I hope, when I say after having had the use of it since I have been in India, having driven it from point to point seven hundred and two miles of good roads and bad, I have sold it for £700. It is gone as a present to Shere Singh, King of the Punjaub at Lahore, the son and successor of old Runjeet. There’s a bit of luck for you!