Volume 1
Kaye's and Malleson's history of the Indian mutiny of 1857-8 / edited by G.B. Malleson.
- Kaye, John William, Sir.
- Date:
- 1897-1898
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: Kaye's and Malleson's history of the Indian mutiny of 1857-8 / edited by G.B. Malleson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![indeed, an evil presence in the nation. It rested with her to choose a minister, and the choice which she made was another great snicidal blow struck at the life of the Sikh Empire. It may have been difficult in this emergency to select the right man, for, in truth, there were not many wise men from whom a I selection could be made. I The Queen-Mother cut throiTgh the [> difficulty by selecting her paramour. | Lai Singh was unpopular with the Durbar ; unpopular with the peo^ile; and he failed. He might have been an able and an honest man, and yet have been found wanting in such a con- juncture. But he was probably the worst man in the Panjab on whom the duty of reconstructing a strong Sikh Government could have devolved. To do him justice, there were great difficulties in his way. He had to replenish an exhausted treasury by a course ot unpopular retrenchments. Troops were to be disbanded and Jaghirs resumed. Lai Singh was not the man to do this, as one bowing to a painful nece.ssity, and sacrificing himself to the exigencies of the State. Even in a country where political virtue was but little understood, a course of duty consistently pursued for the benefit of the nation might have ensured for him some sort of respect. But whilst he was impoverishing others, he was enriching himself. It was not the public treasury, but the private purse, that he sought better men were despoiled to satisfy the greed 0 his hungiy relatives and friends. Vicious among the vucious, he lived but for the indulgence of his own appetites, and ruled but tor his own aggrandisement. .The favourite of the Queen, he was the opressor of the Peo]ile. And though he tried to dazzle his Biitish guests by rare disiilays of courtesy towards them, and made himself immensely popular among all ranks of the Army ot Occupation by his incessant efforts to gratify them, he could not hide the one great jiatent fact, that a strong Sikh Hulffigr under the wazfrat of But the British were not reponsible for the failure. The treaty not to exercise any he iSioTr^ ^^tei-nal administiatiom of the Labor State, : ^ ^ Government had only passively to ratify the choice. I But it was a state of things burdened with evils of the most ■ 'a immster at the point of our British bayonets ■ d thus aiding them to commit iniquities which, without such B 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28710782_0001_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
