But his nomination for the provisional appointment, and its approval by Lord Palmerston's Ministry, indicate the value of his previous services in India, and his fitness for the supreme charge at a grave crisis in its history.
It need hardly be stated that the occasion never arose for any provisional successor to Lord Canning, and that Sir Henry Lawrence had already fallen in the Mutiny before his provisional appointment was made.
His most eminent services were the control of the Sikh Government during Lord Hardinge's rule of India; his part in the pacification and administration of the Punjab after its annexation; his subsequent management of the Rájputána States during a period of controversy and irritation; and his final but short-lived career in Oudh, with his wise and vigorous measures for preparing Lucknow for defence, as a probable centre of war during the ensuing struggle.
But, valuable as had been his administrative work, perhaps more important at that particular epoch was his position as a leader of a school of Indian administrators. This school, which gave special consideration to the feelings, traditions and modes of thought of the native community, demanded a fair recognition of the claims of native States, and urged the need for wise and generous treatment of the natural leaders of the people and the influential classes, fallen into an unsatisfactory state after ages
