So he was on November 30th suddenly offered the post of Governor-General, which he accepted. In the evening he went home and told his wife what had happened, whereupon he met with much of tender remonstrance. As he laughingly said afterwards, it was fortunate that he had accepted that day before going home, for had he gone home first on the understanding that he was to reply the next day, he might have been induced to refuse. He could not but feel, however, some pride and satisfaction, though there were several drawbacks. He was to incur the risk of shortening life, and the certainty of injuring whatever of health might remain to him. He was to be separated from his family just when they most required his attention, and to break up a home which he had established with loving care. He did not at all need advancement, and could hardly add to his fame. But the disinclination which all official men have to decline any important offer, the discipline which renders them anxious to do as they are bid by authority, the disposition which men, long used to arms, feel to don their armour once again—these sentiments constrained him. Though he would no longer seek new duties, yet if they were imposed upon him, it would be his highest pleasure to discharge them well. He had an important interview, before starting, with the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. On December 9th, within ten days from receiving the intimation of his appointment, he started from Charing Cross for India, journeying alone, as it was impossible for his wife to leave suddenly the family home.
The continuance to him, while Governor-General of India, of the special pension (given by the late East India Company as already mentioned in the last chapter) had to be sanctioned by Parliament; and a resolution to this effect was passed by the House of Commons on February 8th, 1864. The terms in which the Secretary of State, Sir Charles Wood, introduced the resolution, and the response received may be quoted from Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates. He said: “I had no hesitation in recommending Sir John Lawrence to Her Majesty for the Governor-Generalship of India; and within two days from the receipt of the intelligence from India (of Lord Elgin’s death) I was authorised to offer the high post to him. He accepted it at once, and knowing the importance of despatch he showed the same zeal for the service of the country which had always distinguished him, by declaring himself ready to leave England for India by the first mail to Calcutta. The services of Sir John Lawrence are so well known and so universally recognised, that it will only be necessary to read the Resolution under which the pension was conferred upon him, passed at a meeting of the Court of Directors (East India Company) on August 11th, 1858—
“‘Resolved unanimously that in consideration of the eminent services of Sir John Laird Mair Lawrence, G.C.B., whose prompt, vigorous and judicious measures crushed incipient mutiny in the Punjab and maintained the province in tranquillity during a year of almost universal convulsion, and who by his extraordinary exertions was enabled to equip troops and to prepare munitions of war for distant operations, thus mainly contributing to the recapture of Delhi and to the subsequent successes which attended our arms, and in testimony of the high sense entertained by the East India Company of his public character and conduct throughout a long and distinguished career, an annuity of £2000 be granted to him.’”
From the opposite Bench, Lord Stanley rose and said: “I apprehend that there will be no difference on any side of the House upon this Resolution. I rise merely to express my entire concurrence, having been connected with Indian affairs during part of the time when the services of Sir John Lawrence were performed. This was not a retiring pension, but was a recognition, and a very inadequate recognition, of services as distinguished as had ever been performed by a public servant in India.”
The motion was passed by the House of Commons without any dissentient voice, and the manner in which it was received in Parliament, when reported in India, was sure to strengthen John Lawrence’s position there.
CHAPTER IX
THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
1864-1869
The work which John Lawrence had heretofore done in India is not of that sort which should be measured statistically. Its material proportions had been indeed considerable, but they were infinitely exceeded by its moral effect. Still some few comparative facts may be noted to show what his new sphere was compared with his old. The Punjab with its dependencies contained, when he left it in 1859, one hundred and forty-five thousand square miles, with twenty-two millions of inhabitants, and paid an annual revenue of two and a half millions sterling. It had been augmented, since its first formation as a British province, by the addition of the Delhi territory. The Indian empire, when he took charge of it in 1864, contained one million three hundred thousand square miles with two hundred and thirty-five millions of inhabitants, paid an annual revenue of fifty-three millions sterling, was defended by an army of nearly two hundred thousand men, including both European and Native troops, and was divided into eleven provincial governments or administrations, under two Governors, three Lieutenant-Governors, three Chief Commissioners, and three Residencies or Governor-General’s Agencies.
In January, 1864, Lawrence arrived at Calcutta as Viceroy and Governor-General. He looked much brightened and freshened by a sojourn of four and a half years in England. His old vivacity sparkled again; he had been softened as well as brightened by his sojourn in England. He walked with a stride, and his seat in the saddle was almost as of yore. His health had been temporarily restored, but had not, as the sequel showed, been re-established.
Usually a new Viceroy and Governor-General is, on landing in India, really new in every sense. The European officers, the Native Princes, Chiefs and people, are strangers to him as he is personally unknown to them. Yet he has great power and wide influence, not only over individuals, but also over large classes and masses, and his personality will for a term of years affect the conduct of the executive and the course of legislation. Consequently when he comes, public expectation is on the tiptoe, and the public gaze is strained to discover what manner of man he may be. It is hard to describe adequately the anxious uncertainty which prevails, and consequently the intensity of the interest which is thus aroused in most instances. But in the instance of Lawrence there was no such novelty. His name was already a household word from one end of the empire to the other. To all men his character, disposition and idiosyncrasy were known by fame, and to numerous individuals, even to many classes, were familiar. Again, other Governors-General arriving in India have been obliged to go to school politically, and almost serve an apprenticeship; but he was already a master workman, and could enter fully and at once upon his whole duty.