When, ten years ago, the country came under
the British rule, there was a resolve to carry
out in it, as thoroughly as possible, what were
considered the best views as to right government,
and its Administration set to work on the
erection of a model province. Year by year it
made progress. There always was a surplus
income and prosperity within its borders. Justice
was brought home to the peasant's door by means
of the Small Cause Courts, and although, during
the great storm of Indian rebellion, officers of
law courts were drawn by the urgency of other
duties from the regular hearing of causes, yet,
after a break of five months, the work went on
again so steadily that during the year of tumult
there was actually more appeal by litigation to
the authority of English magistrates than there
had been during the previous year of peace.
The oppression of the native bankers had been
lessened, by reducing from twelve to six years
the period within which suits must be brought
against a bonded debtor. The bankers
themselves had become so unpopular, that in case
of tumult the first act of insurgents was to
"inquire for them" and burn their hated books.

The exercise of justice against criminals had
also been righteous as well as firm. Thuggee,
infanticide, and gang robbery had been, before
the revolt, almost suppressed. After the revolt
it is remarkable that there was everywhere a
diminution of the mass of crime. The unruly
spirits seemed to have burnt out their energy in
unsuccessful strife, and there was less heart for
violent offences. In the Cis-Sutlej states, after
the twelfth of May, in the year fifty-seven, a
season of open violence set in, and was steadily
resisted by the officers of justice, who could not,
indeed, reach all offenders, but who contrived to
assert law against more than five thousand
persons, of whom at least one-fourth were
heinous criminals.

This excess of disorder did not spread beyond
the Sutlej . Sir John Lawrence turned to account
his five rivers as barriers against tumult. He
closed the lesser ferries, and set guards on all
the greater ones, by which men could cross over
with the firebrands of revolt. He moored the
ferry boats either in mid-stream or, as regarded
his own district, on the outside of each river
so that men who were unable to work mischief
within his borders should not, without
knowledge and permission from authority, cross them
to work out elsewhere their evil plans.
Suspicious wayfarers, especially those coming from
the east, were stopped, and the extraordinary
number of such characters showed how great
was the value of this shrewd precaution.

In thus guarding the ferries of the Five Rivers,
in maintaining law, and in actual suppression of
mutiny, the Punjab police, men of the soil, were
of important use as native soldiers. But from
the temptation of watching treasure even the
faithful Punjabees were prudently withdrawn,
and all money not in use for daily needs was
ordered to be sent into some fortified place
under the care of European guards.

Thousands of seditious letters were stopped
in their passage through the post. There was a
cautious weeding of Hindoostanees out of the
various branches of the public service. They
had come into the Punjab, to them a foreign
province, with the British, and had enjoyed one-
half of its patronage, but the tendency of them
all, in the critical hour, was to intrigue against
us. A considerable part of the whole region
had, most fortunately, been already disarmed;
the disarming was made more complete. From
plunderers complete restitution of the value of
all property destroyed or stolen was enacted
rigidly. Insurgent tribes were made to pay for
all damage to public buildings, for the extra
police rendered necessary by their misconduct,
and for the cutting of military roads through
their own jungles. Against the breaking open
of gaols, always the next act of mutineers after
the seizure of the treasury, there was strong
precaution taken. They were placed usually
under guard of faithful Punjabee police, but
sometimes it was necessary to employ the rustics
of the district. All Hindostanee guards were
removed, and the inspector, Dr. Charles Hathaway,
who had laboured earnestly for the
establishment of a complete gaol system, slept for
months during the crisis at the central gaol of
Lahore, which contained two thousand of the
worst prisoners, and was exposed to attack from
four disarmed regiments if they should rise.

Thus, throughout the region which Sir John
Lawrence administered, law made itself respected
and showed only a calm, unwavering front.
While all the native races watched events at
Delhi, and, as the siege wore on, began to doubt
of the supremacy of British might, everything
before their eyes was telling them that we
allowed ourselves no question about the matter.
We continued in the Punjab to settle questions
of revenue, to arrange disputes, and enter into
undertakings with the people binding on us for
a series of years. The continuance of our rule
was taken openly and quietly for granted in the
daily business of life, and the people assented to
this maintenance of the accustomed order of
affairs. Even the government schools were kept
up during the fiercest shock of the revolt with no
appreciable decrease in the attendance, though
the pupils are Hindoo and Mahometan. There
are few Sikhs. The Punjabees were not, as a
whole, visibly disaffected; much of their
confidence was won. Had our strength been over-
matched at Delhi, the end of our rule in India
would have been demonstrated before them, the
native princes round about would nearly all have
escaped from the ruins of our empire, and we
should have lost, not only the Punjab, but all
India with it. When our success was delayed
the beginning of that end began to show itself.

And yet this was a friendly people. Under
the rule of Sir John Lawrence it had enjoyed
frequent reductions of the land tax. However
carefully an assessment might have been
calculated, reasons for altering it may arise as soon as
it is finished, and in the Administration of the
Punjab it was not by tape and figures, but by
constant human observation and reflection, that