Tempo:
160 1819-20.
The travelMoor-
ler
croft in the
Punjab, 1820.
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. VI
In the year 1819 the able and adventurous traveller, Moorcroft, left the plains of India in the hope of reaching Yarkand and Bukhara. In the hills of the
Punjab he experienced difficulties, and he was induced to repair to Lahore to wait upon Ranjit Singh. He was honourably received, and any lurking suspicions of his own designs, or of the views of his Government, were soon dispelled. The Maharaja conversed with frankness of the events of his life; he showed the traveller his bands of horsemen and battalions of infantry, and encouraged him to visit any part of the capital without hesitation, and at his own leisure. Mr. Moorcroft's medical skill and general knowledge, his candid manner and personal activity, produced an impression favourable to himself and advantageous to his countrymen; but his proposition that British merchandise should be admitted into the Punjab at a fixed scale of duties was received with evasion. The Maharaja's revenues might be affected, it was said, and his principal officers, whose advice was necessary, were absent on distant expeditions. Every facility was afforded to Mr. Moorcroft in prosecuting his journey, and it was arranged that, if he could not reach Yarkand from Tibet, he might proceed through Kashmir to Kabul and Bukhara, the route which it was- eventually found necessary to pursue. Mr. Moorcroft rjeached Ladakh in safety, and in 1821 he became possessed of a letter from the Russian minister. Price Nesselrode, recommending a merchant to the good offices of- Ranjit Singh and assuring him that the traders of the Punjab would
—
Ran jit Singh's general
system of government, and view of his
be well received in the Russian dominions for the emperor was himself a benign ruler, he earnestly desired the prosperity of other countries, and he was especially the well-wisher of that reigned over by the King of the Sikhs. The person recommended had died on his way southward from Russia; and it appeared that, six years previously, he had been the bearer of similar communications for the Maharaja of Lahore, and the Raja of Ladakh.^ Ranjit Singh now possessed a broad dominion, and an instructed intellect might have rejoiced in the opportunity accorded for wise legislation, and for consolidating aggregated provinces into one harmonious empire. But such a task neither suited the Maharaja's genius nor that of the Sikh nation; nor is it, perhaps, Capt. Murray to Resident at Delhi, 25th Feb. 1827.) He was' subsequently released, and was alive, but unheeded, in 1844. 1 Moorcroft, Travels, i. 99, 103; and see also pp. 383, 387, with respect to a previous letter to Ranjit Singh.
The travelMoor-
ler
croft in the
Punjab, 1820.
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. VI
In the year 1819 the able and adventurous traveller, Moorcroft, left the plains of India in the hope of reaching Yarkand and Bukhara. In the hills of the
Punjab he experienced difficulties, and he was induced to repair to Lahore to wait upon Ranjit Singh. He was honourably received, and any lurking suspicions of his own designs, or of the views of his Government, were soon dispelled. The Maharaja conversed with frankness of the events of his life; he showed the traveller his bands of horsemen and battalions of infantry, and encouraged him to visit any part of the capital without hesitation, and at his own leisure. Mr. Moorcroft's medical skill and general knowledge, his candid manner and personal activity, produced an impression favourable to himself and advantageous to his countrymen; but his proposition that British merchandise should be admitted into the Punjab at a fixed scale of duties was received with evasion. The Maharaja's revenues might be affected, it was said, and his principal officers, whose advice was necessary, were absent on distant expeditions. Every facility was afforded to Mr. Moorcroft in prosecuting his journey, and it was arranged that, if he could not reach Yarkand from Tibet, he might proceed through Kashmir to Kabul and Bukhara, the route which it was- eventually found necessary to pursue. Mr. Moorcroft rjeached Ladakh in safety, and in 1821 he became possessed of a letter from the Russian minister. Price Nesselrode, recommending a merchant to the good offices of- Ranjit Singh and assuring him that the traders of the Punjab would
—
Ran jit Singh's general
system of government, and view of his
be well received in the Russian dominions for the emperor was himself a benign ruler, he earnestly desired the prosperity of other countries, and he was especially the well-wisher of that reigned over by the King of the Sikhs. The person recommended had died on his way southward from Russia; and it appeared that, six years previously, he had been the bearer of similar communications for the Maharaja of Lahore, and the Raja of Ladakh.^ Ranjit Singh now possessed a broad dominion, and an instructed intellect might have rejoiced in the opportunity accorded for wise legislation, and for consolidating aggregated provinces into one harmonious empire. But such a task neither suited the Maharaja's genius nor that of the Sikh nation; nor is it, perhaps, Capt. Murray to Resident at Delhi, 25th Feb. 1827.) He was' subsequently released, and was alive, but unheeded, in 1844. 1 Moorcroft, Travels, i. 99, 103; and see also pp. 383, 387, with respect to a previous letter to Ranjit Singh.
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