158 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



Turner persisted in laying before the Chief Com- 

 missioner. 



Hodson, for his part, was ready and eager to 

 confront his accusers. "Pray impress," he wrote, 

 "upon John Lawrence's mind that I am not in the 

 smallest degree disposed to shrink from the strictest 

 inquiry into any act of mine in the command of the 

 Guides. I am much to blame for letting things go 



the length they did without bringing up , but 



that was good-natured folly, and neither dishonest 

 nor unsoldier-like. It is true that I am annoyed at 

 the trouble and bother of courts of inquiry, but 

 nothing more ; and if John Lawrence would come to 

 overhaul everything connected with my command, 

 I should be infinitely satisfied, and you may tell 



him so." 



After a delay of several months the court of 

 inquiry sat for the first time at Peshawar in 

 December 1854. Hodson had been ordered to make 

 over the command of the Guides to Lieutenant 

 Godby, and to remain at Peshawar during the 

 sitting of the court. Among the charges which 

 the court had to deal with were gross negligence 

 and persistent falsification of accounts in matters 

 specially concerning the command of the Guides. 



The delay in assembling the court of inquiry had 

 given time for the growth of many stories more or 

 less untrue, but all alike hurtful to Hodson's good 

 name. In the words of the Kev. C. Sloggett, after- 

 wards chaplain of Dagshai, "There is no doubt that 

 young Turner talked about all these things [his 

 charges against Hodson] very freely in the Peshawar 

 society, and that the stories to Hodson's prejudice 

 were eagerly caught up and circulated because of his 



