In the civil administration the Board desired that, in the first instance at least, the forms of British procedure should be simplified, cheap, speedy and substantial justice dispensed, and affairs conducted after what was termed the patriarchal model. The native races here were more frank in their utterance, more open in their demeanour, more direct in all their ways, than is usual in most parts of India. Every European officer was directed to cultivate from the outset a friendly understanding with them, so as to banish all sense of strangeness from their minds, and to make them feel at home and at ease under the British rule. This object is indeed aimed at universally in India, but it was attained with unrivalled success in the Punjab, and thereby was laid the foundation of that popular contentment which stood the Government in good stead during the season of dire trial eight years later in 1857. The intense application, bestowed by the Board on many diverse subjects simultaneously, aggravated the toils of the members. But they derived relief and benefit from the division of labour (already mentioned) whereby for ordinary business the political and military branches were allotted to Henry, the fiscal and financial to John, the judicial to Montgomery. In the fiscal department John found the noblest sphere for his special ability, because herein was included the settlement of the land revenue, the all-important scope of which has been explained in a preceding chapter. Then despite his unfavourable recollections of Etawah in 1838-39, he must have looked back with some gratitude to that place which had given him priceless experience in settlement-work. Here he was, happily for the Punjab, at home and in his element; as a consequence the field-survey, the assessment of the land-tax, the adjudication of rights and interests, the registration of tenures, were conducted with admirable completeness, promptitude and efficiency. He well knew that such operations were not likely to be turned out complete offhand; the affairs themselves were novel both to the officials and to the people; errors, failures, oversights, would occur, but he would have them rectified, again and again, until at last after re-constructing, re-casting, re-writing,--a full, accurate and abiding result was obtained. This cardinal operation has been one of the first cares of the Government in every province of India; but in no province has it ever been effected so completely, within a comparatively short time, as it was in the Punjab under his supervision. Its success conduced largely to that popular contentment which proved a bulwark of safety to British rule, during the danger which eight years afterwards menaced the Province.