Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/102

but he acted on higher and nobler grounds than mere expediency. He desired to punish a gross violation of treaties; he did not desire to destroy an old and long faithful ally. No one more than the Governor-General saw the chances of a breakdown in the arrangement of March, 1846; but it is as idle as it is malicious therefore to blame him for its consequences. The question rested entirely on the honesty and patriotism of the Sikh Cabinet. Were they or were they not disposed to sacrifice their own selfish desires to the hope of rescuing their country from internal anarchy and foreign domination? Because one good, one able man was not to be found in a whole people, was that a just reason for condemning the Governor-General's acts? He at least did his duty, nobly, wisely, and honestly. Carefully abstaining from such interference as would weaken the executive, he authorized remonstrance of the most decided kind to the Darbár in behalf of the disbanded soldiery; as decidedly he supported the constituted authorities against the assumptions of Diwán Mulráj of Múltán; he forbore on the strong provocation given at Kángra, and forgave the offence of Kashmír, punishing in the latter case one individual, where a very slight stretch of privilege would have authorized a disseverance of the whole treaty.'