178 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



necessary sources of information appears to be 

 highly creditable. I have twice had the good 

 fortune to have been associated with him on mili- 

 tary service, when his high qualities commanded 

 admiration. I heartily rejoice, therefore, both as a 

 friend and as a member of the service, 'at his 

 vindication from most grievous and unjust imputa- 

 tions.' And while I congratulate the regiment on 

 his return to it, I regret that one of the best swords 

 should be withdrawn from the frontier service. — 

 Yours very sincerely, R. Napier." ^ 



The warmth and clearness of Napier's pleadings on 

 behalf of his old comrade impelled Colonel Welch- 

 man to give Hodson the post of quartermaster to 

 his regiment. About this time, however, he had 

 contrived to dislocate one of his ankles by a fall 

 from the roof of a lower room in his house. 



"I am just able," he writes on July 31 to the 

 Eev. F. A. Foster, " at the end of upwards of fifteen 

 weeks, to walk with the aid of a stick and discard 

 my crutches. The constant recumbent attitude was 

 not provocative to writing, and there was much 

 which I was bound to attend to, being a regimental 

 staff officer now with a great deal of responsibility. 

 I can give you very little good news as far as I am 

 concerned, I grieve to say. Although the result of 

 the inquiry which I so long demanded in vain into 

 my regimental finance accounts of the Guide Corps 

 was pronounced to be 'triumphant,' no notice what- 

 ever has been taken of it by Government. The 

 powerful hostility of the Punjab Government, which 

 provoked and invited the attack upon me, has been 



^ Hodson of Hodson's Horse. 



