Copy of a letter from Sir George Legrand
Jacob to his brother Philip, dated 24th
September 1858.

Doubtless the spirit of rebellion
has been raised up here and there and fostered everywhere by sundry auxiliary
acts on these during a long course of years I have dwelt. The most prominent
whereof has been the thirst for annexation. Breach of
treaties commencing with the appropriation of Satara
and terminating with Oade. For the first there
is no excuse, for the last some, but it was a breach of faith nevertheless as
Lord Ellenborough truly but most unwisely proclaimed
in his celebrated letter.  Lord
Canning had no more to do with it than you had.  Why should he have borne the brunt  and why
should his position have been weakened at a time that he needed the fullest
support, because others backed by our nation  had done wrong. I have no personal
reason to speak favourably of Lord Canning, quite the contrary – I have
kept in order the Satarah frontier of our presidency,
as large or larger than England, pregnant with revolt.
The Southern Mahratta country  is only a portion of my charge.
The people testing us every now and then bursting into  actual strife, but I have never received
the least notice  from Lord Canning,
when his own council  unanimously
recommended me for promotion, he demurred, whereby I lost command of the
division on General Lester’s death, and am still on receipt of small
allowances. Nevertheless I conceive him to be a most able administrator and
deserving of all support. He has neither given way to the clamour for blood
based on the extravagant and lying tales of the English press opposed to the
natives almost unanimously. Nor has he yielded to the mock humanity for which
there have not been wanting advocates for shielding
the guilty. He has steered a middle path with great firmness and proved himself
worthy of his trust.

It is not only for his oversight
of my labours, thoroughly acknowledged by my own Government, that I have been
wronged by him, but his conduct is very
blameable as regards other matters  affecting myself. His notification
regarding the Persian Campaign was a tissue of errors – well, this must
be laid on his staff, especially Col Birch, the military secretary, but Outram was honest enough to point these out in a letter
addressed to himself which he sent for my perusal, he expressed his deep regret
that several (of whom I was one) to whom he was greatly indebted had been
unnoticed though prominently mentioned , whilst others
who had nothing to do with the operation had been praised, naming them.

What did Lord Canning do. An honest man would have cancelled his previous farrago,
got up for him by others, and issued a new and revised notification, the thing
is occasionally done. He contented himself with giving a second notification
enforced by a quasi if not real falsehood, in that whereas a subsequent despatch
from Sir J Outram has mentioned parties to whom he is
indebted, who were not named in the original notification – the G G hereby thanks them equally with those before brought to notice
– or words to that effect, and then follows a jumble of names without
reference to work, standing or fitness. Look at the deceit. The names it is
true were omitted by the Gov General, but they were not omitted by Sir J Outram, as the notification would infer. No notice was
however taken of the error of omission pointed out and thus men are praised for
work they had never done, and Col Stewart of the  14th Dragoons was made a
commander of the Bath for the skill with which he handled his cavalry brigade
at the battle of Molumra, whereas he never was within
300 miles of that place. He came to Persia after the fighting was over, and the
only Cavalry that landed at Molumra during the time
there was any fighting were 42 of the Sind Horse, and about as many more of the
14th Dragoons after all was over. That’s the way honours are bestowed.