Do, I pray
you, think of a remedy for the future. The only one that strikes me
is that above suggested, of leaving the final sentence to the
European officers.
I need not say that I was delighted at your getting the great Douger
Sing by the means you had yourself proposed for the pursuit--sending
an officer with authority to disregard boundaries.
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) W. S. SLEEMAN
To Col. Sutherland.
______________________________
Jhansee, 4th March, 1848.
My Lord,
I had the gratification to receive your Lordship's letter of the 7th
of January last, at Nursingpore, in the valley of the Nerbudda, where
I commenced my Civil career more than a quarter of a century before,
and where, of all places, I should have wished to receive so gracious
a testimonial from such high authority. I should have earlier
expressed by grateful acknowledgments, and prepared the narrative so
frequently called for, but I was then engaged in preparing a Report
on Gang-robbery in India, and wished first to make a little more
progress, that I might be able to speak more confidently of its
ultimate completion and submission to Government. In a less perfect
form this Report was, at the earnest recommendation of the then
Lieut.-Governor N.W.P., the Honourable T. Robertson, and with the
sanction of the Governor-General Lord Auckland, sent to the
Government press so long back as 1842, but his Lordship appeared to
me to think that the printing had better be deferred till more
progress had been made in the work of putting down the odious system
of crime which the Report exposed, and I withdrew it from the press
with little hope of ever again having any leisure to devote to it, or
finding any other person able and willing to undertake its
completion.
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