But the months wore on from May to September while Delhi remained untaken, and he knew that week by week the respect of the Punjab people, originally high, for the British Government, was being lowered by the spectacle of unretrieved disaster. He felt also that the patience of the evil-disposed, which had been happily protracted, must be approaching nearer and nearer to the point of exhaustion. He saw that sickness was creeping over the robust frame of the body politic, and that the symptoms of distemper, which were day by day appearing in the limbs, might ere long extend to the vital organs. He learned, from intercepted correspondence, the sinister metaphors which were being applied to what seemed to be the sinking state of the British cause—such as “many of the finest trees in the garden have fallen,” or “white wheat is scarce and country produce abundant,” or “hats are hardly to be seen while turbans are countless.”
Yet it was evident to him that the force before Delhi in August would not suffice to recapture the place, although he had sent all the reinforcements which could properly be spared from the Punjab. But if Delhi should remain untaken, the certainty of disturbance throughout the Punjab presented itself to him. He must therefore make one supreme effort to so strengthen the Delhi camp that an assault might be soon delivered. This he could do by despatching thither the one last reserve which the Punjab possessed, namely Nicholson’s movable column. This was a perilous step to take, and his best officers, as in duty bound, pointed out its perils; still he resolved to adopt it. If the column should go, grave risk would indeed be incurred for the Punjab, but then there was a chance of Delhi being taken, and of the Punjab being preserved; if the column should not go, then Delhi would not be taken, and in that case the Punjab must sooner or later be lost; and he had finally to decide between these two alternatives. His intimate acquaintance with the people taught him that if a general rising should occur in consequence of the British failing to take Delhi, then the presence of the movable column in the Punjab would not save the Province. This was the crisis not only in his career, but also in the fate of the Punjab and of Delhi with Hindostan. He decided in favour of action, not only as the safer of two alternatives, but as the only alternative which afforded any hope of safety. He was conscious that this particular decision was fraught with present risk to the Punjab, which had hardly force enough for self-preservation. But he held that the other alternative must ultimately lead to destruction. His decision thus formed had to be followed by rapid action, for sickness at the end of summer and beginning of autumn was literally decimating the European force before Delhi week by week; and even each day as it passed appreciably lessened the fighting strength. So the column marched with all speed for Delhi; and then he had sped his last bolt. In his own words, he had poured out the cup of his resources to the last drop.
Thus denuded, his position was critical indeed. He had but four thousand European soldiers remaining in the Punjab, and of these at least one half were across the Indus near the Khyber Pass. Several strategic points were held by detachments only of European troops, and he could not but dread the sickly season then impending. He had eighteen thousand Sepoys to watch, of whom twelve thousand had been disarmed and six thousand still had their arms. Of his newly-raised Punjabis the better part had been sent to Delhi; but a good part remained to do the necessary duties in the Punjab; and what if they should come to think that the physical force was at their disposal?
The sequel formed one of the bright pages in British annals, and amply justified the responsibility which he had incurred. The column arrived in time to enable the British force to storm and capture Delhi; and he mourned, as a large-hearted man mourns, over the death of Nicholson in the hour of triumph. He declared that Nicholson, then beyond the reach of human praise, had done deeds of which the memory could never perish so long as British rule should endure.
His relief was ineffable when tidings came that Delhi had been stormed, the mutineers defeated and expelled, the so-called Emperor taken prisoner, the fugitive rebels pursued, the city and the surrounding districts restored to British rule. To his ear the knell of the great rebellion had sounded. He could not but feel proud at the thought that this result had been achieved without any reinforcement whatever from England. But he was patriotically thankful to hear of the succour despatched by England, through Palmerston her great Minister—some fifty thousand men in sailing vessels by a long sea-route round the Cape of Good Hope, full twelve thousand miles in a few months, by an effort unparalleled in warlike annals.
While the peril was at its height, his preoccupation almost drowned apprehension. But when the climax was over, he was awe-struck on looking back on the narrowness of the escape. He recalled to mind the desperate efforts which he and his men had put forth. But he was profoundly conscious that, humanly speaking, no exertions of this nature were adequate to cope with the frightful emergency which had lasted so long as to strain his resources almost to breaking. The fatuity, which often haunts criminals, had affected the mutineers and the rebel leaders; error had dogged their steps, and their unaccountable oversights had, in his opinion, contributed to the success of the British cause. He used to say that their opportunity would, if reasonably used, have given them the mastery; but that they with their unreason threw away its advantages, and that in short had they pursued almost any other course than that which they did pursue, the British flag must have succumbed. Thus regarding with humility the efforts of which the issue had been happy, he felt truly, and strove to inspire others with, a sentiment of devout thankfulness to the God of battles and the Giver of all victory.
He believed that if Delhi had not fallen, and if the tension in the Punjab had been prolonged for some more months, even for some more weeks, the toils of inextricable misfortune would have closed round his administration. The frontier tribes would, he thought, have marched upon half-protected districts, and would have been joined by other tribes in the interior of the province. One military station after another would have been abandoned by the British, so that the available forces might be concentrated at Lahore the capital; and finally there would have been a retreat, with all the European families and a train of camp-followers, from Lahore down the Indus valley towards the seaboard. Then, as he declared, no Englishman would for a whole generation have been seen in the Punjab, either as a conqueror or as a ruler.
As to his share in the recapture of Delhi, the testimony may be cited of an absolutely competent witness, Lord Canning, a man of deliberate reflection, who always measured his words, and who wrote some time after the event when all facts and accounts had been collated, thus:
“Of what is due to Sir John Lawrence himself no man is ignorant. Through him Delhi fell, and the Punjab, no longer a weakness, becomes a source of strength. But for him, the hold of England over Upper India would have had to be recovered at a cost of English blood and treasure which defies calculation.”
Delhi had heretofore belonged not to the Punjab, but to the North-Western Provinces; on being re-taken by the British in September, it was, together with the surrounding territory, made over during October to his care and jurisdiction. Having removed all traces of the recent storm from the surface of the Punjab, he proceeded to Delhi in order to superintend in person the restoration of law and order there. Before starting, he helped the Commander-in-Chief (Sir Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde) in arranging that the Punjabi troops, raised during the summer, should be despatched southwards beyond Delhi for the reconquest of Hindostan and Oude. He also wrote to the Secretary of State entreating that his good officers might be remembered in respect of rewards and honours. His wife’s health had failed, and he had seen her start for a river voyage down the Indus on her way to England. He was at this time very anxious on her account, and would say, what avail would all worldly successes and advantages be to him if he should lose her? So he started for Delhi sore at heart; but he received better accounts of her, and his spirits rose with the approach of the winter season, which in Upper India always serves as a restorative to the European constitution.