The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-16 00:00:00

Sir John Laird Mair Lawrence, G.C.8., Chief Commis-
sioner of the Punjaub, who bas been emphatically styled
the man who has saved India during the recent mutiny, is a
brother of the late lamented Sir Henry Lawrence, K.C.8.,
who was killed in the siege of Lucknow.
This pair of distinguished officers of the Honourable East
India Company's service are of Irish blood and extraction
—like Wellington, Wellesley, M'Naghten, and a host of
other distinguished names—and they are children of whom
the sister island may well feel proud. Their careers have
run to the last most wonderfully parallel to each other, and
we may add that they have been followed at no long distance
from each other by a third brother, though one less known
to public fame, Col. George St. Patrick Lawrence, 2d
8.L.C., at present holding a command in ltajpootana. Of
this family, the late Sir Henry Lawrence was one of the
elder sons, and Sir John Lawrence one of the youngest.
Their father was the late Lieut.-Col. Alexander Lawrence,
an officer of the King's service, sometime Governor of
Upnor Castle, asd who gained considerable distinction in
the Mysore campaigns, under the Marquis Cornwallis, and
in the siege of Seringapatam. Their mother—a second
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracehi—was a daughter of the
late Captain Knox, a member of a highly respectable family
of the north of Ireland, which long held landed property in
the county of Donegal.
Sir John Lawrence was born in India in 1810, and re-
ceived his early education, like his brother, in Londonderry,
and subsequently at the East India College, Haileybury.
He obtained his nomination to India as a writer, April 30,
1829, and was sworn in on the following of June. On the
Ist of July be received notification of his actual appoint-
ment, and arrived on February 9, 1830. In the early part
of his career, in January, 1831, he became assistant to the
chief commissioner and resident at Delhi ; in December,
1833, we find him promoted to the post of officiating magis-
trate and collector at Delhi; from which, a year later, he
was transferred to a similar appointment at Paniput. In
July, 1833, be was appointed joint magistrate and deputy
collector of Goorgaon and the southern division of Delhi,
and in the November of the same year, officiating magis-
trate of the southern division only. In 1838 he was trans-
ferred to the sole charge of Goorgaon. Before the close of
the same year we find him conducting the settlement duties
in Zillah Etawah. In February, 1840, he proceeded to
Europe on the usual furlough, and did not return to India
until December, 1842.
Up to this time Mr. Lawrence had been almost exclu-
sively engaged in the collection of revenue ; and, owing,
probably to the absence of great opportunities, his value
and ability were little known except to his immediate su-
periors. By them, however, we know that he was duly ap-
preciated from the first. Having held one or two tem-
porary employments, in 1846 we find him already engaged
as judge, magistrate, and collector, over the important dis •
trict of the central division of Bengal, when his adminis-
trative ability attracted the attention of the Governor..
General, Sir Henry Hardinge. It was not long before he
had an opportunity given of making for himself a
name. In 1841 he was appointed to the important
post of Commissioner of the Trans-Sutlej provinces, which
had been recently added to our Indian empire, as the
result of the Sikh campaigns. Here he had new ground
to break up, and a chaos of disorder and confusion, political,
fiscal, and agricultural, to reduce into system, shape, and
form. In this work he showed a masterly power of admi-
nistration, and a perseverance, energy, and industry which
were beyond all praise. Nor was he long in looking for
his reward in the shape of promotion to a more important
and better paid, and (what he valued more highly still) a
more laborious post. As our readers will doubtless remem-
ber, the assassination of the British envoys in 1848, at
Mooltan, the capital of a petty State between the Indus and
the Sutlej was followed by the capture of that fortress, and the
subsequent union of the forces of Shere Singh and Chucker
Singh. After a long and obstinate contest, the Sikhs and
Affghans were finally crushed by Lord Gough at Ferozepore
and Chillianwallah, and surrendered into our hands. The
issue was, that the Afghans were obliged to fly beyond the
Indus, the Sikh farces were disbanded, and the Punjaub
was declared by Lord Dalhousie as thenceforth annexed to
the British territories in India. Of course, on the annexa-
tion of a new province, the first step on the part of the
Governor-General is to look around for a man of first-rate
ability in an administrative point of view to bring the newly-
acquired territory under British laws and British rule. The
functions of a Resident are naturally ipso facto at an end
when a native prince is deprived of his throne, and it is
usual to invest the new magistrate with the title and office
of chief commissioner, in which capacity he becomes directly
responsible, as we have already said, to the Governor-General
of India himself, instead of to one of his subordinate gover-
nors of presidencies. Sir Henry Lawrence had already
filled the post of British Resident at Lahore, and he and his
brother, Mr. John Lawrence were nominated as two out of
the three members of the board for the administration of the

Punjaub.
Some slight idea of the labours of this board of commis-
sioners may be formed from a statement which we gather
from their report on the Punjaub (p. 15), and which gives
the superficial area of the country at about 50,400 square
miles, and its length and breadth 344 miles and 293 miles
respectively. It contains four doabs or provinces, and em-
braces every variety of country, from the most luuxriant cul-
tivation to the most sandy deserts, and the wildest prairies
of grass and brushwood. Its population is partly military
and partly agricultural ; of various races and religious creeds;
and our readers may be interested in knowing that, as a
nation, " they hated every dynasty except their own, and
regarded the British as the worst, because the most power-
ful of usurpers." Under Runjeet Singh, the adminis-
tration was as bad as it well could be. Written law
there was none, though a rude kind of justice was dealt out.
The unwritten penal code contained only two penalties,
fine and mutilation ; and there was scarcely any crime, from
larceny up to murder, for which impunity could not be
purchased by a money payment. The provincial governors
who farmed the taxes were arbitrary and unchecked ; and,
as the pay of their inferior officials was uncertain and pre-
carious, the latter were, of course, driven and 'almost ex-
pected to live on what they could extort. More especially
one of his generals, named Avatabile, held down Peshawur
with a rod of iron, enforcing a Draconic code in which
hanging was decreed for every crime from murder down to
larceny; whilst another, Hurree Singh, summarily decapi-
tated his criminals or blew them from the cannon's
mouth. Such was the state of things when, in 1845,
the British Government fir=t interfered in the inter-
nal administration of the country, with the view of
modifying and preserving the existing constitution, and
only forcing the Sikh rulers to carry out their dominion
with moderation. Much had been done in the two follow-
ing years by the late Sir H. Lawrence to ameliorate the
condition of the people, who, in 1847, assembled at Lahore
50 Sikh elders, heads of villages, to frame a simple code of
laws for the guidance of their people. Under his superin-
tendence the resources of the kingdom were examined, and
their development studied; plans were formed for the con-
struction of new canals, the repair of old ones, the re-open-
ing of ruined wells, and the re-peopling of deserted vil-
lages. Sir H. Lawrence deputed fur this special work an
engineer officer of high rank and experience, and three
lacs from the revenue were set apart for the same purpose
by the council. But all these fair prospects were inter-
rupted by the rebellion of 1848 and the campaign already
alluded to, which ended in the annexation of 1849.
The first s'ep undertaken by the board (Sir H. Lawrence,
Sir John Lawrence, and Mr. Marsh), on receiving their
plenary powers, was to appoint an executive staff of civil
officers, and to cause a thorough investigation to be made
into the rights of such lands as claimed to be free tenures,
and to settle a complicated fiscal system. They next pro-
ceeded to enforce for civil indication the rules current in the
Eutlej provinces, as being "calculated to ensure sub-
s►antial justice unfettered by legal technicalities."
Next came the settlement of a new penal code, and
the organisation of a body of police for the purpose
of disarming the people, and the dismantling of forts
and strongholds, which only served as the fastnesses
of thieves and freebooters. And, lastly, the resources of the
country bad to be developed. Trade, agriculture, and com-
merce were to be fostered. Surveys had to be made, canals
to be cut, levels to be taken, and roads constructed. The
mineral resources of the Alpine regions bordering on the
Himalayas bad to be explored, and the internal comtnunica-
tion by navigation of the rivers bad to be opened up. In ad-
dition to this it was found necessary by the board to disband
the Sikh soldiery, though many of them subsequently
entered the British service, whilst they were empowered
to raise an irregular force consisting of ten regiments—
five of cavalry and five of infantry—for the protection of the
Western frontier. As to the results of these movements,
we ma) state that, within the first year, the administration
of the country was reported to the Governor-General as
baying been "fairly set in train "—civil and criminal
courts having been established, and no less than 8,000
marauders and other offenders having been lodged in cus-
tody. During this time a new system of excise and customs
was projected, submitted to Government and carried into
effect, municipal and conservancy arrangements were made,
attention was paid to public improvements, scientific
surveys were conducted for the great road to Peshawur.
and for the Baree Doab Canal, and cress roads com-
menced in all directions through the country. During the
succeeding yesr the entire currency of the Punjaub was