Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/115

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CONSOLIDATION OF THE PUNJAB
107

to choose strong subordinates. Many of his subordinates in the Punjab were so well chosen and themselves so distinguished, all of them played so splendid a part in 1857, and the lives of several of them have been so brilliantly written, while Lord Dalhousie's papers still remain shut up, that we are apt to forget that, from the moment of annexation in 1849 to the hour when Lord Dalhousie laid down his office in 1856, they were in the strictest sense Dalhousie's subordinates, carrying out Dalhousie's policy, under his own vigilant, and sometimes stern, control.

All honour to that noble band of workers! But the day will come when Lord Dalhousie's side of the case will also be laid before the public. It will then be seen, even more clearly than I have in this chapter been permitted to show, that it was not Henry Lawrence, nor even John Lawrence, nor Herbert Edwardes and Nicholson and their gallant brethren in arms, who made the Punjab what it became in 1857, — the saviour province of India, — but the Marquess of Dalhousie.