102 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



am seriously displeased at the way you and 

 Lumsden have behaved after all my injunctions. 

 Battles are not fought every day, and yet to this 

 moment I have not 07ie line from either of you, 

 the two officers of the Guides, on the subject of 

 a general action fought on the 21st." And on the 

 following day, after giving Hodson some directions 

 as to the treatment of some prisoners, Sir Henry 

 wrote : " I know you are zealous, and I am ready 

 as ever to appreciate your merits, but it seems to 

 me that a year has not lessened the great defect 

 in your character and drawback to your usefulness 

 — viz., impetuosity and excess of self-reliance." 



Sir Henry, indeed, was just then out of humour 

 with things in general, especially with Dalhousie's 

 plans for annexing and governing the Punjab. His 

 broken health and his strained relations with a 

 Governor-General who had a will of his own did 

 not tend to improve a temper naturally quick to 

 take offence, and now yet more embittered by the 

 fact of his holding only the first place in a board 

 of three, one of whom was his brother, John 

 Lawrence. In Hodson's case, however, this splenetic 

 humour does not seem to have rankled long. In 

 due time Sir Henry frankly owned that he had 

 misjudged his young friend, and Hodson's soreness 

 at the seeming injustice ere long gave place to 

 kindlier feelings and a juster sense of his patron's 

 unfailing efforts on his behalf. Sir Henry's letters 

 of this period show how warm an interest he took 

 in Hodson's fortunes. Writing from Lahore on July 

 21 to congratulate Hodson on his pucJca appointment, 

 he says: "Regarding your appointment, I had to 

 speak or write at least six times since I went to 



