SEPOY GENERALS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I must venture to differ from Mr. Seton-Karr on certain points of his letter regarding Herbert Edwardes in the Spectator of January 25th. I speak not without authority, as my father, the second son of Sir Henry, was Assistant-Commissioner at Peshawur at the time, and the close friend of Edwardes. The point is not whether Lord Lawrence did or did not propose to abandon the Punjaub, but whether the abandoning of Peshawur would not have infallibly led to the loss of the whole province. Most of those well qualified to judge are agreed that it most certainly would. Our rule in India rests mainly on prestige, for at best we are but a handful of men in that vast and not unwarlike country ; and the loss of this implied by surrender ing our outpost would have made the Sikhs think more ol recovering their own independence than of hastening to our assistance at Delhi. If that place was so vital, why was it left without one single company of European troops? Why were eleven battalions kept inactive and useless in the lower provinces instead of being hurried to the support of Reed or H. Lawrence ? Mr. Forrest has had all the original docu- ments in his hands, and is, therefore, eminently qualified to speak. No one wishes to detract from Lord Lawrence's merits, but on that particular occasion he erred, and it was mainly the earnest representations of Edwardes, who insisted on his view being also submitted for approval, which it met with, not only from Lord Canning, but from Sir Bartle Frere, that kept his erroneous decision from being carried out with fatal consequences.—I am, Sir, &c., H. HAVELOCK. Ealing.
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