armament was resorted to, there were given up to the authorities 795 pieces of ordnance, 307,372 firearms, 1,421,223 swords, 664,015 spears, 1,215,275 daggers and other lethal weapons. Even then it was calculated that 1,400,000 weapons of various kinds remained unsurrendered. These were all in the hands of the civil population throughout 1857; and to them were added, during the disturbances, many fire-arms and other weapons, the property of the Government.
For the last ten years, during Mr. Thomason's government, the Province had been noted for the vigour of its land revenue administration. Its officers, trained in the school of Robert Merttins Bird, had achieved eminent success. When the Punjab was annexed, heavy drafts were made on the North-West. Its best men, in their several grades, were selected, and the Province was stripped of the flower of its officers. ' When, in 1849, the administration of the Punjab was freshly formed under the Lawrences, many of the best and most rising men under Thomason were taken by Lord Dalhousie for the new Province. In private letters to Montgomery he writes thus of his departed henchmen: "It has been a heavy tax. Nineteen men of the best blood! I feel very weak after so much depletion[1]."' Good men were left; but the 'best blood' of the Province had been poured into the Punjab four years before Mr. Colvin took charge of it. When, a little later, the storm of the Mutinies broke upon him, that loss, though it may have been
- ↑ James Thomason, by Sir Richard Temple, Bart., M.P., p. 101.
