During the month of February my time was chiefly employed in inspecting the roads and the defensive posts which my talented and indefatigable Chief Engineer was constructing, examining the arrangements for housing the troops, and looking after the transport animals and Commissariat depots.  No more military demonstrations were necessary, for the people were quietly settling down under British rule.  Convoys were no longer molested nor telegraph wires cut; but I had one rather unpleasant incident with regard to a war Correspondent, which, until the true facts of the case were understood, brought me into disrepute with one of the leading London newspapers, the representative of which I felt myself compelled to dismiss from the Kuram Field Force.

Judging from his telegrams, which he brought to me to sign, the nerves of the Correspondent in question must have been somewhat shaken by the few and very distant shots fired at us on the 28th November.  These telegrams being in many instances absolutely incorrect and of the most alarming nature, were of course not allowed to be despatched until they had been revised in accordance with truth; but one, evidently altered and added to after I had countersigned it, was brought to me by the telegraph master.  I sent for the Correspondent, who confessed to having made the alterations, not apparently realizing that he had done anything at all reprehensible, but he promised that he would never do such a thing again.  This promise was not kept; telegrams appeared in his paper which I had not seen before despatch, and which were most misleading to the British public.  Moreover, his letters, over which I could have no control, and which I heard of for the first time when the copies of his paper arrived in Kuram, were most subversive of the truth.  It was on the receipt of these letters that I felt it to be my duty to send the too imaginative author to the rear.

No one could be more anxious than I was to have all details of the campaign made public.  I considered it due to the people of Great Britain that the press Correspondents should have every opportunity for giving the fullest and most faithful accounts of what might happen while the army was in the field, and I took special pains from the first to treat the Correspondents with confidence, and give them such information as it was in my power to afford.  All I required from them in return was that the operations should be truthfully reported, and that any Correspondent who did not confine himself to the recording of facts, and felt himself competent to criticize the conduct of the campaign, should be careful to acquaint himself with the many and varied reasons which a Commander must always have to consider before deciding on any line of action.

What to my mind was so reprehensible in this Correspondent’s conduct was the publication, in time of war, and consequent excitement and anxiety at home, of incorrect and sensational statements, founded on information derived from irresponsible and uninformed sources, and the alteration of telegrams after they had been countersigned by the recognized authority, the result of which could only be to keep the public in a state of apprehension regarding the force in the field, and, what is even more to be deprecated, to weaken the confidence of the troops in their Commander.  It was satisfactory to me that my action in the matter met with the fullest approval of the Viceroy.