this province, there were within its limits fortunately about 10,000 European troops, besides a trustworthy force of 9000 military police, to overawe them. Happily also, for India, the self-reliance and varied experience of the civil and military officers of the Punjab enabled them to realise, sooner than the authorities in other parts of India, the gravity of the public danger.
John Lawrence and his lieutenants allowed neither sentiment nor fear of responsibility to stand in the way of instant and resolute activity. Offences touching the public safety were punished summarily with death. Strong parties of police were placed in defensible positions at the principal ferries of the 'Punjab,' or 'five rivers,' which cut off the province from Hindustán. All State treasure was placed in security. A strict censorship was maintained over the press; and letters to Sepoys[1] were opened at the chief post-offices. The population in the Cis- and Trans-Indus territory was disarmed, and fines were promptly inflicted on villages and townships for local outbreaks. The prisoners in jail were employed in making cartridges, sandbags, and commissariat gear, for the troops operating before Delhi. In short, everywhere in the Punjab an example was set, which can never be forgotten,
- ↑ The seditious papers thus discovered were generally couched in figurative or enigmatical language. They yield ample evidence that the Sepoys and other rebels verily believed that the destruction of their caste and religion was intended by the English, and that the moment for rising was a favourable one. All this was made manifest in letters never intended for European eyes.
