Tempo:
CHAP. VIII
APPREHENSIONS OF SHER SINGH
213
the fierce spirit he had roused and could not control; or i84i. he doubtfully endeavoured to learn whether such disorders would be held equally to end his reign and the The English watched the confusion The English British alliance. with much interest and some anxiety, and when cities anxious seemed about to be plundered, and provinces ravaged, ""^^g^J^^ the question of the duty of a civilized and powerful f^Tn."''' neighbour naturally suggested itself, and was answered quiinty. by .a cry for interference; but the shapes which the wish took were various and contradictory. Nevertheless, the natural desire for aggrandizement, added to the apparently disorganized state of the army, contributed to strengthen a willing belief in the inferiority of the Sikhs as soldiers, and in the great excellence of the mountain levies of the chiefs of Jammu, who alone seemed to remain the masters of their own servants. To the appre- undervalue hension of the English authorities, the Sikhs were mere ^^e sikhs, upstart peasants of doubtful courage, except when maddened by religious persecution; but the ancient name of Rajput was sufficient to invest the motley followers of a few valiant chiefs with every warlike quality. This erroneous estimate of the Sikhs tainted British counsels until the day of P'heerooshuhur.^
The English seemed thus called upon to do some- ^"^^y'^Jo thing, and their agent in Kabul, who was committed to interfere by make Shah Shuja a monarch in means as well as in force of rank, grasped at the death of Ran jit Singh's last repre- arms, Feb. sentative; he pronounced the treaties with Lahore to be i^^at an end, and he wanted to annex Peshawar to the Afghan sway. The British Government in Calcutta rebuked this hasty conclusion, but cheered itself with the prospect of eventually adding the Derajat of the Indus, as well as Peshawar, to the unproductive Durrani kingdom, without any breach of faith towards the Sikhs; for it was considered that their dominions might soon be rent in two by the Sindhianwala Sirdars and the 1 This erroneous estimate of the troops of the Jammu Rajas and other hill chiefs of the Punjab relatively to the Sikhs, may be seen insisted on in Mr. Clerk's letters to Government of the 2nd Jan. and 13th April 1841, and especially in those of the 8th and 10th Dec. of that year, and of the 15th Jan., 10th Feb., and 23rd April, 1842. Mr. Clerk's expressions are very decided, such as that the Sikhs feared the hill-men, who were braver, and that Rajputs might hold Afghans in check, which Sikhs could not do; but he seems to have forgotten that the ancient Rajputs had, during the century gone by, yielded on either side to the new and aspiring Gurkhas and Marathas, and even that the Sikhs themselves had laid the twice-bom
princes of the Himalayas under contribution from the Ganges to Kashm.ir.
APPREHENSIONS OF SHER SINGH
213
the fierce spirit he had roused and could not control; or i84i. he doubtfully endeavoured to learn whether such disorders would be held equally to end his reign and the The English watched the confusion The English British alliance. with much interest and some anxiety, and when cities anxious seemed about to be plundered, and provinces ravaged, ""^^g^J^^ the question of the duty of a civilized and powerful f^Tn."''' neighbour naturally suggested itself, and was answered quiinty. by .a cry for interference; but the shapes which the wish took were various and contradictory. Nevertheless, the natural desire for aggrandizement, added to the apparently disorganized state of the army, contributed to strengthen a willing belief in the inferiority of the Sikhs as soldiers, and in the great excellence of the mountain levies of the chiefs of Jammu, who alone seemed to remain the masters of their own servants. To the appre- undervalue hension of the English authorities, the Sikhs were mere ^^e sikhs, upstart peasants of doubtful courage, except when maddened by religious persecution; but the ancient name of Rajput was sufficient to invest the motley followers of a few valiant chiefs with every warlike quality. This erroneous estimate of the Sikhs tainted British counsels until the day of P'heerooshuhur.^
The English seemed thus called upon to do some- ^"^^y'^Jo thing, and their agent in Kabul, who was committed to interfere by make Shah Shuja a monarch in means as well as in force of rank, grasped at the death of Ran jit Singh's last repre- arms, Feb. sentative; he pronounced the treaties with Lahore to be i^^at an end, and he wanted to annex Peshawar to the Afghan sway. The British Government in Calcutta rebuked this hasty conclusion, but cheered itself with the prospect of eventually adding the Derajat of the Indus, as well as Peshawar, to the unproductive Durrani kingdom, without any breach of faith towards the Sikhs; for it was considered that their dominions might soon be rent in two by the Sindhianwala Sirdars and the 1 This erroneous estimate of the troops of the Jammu Rajas and other hill chiefs of the Punjab relatively to the Sikhs, may be seen insisted on in Mr. Clerk's letters to Government of the 2nd Jan. and 13th April 1841, and especially in those of the 8th and 10th Dec. of that year, and of the 15th Jan., 10th Feb., and 23rd April, 1842. Mr. Clerk's expressions are very decided, such as that the Sikhs feared the hill-men, who were braver, and that Rajputs might hold Afghans in check, which Sikhs could not do; but he seems to have forgotten that the ancient Rajputs had, during the century gone by, yielded on either side to the new and aspiring Gurkhas and Marathas, and even that the Sikhs themselves had laid the twice-bom
princes of the Himalayas under contribution from the Ganges to Kashm.ir.
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