conveyed to his widow through the Duke of Cambridge. In replying to the duke, Lady Havelock said: "In the loneliness of my present position I cannot help wishing that every woman, thus bereaved, might have such a son (I might say sons) to comfort and heal her broken heart."

In the same letter (24th December, 1857) in which Lord Canning announced the death of General Havelock to the queen, he spoke of the loss of another very distinguished officer, Brigadier-general Neill. "They were," writes Lord Canning, "very different men, however. The first [Havelock] was quite of the old school-severe and precise with his men, and very cautious in his movements and plans, but in action bold as well as skilful. The second very open and impetuous, but full of resources; and to his soldiers as kind and thoughtful of their comfort as if they had been his children.”

brigadier-general, and as such took precedence | pathy from the queen and Prince Albert was of men who held her majesty's commissions as colonels. It speaks well for the discipline of the army that such a step passed unchallenged, but it speaks volumes for the character of Lawrence that he dared to undertake it. By holding the Punjaub in his iron grip, by diverting every available soldier to Delhi, by mercilessly stamping out rebellion wherever it reared its demon head, Sir John Lawrence enabled Archdale Wilson to storm the capital of the Great Mogul before a single reinforcement reached him from England. With the fall of Delhi the hopes of the mutineers were extinguished. Our power in India was reasserted, and the pacification, not the subjugation, of the country became the task for its rulers. For his share in suppressing the mutiny Sir John Lawrence was created a baronet and a Grand Cross of the Bath. But forty continuous years of active service fully entitled the saviour of India to a rest, and at the close of the mutiny he gladly handed over the Punjaub to one of his most trusted lieutenants and retired to his well-earned pension in England. He was immediately elected to the Indian council at home, where his large and varied experience, his cool judgment, and firmness of purpose were soon felt.1

The grave had closed over Havelock, whose rewards and title had come too late. Both houses of parliament (7th of December, 1857) unanimously voted him a pension of £1000 a year, after fitting tribute had been paid to his services in eloquent language by the Earl of Derby and Earl Granville in one house, and by Lord Palmerston in the other. It had also been announced that he was to be created a baronet and K.C.B. One of the first acts of parliament, when it reassembled in February, was to pass a bill settling an annuity of £1000 upon his widow and on his eldest son, Sir Henry Marshman Havelock, himself a distinguished officer, on whom the baronetey had descended which had not been enjoyed by his father. No sooner was General Havelock's death known than a warm expression of sym

1 Times. Obituary notice of Lord Lawrence, June 28, 1879.

Captain Sir William Peel, K.C.B., commander of the naval brigade, the third and much-loved son of Sir Robert Peel, was another officer whose loss was greatly deplored. He died of small-pox at Cawnpore in April, 1858, after having taken a brave and distinguished part in the worst time of the campaign.

In a gazette extraordinary Lord Canning thus spoke of this distinguished man: “The loss of his daring but thoughtful courage, joined with eminent abilities, is a very heavy one to the country; but it is not more to be deplored than the loss of the influence which his earnest character, admirable temper, and gentle, kindly bearing exercised over all within his reach; an influence which was exerted unceasingly for the public good, and of which the governor-general believes that it may with truth be said there is not a man of any rank or profession who, having been associated with Sir William Peel in these times of anxiety and danger, has not felt and acknowledged it.”

Colonel Inglis, the brave defender of Lucknow, was specially mentioned by the queen when her majesty was referring to the neces sity of immediately promoting officers for able and distinguished services. Nor were some of our native allies forgotten.

LORD CANNING'S DEFENCE OF HIS POLICY.

271

Lord Canning had to bide his time before | ations, have been equivalent to a vote of cenvotes of laudation and promises of grateful sure, but the governor-general had already in recognition reached him amidst the denun- a despatch (to the court of directors of the ciations which were levelled against him, East India Company), which had been made and were presently to be repeated on entirely public, vindicated his policy and explained its opposite grounds. The demand for indis- necessity. In a letter to Lord Granville at criminate slaughter and severity, which in the same time his position with regard to the England had been stimulated by a feeling of whole question was clearly defined. He said: indignation and revenge, had been upheld in "I could write a chapter in deprecation of Calcutta because of the panic not unnaturally anything being done or said in parliament by produced by reports of the atrocities of the the government, which shall tend to throw mutineers. Many of the residents in Cal- cold water upon the policy that has been purcutta and the Presidency of Bengal, finding sued towards the natives. Look at a map— that the governor refused to adopt a policy (never think of Indian matters without lookwhich would have carried persecution and ing at a map, and without bringing your injustice to the unoffending masses of the mind to take in the scale of the map and the native population, had sent a petition to the size of the country),-look at a map. With queen asking for Lord Canning's recall, as he all the reinforcements you have sent (all the had not adopted measures to punish in suffi- Bengal ones are arrived, except 800 men), cient numbers or with due severity those native Bengal is without a single European soldier races who could be influenced by power and more than we had at the beginning of the fear alone. It was complained of both by the mutiny, Calcutta alone excepted, which is petitioners and by some violent writers in the stronger. Twenty-three thousand men have press, that the whole of India had not been moved through Bengal, and in Bengal we are placed under martial law after the mutiny still dependent (mainly) upon the good-will, broke out, while the instructions which were I can't say affection, and interest, well underissued by Lord Canning to the various civil stood by themselves, of the natives. authorities for their guidance in putting down insurrection in the disturbed districts were satirically called "clemency orders."

As we have seen the rebellion was virtually at an end by the last part of December, 1857, but there remained all kinds of prognostications, and when resolutions were proposed by the government in both houses, thanking the civil and military officers in India for the energy and ability displayed by them in suppressing the mutiny, and Lord Canning was first mentioned, Lord Derby in the Lords and Mr. Disraeli in the Commons proposed to exclude his name from the vote, on the ground that it would be premature to give him the thanks of parliament until the exceptions which had been taken to his policy by the Calcutta petition and in other quarters had been discussed and disproved. Not only would the exclusion of Lord Canning's name from a vote of thanks which did not touch questions of general policy, but only the result of the recent oper

"Suppose (not an impossibility, although I hope not a likelihood)-suppose that hostilities train on, and that we do not make our way with Oudh and other disturbed places, that our strength becomes again a subject of doubt-will it be the part of a wise government to keep such a population as that of the three great provinces in a loyal frame of temper? Can you do so if you proscribe and scout as untrustworthy whole classes? . . .

"For God's sake raise your voice and stop this. As long as I have breath in my body I will pursue no other policy than that I have been following: not only for the reason of expediency and policy above stated, but because it is immutably just. I will not govern in anger. Justice, and that as stern and inflexible as law and might can make it, I will deal out. But I will never allow an angry and undiscriminating act or word to proceed from the government of India as long as I am responsible for it...

"I don't care two straws for the abuse of

the papers, British or Indian. I am for ever wondering at myself for not doing so, but it really is the fact. Partly from want of time to care, partly because an enormous task is before me, and all other cares look small. . . . "I don't want you to do more than defend me against unfair or mistaken attacks. But do take up and assert boldly, that whilst we are prepared, as the first duty of all, to strike down resistance without mercy, wherever it shows itself, we acknowledge that, resistance over, deliberate justice, and calm, patient reason are to resume their sway; that we are not going, either in anger or from indolence, to punish wholesale; whether by wholesale hangings or burnings, or by the less violent, but not one bit less offensive course, of refusing trust and countenance, and favour, and honour to any man because he is of a class or a creed. Do this, and get others to do it, and you will serve India more than you would believe.

"Had not the 'clemency' question been taken up as it has been taken up in England, I really believe that the cry would never have been heard again, even in Calcutta.

I have, however, great faith in parliament on this question, though by no means on all others concerning India.”

Of course the vote of thanks was carried, and supported not only by the government but by independent members who knew what the work in India had been, and spoke in Lord Canning's honour.

One of the most determined opponents of the

prietors in the province, the chiefs and land-
owners were to surrender to the chief com-
missioner, when their lives would be spared
provided that their hands were unstained by
English blood murderously shed. As re-
garded any further indulgence to be granted
to them, and the conditions in which they were
thereafter to be placed, they must throw them-
selves on the mercy of the British govern-
ment. Of course this proclamation was to be
read by the light of Lord Canning's general
policy; but he had no right to leave that in-
terpretation of it to be taken for granted. The
commissioner himself, Sir James Outram, was
staggered by it; for there were scarcely a dozen
landlords in the province who had not borne
arms against the government, and to confiscate
their property would be to turn them into
bandits, and to make a long and exhausting
guerrilla war necessary for their extirpation.
Lord Canning called this in question; but he
was ready to insert in the proclamation a
clause granting a liberal indulgence to those
who came promptly forward to aid the res-
toration of order, and generously regarding the
claims which they might acquire to a restitu-
tion of their former rights. The question was,
what should be done with the province
whence the mutiny sprang? It had been
annexed so recently before the rebellion that
it could not be treated as the theatre of an
insurrection against long-settled rule. What
was necessary was that it should be regarded
as a province held under the direct govern-
ment of the British, and there must be enough
of demand against the insurgents both to mark
the mutiny as a revolt which must be met
by punishment, and to ensure some material
guarantee against its recurrence.
The pro-
clamation did not say all this. It left a good
deal of authority-an almost despotic authority

governor-general was Lord Ellenborough, who afterwards contrived to act with so much pompous indiscretion in sending a secret despatch to India, counteracting the proclamation made by Lord Canning with regard to the landowners in Oudh who had taken part in the rebellion, that the Derby-in the hands of the governor-general, who was, ministry which had then come into office was seriously embarrassed, though Mr. Disraeli completely endorsed the despatch and upheld its representations. Lord Canning's proclamation, doubtless, was liable to be interpreted into an intention to adopt a system of confiscation of the whole land of Oudh; since, with the exception of six loyal pro

however, not likely to exercise it. Whatever it may have been, a man like Lord Canning did not require or deserve to be rebuked in absurdly pompous language which might have been used to a subordinate by a civic official with a turn for grandiose reproof. Mr. Bright, who was on the side of the Derby government in this matter, because he objected to what he

THE END OF THE REIGN OF "JOHN COMPANY."

conceived had been undue severity exercised against the Sepoys, and suspected that unjust exactions might continue, was obliged to excuse the tone of Lord Ellenborough's communication on the ground that the chiefs of the East India Company had been accustomed to send despatches of a hectoring character addressed to subordinates who were entirely dependent on the board. Through the secret committee of the court of directors the despatch had been sent to Lord Canning. The matter was taken up by Lord Shaftesbury in the House of Lords, by Mr. Cardwell in the House of Commons, and by the queen, who thought that to send such a despatch at such a juncture was injurious to the state, and that it should first have been submitted to her, as all such despatches were, in connection with the foreign office. Worse than the sending of the despatch, however, though that would of course be made known all over India, was the fact that Lord Ellenborough placed himself in correspondence with some of the principal native chiefs, explaining his policy.

It afterwards transpired that Lord Canning had written a letter to Mr. Vernon Smith, who had been Lord Ellenborough's predecessor at the Board of Control, stating that the proclamation about to be issued would need some further explanation which the pressure of immediate duties compelled the governor-general to defer. Mr. Vernon Smith was in Ireland when that letter arrived, and it did not reach him in time to prevent Lord Ellenborough's despatch from being sent. Probably it would have made little difference, for the pompous nobleman seemed disinclined to listen to a private letter to the same effect which Lord Granville had received from Lord Canning. The opportunity of snubbing a successor was too good to be lost. But the explanation that Mr. Vernon Smith had not been able to give the information which might have rendered the secret despatch unnecessary, had the effect of letting the government escape and baffling the authors of the motion for censure. Mr. Disraeli, speaking at Slough a few days afterwards, triumphed exceedingly at what he considered had been the utter failure of his opponents. He said "it was like a con

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273

vulsion of nature rather than any ordinary transaction of human life. I can only liken it to one of those earthquakes which take place in Calabria or Peru. There was a rumbling murmur, a groan, a shriek, a sound of distant thunder. No one knew whether it came from the top or the bottom of the house. There was a rent, a fissure in the ground, and then a village disappeared; then a tall tower toppled down; and the whole of the opposition benches became one great dissolving view of anarchy."

The queen, however, had been on the side of "Clemency Canning" in his protests against a policy of extermination, and she now felt deeply the injustice of counteracting his proclamation before any intelligence had been received of the conditions with which he would have to contend. The government of Lord Derby gained little by Lord Ellenborough; and Lord Canning's proclamation worked its way in the direction which he had intended-that of limiting the power of the landowners, not by creating a new proprietary right on the part of the government, but by defining and enforcing the right which already existed of making such settlements of land as would control the native landholders and protect the occupiers and cultivators of the soil. This was the system adopted in Oudh, where nearly all the large landholders almost immediately tendered their allegiance under conditions purposely made conciliatory and advantageous. The policy of Canning was effective and successful, but he did not live to see the full result of it. He returned to England in 1862, when he was succeeded by Lord Elgin, and had scarcely received the acknowledgments which were due to him for his prompt and sagacious administration, under circumstances of extreme peril and anxiety, when the results of his cares and labours were to be seen in his failing health. In a few months he died. But he had received the high honour of having been named the first viceroy of India under the entirely new conditions which had by that time been established.

For a considerable time before the Indian mutiny had emphasized the need for an entire

60