Seven years of this work prepared the lately hostile and always anarchic Punjab under John Lawrence not only to weather the storm of the mutiny of 1857 but to lead the older provinces into port. On May 1 2, the news of the revolts at Meerut and Delhi reached him at Rawalpindi. The position was critical, for of so,000 native soldiers 38,00o were Hindustanis of the very class that had mutinied elsewhere, and the British troops were few and scattered. For five days the fate of the Punjab hung upon a thread, for the question was, "Could the 12,000 Punjabis be trusted and the 38,00o Hindustanis be disarmed?" Not an hour was lost in be ginning the disarming at Lahore ; and, as one by one the Hin dustani corps succumbed to the epidemic of mutiny, the sepoys were deported or disappeared, or swelled the military rabble in and around the city of Delhi. Tfie remembrance of the ten years' war which had closed only in 1849, a bountiful harvest, the old love of battle, the offer of good pay, but, above all, the personality of Lawrence and his officers, raised the Punjabi force into a new army of 59,00o men, and induced the non-combatant classes to subscribe to a 6% loan. Delhi was invested, but for three months the rebel city did not fall. Under John Nicholson, Law rence sent on still more men to the siege, till every available European and faithful native soldier was there, while a movable column swept the country, and the border was held by militia.
At length, when even in the Punjab confidence became doubt, and doubt distrust, and that was passing into disaffection, John Lawrence was ready to consider whether we should not give up the Peshawar valley to the Afghans as a last resource, and send its garrison to recruit the force around Delhi. Another week and that alternative must have been faced. But on Sept. 20, the city and palace of Delhi were again in British hands. Lawrence re ceived a baronetcy, the G.C.B., the thanks of parliament and a life pension of £2,000 a year in addition to his ordinary pension of LI,000. He spent the years 1859 to 1864 at home, as a mem ber of the secretary of state's council ; he was sent out again in 1864 as viceroy and governor-general on the death of Lord Elgin. His five years' administration of the whole Indian empire
was worthy of the ruler of the Punjab. Lawrence's name is asso ciated with the "close border" as opposed to the "forward" policy. His internal administration was remarkable for financial prudence, a jealous regard for the interests of the masses of the people, and a keen interest in education.
In 1854 Lawrence had, in obedience to Lord Dalhousie, but against his judgment, signed a treaty of peace and friendship with Dost Mohammed. When in 1863 Dost Mohammed's death let loose the factions of Afghanistan he recognized both the sons, Afzul Khan and Shere Ali, at different times, and the latter fully only when he had made himself master of all his father's king dom. The steady advance of Russia from the north, notwith standing the Gorchakov circular of 1864, led to severe criticism of this cautious "buffer" policy. It fell to Lord Mayo, his suc cessor, to hold the Umballa conference in 1869. When, nine years after, the second Afghan War unexpectedly broke out, the re tired viceroy gave the last days of his life to an unsparing exposure, in the House of Lords and in the press, of a policy which he had striven to prevent in its inception, and which he did not cease to denounce in its course and consequences.
On his final return to England early in 1869, after forty years' service in and for India, he was created Baron Lawrence of the Punjab, and of Grately, Hants. He sat on the London school board, of which he was the first chairman. Lawrence died on June 27, 1879, and he was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey. He had married the daughter of the Rev. Richard Hamilton, Harriette-Katherine, who survived him, and he was succeeded as 2nd baron by his eldest son, John Hamilton Lawrence.
See Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence (1885) ; Sir Charles Aitchison, Lord Lawrence ("Rulers of India" series, 1892) ; L. J. Trot ter, Lord Lawrence (188o) ; and F. M. Holmes, Four Heroes of India.