General John Jacob : commandant of the Sind Irregular Horse and founder of Jacobabad . were sometimes fiendish. Many of theexiles, on their urgent petition, were permitted to returnto their native hills three years afterwards, and some ofthe best of the fighting men were enlisted in the Britishservice. Jacob drew up a Memorandum on the prin-ciples of his procedure. The main points were :— acting on the offensive. 2. Robbery and murdertreated as equally criminal whether the victim be aBritish subject or not. 3. Blood feud considered anaggravating circumstance as proving deliberate malic
General John Jacob : commandant of the Sind Irregular Horse and founder of Jacobabad . were sometimes fiendish. Many of theexiles, on their urgent petition, were permitted to returnto their native hills three years afterwards, and some ofthe best of the fighting men were enlisted in the Britishservice. Jacob drew up a Memorandum on the prin-ciples of his procedure. The main points were :— acting on the offensive. 2. Robbery and murdertreated as equally criminal whether the victim be aBritish subject or not. 3. Blood feud considered anaggravating circumstance as proving deliberate The highest moral ground always taken, treating thedepredators as disreputable persons with whom it is adisgrace for respectable persons to have any dealings,and whom all good men must, as a matter of course,look on as objects of pity, not of dread : of hatredpossibly, but never of fear ; and the feeling to be instilledinto every soldier that he was a good man against acriminal. 5. So far as possible, a perfect system ofintelligence. 6. The strictest justice. And this, as he. Till-: SiM) Irregular an engmviug after a picture by II. Mat-tens, 1849, /;/ Sir Bartlc freres collection. J^ACOBS MILITARY FRONTIER METHODS 141 sums it up, is the essence of the whole business. Ourfirst year on the border, he says, was one of enormousbodily labour. With only a single regiment on thefrontier, we had literally to lie down to rest with ourboots and swords on for many months together. Atfirst he pushed his outposts up to the hills ; but as thecountry was quieted he withdrew them, with the exceptionof some Belooch guides. Having by the use of forcemade ourselves feared and respected, we were able toapply better means and appeal to higher motives. This Ihad in view from the first. The country, as he found it, he described as a desert,wholly destitute of permanent inhabitants, and a greatpart of the year without water : the water naturally inthe soil being as salt as that of th
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