Lord Lawrence

by Sir Richard Carnac Temple

This is but a bare summary of a large and complex question, affecting not only thousands but tens of thousands of cases scattered all over the country. Upon such a question as this the social contentment and the financial equilibrium of the province largely depended. This much of notice is needed in order to show how the matter concerned the career and fortunes of John.

The Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, became aware of the growing difference of opinion between Henry and John, but viewing it from afar he thought at first that more good than harm would result. He had the highest respect for both the brothers, but knowing them to have an independent will and potential force of character, he surmised that each might be inclining towards an extreme and that one would correct the other. Moreover he saw that the friction produced apparently that mental heat which supplied force to move the administration on and on towards success. With the excellent results displayed before him in the “First Punjab Report” in 1852, he was little disposed to interfere with the mechanism, and hoped that the two eminent brothers might gradually learn componere lites. But afterwards he began to perceive that this difference was working harm inasmuch as the discussions not only produced delay, but sometimes caused important matters to be put aside on account of the diversity of argument, for which no solution could be found.

Had these conditions lasted, moreover, an additional evil must have arisen; for in the ranks of the public service two parties would have sprung up. Each brother was loyal to the other, and was as reticent as possible regarding the difference in opinion between them. Still inevitably the fact transpired, and accordingly some officers agreed with Henry and others with John. Though these good men obeyed orders, yet those orders would be issued only after their views had been submitted and considered. These views would become tinged with the colouring of the thought in two schools of opinion. It must be added that the Natives, who had concessions to ask, were persuasively insistent with their requests. Eloquence is one of nature’s gifts to Oriental races. The skill with which a native will plead his cause in the ear of a listening official, is conceivable only to those Europeans who have experienced it. In these particular cases much that was dramatic or historical, affecting or pathetic, would be urged. Even the sterner mind of John would be touched sometimes, and much more so the more susceptible heart of Henry. Then the susceptibilities of the latter would be taken up by the officers who had been chosen by him for service in the Punjab. In the turn which events took, the formation of two parties, and the detriment to the public service which would have followed, were avoided.

Soon Lord Dalhousie and his Council at Calcutta concluded that an opportunity must be taken to effect a change; and that as one only of the two brothers should remain in the Punjab, John must be the man. While this conclusion was affecting the mind of the Governor-General, it so happened that, on an important vacancy occurring elsewhere, both brothers simultaneously offered to resign their positions in the Punjab and take service in some other part of India. This precipitated the decision of the Supreme Government.

That decision was communicated to Henry Lawrence by Lord Dalhousie in a memorable letter, from which some passages may be quoted to show historically how the matter stood.

“It has for some time been the recorded opinion of the Supreme Government that, whenever an opportunity occurred for effecting a change, the administration of the Punjab would best be conducted by a Chief Commissioner, having a Judicial and a Revenue Commissioner under him. But it was also the opinion of the Government that, whenever the change should be made, the Chief Commissioner ought to be an officer of the Civil Service. You stand far too high, and have received too many assurances and too many proofs of the great estimation in which your ability, qualities, and services have been held by the successive governments under which you have been employed, to render it necessary that I should bear testimony here to the value which has been set upon your labours and upon your service as the head of the administration of the Punjab by the Government over which I have had the honour to preside. We do not regard it as in any degree disparaging to you that we, nevertheless, do not consider it expedient to commit the sole executive charge of the administration of a kingdom to any other than to a thoroughly trained and experienced civil officer. Although the Regulations do not prevail in the Punjab, and although the system of civil government has wisely and successfully been made more simple in its forms, still we are of opinion that the superintendence of so large a system, everywhere founded on the Regulations, and pervaded by their spirit, can be thoroughly controlled and moulded, as changes from time to time may become necessary, only by a civilian fully versed in the system of the elder provinces and experienced in its operation.

“As the Government entertained these views, it became evident that the change it contemplates in the form of administration could not be effected, nor could the dissensions existing be reconciled, unless it were agreeable to you to transfer your services to some other department.

“The result of our consideration was the statement I have now to make, that if you are willing to accept Rajputana, the Government will be happy to appoint you to it, with a view to effecting the change of the form of administration in the Punjab, to which I have already referred.”

So Henry departed for Rajputana in 1853, with honour acknowledged of all men, and amidst the sorrowing farewells of friends, European and Native. He left a fragrant memory behind him as he crossed the Sutlej for the last time on his way to Rajputana, whither countless good wishes followed his course. But no man then anticipated the grave events which, within four years, would open out for him in Oude a sphere as grand as that which he was now quitting.

Thus after a term of four years’ service in the Board of Administration, that is from 1849 to 1853, John Lawrence was left in sole command of the Punjab. But though his nerve was unimpaired, his capacity developed, his experience enlarged, he was not physically the same man at the end of this term that he was at the beginning. In October, 1850, at Lahore, he had been stricken down by a severe fever, as bad as that from which he had suffered just ten years previously at Etawah, and his health never was fully restored after that shock. He, however, recovered sufficiently to accompany Lord Dalhousie on a march in the Punjab during the winter months, and afterwards in the following spring 1851 to examine the condition of the Peshawur valley. The ensuing months he spent at Simla in company with his wife and children.