The governing idea, as set forth at the outset of the last chapter, must be sustained in this chapter also. The administration of the Punjab, already sketched, must be yet further delineated; for upon its completeness depended the ability and sufficiency of the province to keep its own head aloft in the rising tide, and to hold up its neighbours amidst the dashing breakers of the rebellion destined to occur only four years later. We need not ask what would have happened had the Punjab been governed with feebleness and inefficiency, because such defects are not to be anticipated under British rule; but the chance was this, that even under an ordinarily fair administration, the preparation of the province might not have been effected within the too short time allowed by events,--that, for instance, the pacification had not been perfect, the frontier tribes not entirely over-awed, the dangerous classes not fully disarmed, the feudal classes not conciliated by timely concessions, the land-settlement not complete, the agrarian disputes not quite composed, the official establishments not so organized as to call forth all the provincial resources at a moment’s notice. For all these things in combination, an extraordinarily good administration was needed, and that the Punjab had. Without that, the province must have been submerged by the floods of rebellion in 1857, and then all Northern India, the finest part of the Indian empire, must have succumbed. John Lawrence was now, during the spring of 1853, installed in the sole and chief command of the Punjab, with the title of Chief Commissioner, and without any colleague of equal station with himself. This title was created on this occasion for the first time in India, and has since been borne by other men in other provinces; but the fact of its being originally borne by him has invested it with peculiar dignity, and rendered every one proud to bear it. The Punjab had been divided from the beginning of British rule, under his Board, into seven divisions, each being under the civil command of a Commissioner--namely, the Cis-Sutlej on the east of that river, the Trans-Sutlej on the west, the central or Lahore division round the capital, the southern division around Mooltan near the confluence of the Indus and its tributaries, the Sind Sagar division on the east of the Middle Indus,--Sind being the original name of Indus--the Peshawur division comprising that famous valley with the surrounding hills, and the Derajat division at the base of the Sulemani range dividing India from Afghanistan. These seven divisions or commissionerships being placed under him, he was styled the Chief Commissioner. In the management of the country he was assisted by two high officers styled the Judicial Commissioner for law and justice, and the Financial Commissioner for revenue and general administration. His colleague in the late Board, Montgomery, filled the Judicial Commissionership.