To show how these principles remained fast in his mind to the very end of life, two passages may be quoted from public letters which he dictated within the last twelvemonth before his death, after he had been literally half blinded by illness, when he was bowed down with infirmity and no longer able to read or write; and yet they remind the reader of his best manner.

Regarding the people of Afghanistan, he says:

“The Afghan is courageous, hardy, and independent; the country he lives in is strong and sterile in a remarkable degree, extraordinarily adapted for guerilla warfare; these people will never cease to resist so long as they have a hope of success, and, when beaten down, they have that kind of elasticity which will ever lead them to renew the struggle whenever opportunity of so doing may occur. If we enter Afghanistan, whether it be to punish the people for the alleged faults of their chiefs or to rectify our frontier, they will assuredly do all in their power to resist us. We want them as friends and not as enemies. In the latter category, they are extremely dangerous to us.”

In respect of our policy towards them he repeats:

“So far as diplomacy and diplomacy alone, is concerned, we should do all in our power to induce the Afghans to side with us. We ought not, in my mind, to make an offensive and defensive treaty with them. This has been for many years their desire; but the argument against it is that if we made such a treaty, we should be bound to restrain them from any attacks on their neighbours, and to resent such assaults on them, while it would be next to impossible for us to ascertain the merits of such complaints. We should thus constantly find ourselves in a position to please neither party, and even bound to defend causes in which the Afghans were to blame.”

Towards the end of 1868, having obtained the approval of the Government in England, he arranged a personal conference with the Amir Shir Ali, to be held at some place in British territory for settling the terms on which a limited support by subsidies in arms and money might be accorded to a friendly and independent Afghanistan. But he waited in vain for Shir Ali, who, though anxious to come, was prevented from doing so by some passing troubles near at home. This was in December, 1868, and his stay in India was fast drawing to a close, as his successor, Lord Mayo, was expected to arrive at Calcutta the following month, January, 1869. So the plan, to which he had obtained the sanction of the British Government, was unavoidably left to be carried out by his successor after a personal meeting with Shir Ali at some early date; and this actually took place at Umballa in the ensuing spring.

The night before the arrival of his successor, he attended the farewell banquet given in his honour by some two hundred and fifty gentlemen representing the European community of Calcutta. His public services were reviewed by the chairman, Sir William Mansfield (afterwards Lord Sandhurst), the Commander-in-Chief. His services respecting military supplies and transport in 1846, and regarding reinforcements for the army in 1857, were specially attested by Mansfield, a most competent judge speaking from personal knowledge; and then his subsequent career was reviewed in statesmanlike and eloquent terms. When he rose to reply his voice was not resonant and his manner seemed hesitating, but the hesitation arose from the varied emotions that were surging in his breast, and the counter trains of thought that were coursing through his mind, as “the hours to their last minute were mounting,” for his Indian career. Doffing his armour after a long course of victory, and arriving at that final end which entitles the victor to be called fortunate, he might well have been cheerful; but, on the contrary, he was somewhat melancholy—and his bearing then, compared to what it was when he landed in Calcutta, shewed how heavily the last five years had told upon him. His speech was characteristic as might have been expected. He reviewed his own policy in a concise and comprehensive manner; he said a good word for the inhabitants of North-western India, among whom his laborious lot had long been cast, attributing much of his success to the officers, his own countrymen, who had worked with him; and, as a peroration, he commended the Natives of India to the kindly sympathies of all whom his words might reach.

The next day he wore full dress for the reception of his successor, Lord Mayo, according to usage. The gilded uniform and the glittering decorations compared strangely with his wan look and toilworn frame. His veteran aspect presented a complete contrast to that of his handsome and gallant successor. He looked like a man whose conduct was as crystal and whose resolution as granite. He was indeed prematurely aged, for being only fifty-eight years old, he would, according to a British standard, be within the cycle of activity. His faithful friends, and they were legion, saw in him the representative of Anglo-Indian greatness. The same could not be said of his predecessors: the greatness of Wellesley, of Dalhousie, of Canning was not wholly of this character, but his greatness was Anglo-Indian solely and absolutely. Like Warren Hastings, the first in the illustrious line of Governors-General, he had been appointed entirely for merit and service, without reference to parliamentary considerations or political influences; and again, like Warren Hastings, he had been instrumental in saving the empire from the stress of peril.

CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
1869-1879

On March 15th, 1869, Sir John Lawrence landed in England after an absence of more than five years, his wife having preceded him thither the year before. The friends, who welcomed his return, thought him looking worn and broken. He was immediately raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Lawrence of the Punjab and Grateley. The Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone), in the kindest terms, communicated to him the pleasure of the Sovereign. For his armorial bearings he characteristically adopted as supporters, two native Indian soldiers, a Sikh and a Mahommedan, in order to perpetuate, so far as might be possible, the remembrance of what he and his country owed to the men of these classes. The name Grateley he took from the small estate on Salisbury Plain which his sister Letitia, Mrs. Hayes, had left him on her death. His home at Southgate had been transferred to Queen’s Gate in South Kensington; and he very soon made a short tour to Lynton to see his sister’s grave, and to Clifton near Bristol, the home of his childhood.