detachment. He thus struck terror into the marauding tribes, and prevented their incursion into British territory. He next disarmed every man in the country who was not a government servant, and he succeeded in getting some of them to work at roads and canals. Good roads were made all over the country, means of irrigation multiplied fourfold, and security generally established on the border. The village that ten years before did not contain fifty souls became a flourishing town of twelve thousand inhabitants, and in 1851, by order of Lord Dalhousie, its name was changed from Kanghur to Jacobabad in honour of the man who had made it.
Jacob, who from subaltern to colonel remained the commandant of the corps which usually went by his name, was assisted by only four European officers, two to each regiment of eight hundred men, and yet the discipline was so firm and the devotion so unquestioned that it was said not a trooper in the corps knew any will but that of his colonel. Jacob's theory was that Europeans were naturally superior to Asiatics, and that the natives, so far from resenting such ascendency, desired nothing better than to profit by it. All they wanted was to obey, provided only that their obedience was claimed by one clearly competent to demand it.
In 1854 Jacob was entrusted with the task of negotiating a treaty with the khan of Kelát, which he did to the entire satisfaction of the government of India. On 13 April 1855 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and on the departure of Bartle Frere on furlough to Europe in 1856 was appointed acting commissioner in Sind. On 20 March 1857 Jacob was appointed aide-de-camp to the queen, with the rank of colonel in the army, in recognition of his services in Sind.
When war was declared with Persia, Outram was named commander-in-chief, and Jacob received from his old friend the command of the cavalry division. He arrived in Bushire in March 1857, and was appointed to the command at that place. When peace followed the fall of Mohumrah, Jacob, with the rank of brigadier-general, was left in command of the entire force in Persia until Bushire was entirely evacuated, when he returned to India. His services in Persia were favourably mentioned in despatches, and in the ‘Indian Government Gazette’ of 7 Nov. 1857. He landed at Bombay on 15 Oct., and proceeded at once to the north-west frontier.
Shortly after his return to Sind he published his scheme for the reorganisation of the Indian army and a collected edition of his various tracts on the same subject. Captain (now Sir) Lewis Pelly, a member of Jacob's staff, had collected and edited the ‘Views and Opinions of General Jacob,’ and in 1858 a second edition, 1 vol. 8vo, was published in London. In the same year Jacob was authorised to raise two regiments of infantry, to be called ‘Jacob's Rifles,’ and to be armed with the pattern of rifle which he had invented, and, in face of great opposition, successfully developed, after spending much of his private resources on experiments with it and with its explosive bullet. Towards the end of 1858 he was surveying in the districts when, on 24 Nov., he was taken ill, and at once rode into Jacobabad, a distance of fifty miles. He arrived on 28 Nov., and died of brain fever on 5 Dec. 1858, surrounded by all the officers of his staff and of the Sind irregular horse, and by his oldest native officers. He was buried next day, mourned by the entire population, of whom it is estimated that ten thousand, out of the thirty thousand inhabitants to which Jacobabad had grown, were present at the ceremony.
Jacob was unmarried, and did not visit England in the thirty years after he first set foot in India. He published many pamphlets on military organisation, and was unceasing in his denunciations of the lax state of discipline of the Bengal army. His warnings were received with indignation and resentment at the time, but were too fully verified in the Indian mutiny before he died. He was a soldier of a rare type. A brilliant cavalry leader and swordsman, the inventor of a greatly improved rifle, the originator of a military system, his achievements in the field were not his greatest titles to public gratitude. He valued the military art only as the instrument and guarantee of civilisation and peace; he sketched road and irrigation systems, and established schemes of revenue collection and magistracy, while he matured his military plans, and studied with care the internal politics of the ill-known, but important, countries beyond the north-western frontier, throughout which his name was held in respect. Jacob was a man of indefatigable energy, possessed of an even temper, and showing such an entire forgetfulness, amounting even to disdain, of self, that he acquired great influence over all with whom he came in contact.
A bust of Jacob was placed in the Shire Hall of his native county at Taunton.
The following is a list of Jacob's works: 1. Large map of Cutchee and the north-west frontier of Scinde, London, 1848. 2. Papers on ‘Sillidar Cavalry, as it is and as it might be,’ printed for private circulation only, Bombay, 8vo. 3. ‘A few Remarks on the Bengal Army and Furlough Regulations with a view to their improvement, by a Bombay
