The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-10 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 10, 1869.

Finis coronat opus, but it is not often in this
world of failures and disappointments that we see a
long and arduous public career so worthily and
so fittingly closed as that of Sir JoaN LAWRENCE.
For nearly forty years he has laboured assiduously
in the discharge of onerous and difficult duties ; he
has filled successive posts in the Government of a
country, peopled by nations whose race is alien,
whose religion is hostile, whose language differs
from our nwn Frnm thn time of the first Punjab
war, when the civilian, plain JOHN LAWRENCE, was
the chief reliance of Lord HARDINGE, to the eleventh
day of this last month of January, when all the civil
and military notabilities of the Punjab ani the North
West assembled to do honour to the parting Vice-
roy, the same uprightness, the same straightforward
manliness, the same sense of duty has marked his
career. Many men rise to fortune and acquire dis-
tinction by long and arduous service, but it is too
often perceptible that the rewards of such service
have been a powerful incentive, that the individual's
own personal aggrandisement has been the prevailing
motive, and every other interest or consideration has
held the secondary place. British India, which has
suffered in many respects from the greed for power, or
for gain, displayed by its rulers, has been also excep-
tionally fortunate in some of its leading men. The
two LAWRENCES, Sir HENRY HAVELOCK, and the ac-
complished soldier and civilian whom we have lately
lost---Sir HERBERT EDWARDES—aII furnish striking
instances of men to whom principle was dearer, not
merely than life, but than honour and distinction.
In these days, when worldliness and scepticism are
too much the fashion, when, amidst argument and
dissension, and analysis of creeds and systems, we
are too apt to lose sight of the plain, old-fashioned
distinctions of right and wrong, it is well that men
awbhiloimtiesa,lalnd occupying
smust respect, gifted with great
prominent positions, should
stand forward, in camp and in council, to maintain the
supremacy of right, to acknowledge as their first law of
action their duty to their GOD and to their country.
Such a man have England and India possessed in
Sir JOHN LAWRENCE. During a career chequered by
many changes, tried by a great exceptional catas-
trophe, and passing through many ordeals, Sir JOHN
LAWRENCE has acted with a rectitude and a single-
ness of purpose which have never failed him. Mis-
taken, many believe him to be in some departments
of his policy, mistaken he has no doubt been in some
important particulars, notably in the case of the
Orissa famine, when he trusted too much to the dis-
cretion of his subordinates. Some have accused him
of supineness in dealing with the complex foreign re-
lations of India, some have blamed him for a
levelling policy towards the native middle classes,
but one and all have uniformly awarded to him the
tribute of unfeigned respect. The ruler of the
Punjab might err in his judgment, the Governor-
General of India might adopt an unwise policy, but
the individual JOHN LAWRENCE could never be other-
wise than humane, conscientious, and disinterested.
The days of the Indian mutiny proved him
indeed to have been something more than
this, and those who knew most of Indian affairs did
not hesitate openly to aver that Sir Jowl LAWRENCE
had saved our empire. had the Punjab yielded to
the pressure of the time, bad the tide of rebellion
swept unchecked over the territory of the five rivers,
the history of 1857 would indeed have been written
in blood. England might now hold India, but she
would have had to reconquer it. She must have
bought her victory at a terrible cost, and the loss of
her prestige in the East would have led to scenes of
future trial. While that firm hand kept its hold on
the reins at Lahore, while there was one important
district far removed from the capital in which law
and order were maintained, and the native tribes
rallied round their English rulers, the capture of
Delhi was possible, the prospects of restored tran-
quillity were not wholly chimerical. In that sudden
and terrible emergency, before that tempest which
overturned every ordinary precaution and swept