Tempo:
256 1845-6.
Sir Charles Napier's
acts considered further proof of hostile
views.
The Lahore chiefs
make
use of the persuasion of the people for their own ends.
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. IX
pursuit of certain marauders, and in seizing them, the Lahore soldiers were reported to have used needless violence, and perhaps to have committed other excesses. Nevertheless, the object of the troopers was evident; and the boundary of the two provinces between the Indus and the hills is nowhere defined, but the governor. Sir Charles Napier, immediately ordered the wing of a regiment to Kashmor, a few miles below Rojhan, to preserve the integrity of his frontier from violation. The Lahore authorities were thus indeed put upon their guard, but the motives of Sir Charles Napier were not appreciated, and the prompt measures of the conqueror of Sind were mistakenly looked upon as one more proof of a desire to bring about a war with the Punjab.
The Sikh army, and the population generally, were convinced that war was inevitable; but the better informed members of the government knew that no interference was likely to be exercised without an overt act of hostility on their part.^ When moved as much by jealousy of one another as by a common dread of the army, the chiefs of the Punjab had clung to wealth and ease rather than to honour and independence, and thus Maharaja Sher Singh, the Sindhianwalas, and others, had been ready to become tributary, and to lean for support upon foreigners. As the authority of the army began to predominate, and to derive force from its system of committees, a new danger threatened the territorial chiefs and the adventurers in the employ of the government. They might successively fall before the cupidity of the organized body which none could control, or an able leader might arise who would absorb the power of all others, and gratify his followers by the sacrifice of the rich, the selfish, and the feeble. Even the Raja of .mention made in the first edition about a proposal to station a considerable force at Kashmor having been disapproved by the Supreme Government is incorrect, and he offers his apologies to the distinguished leader misrepresented for giving original or additional currency to the errors in question. 1 Cf. Enclosure No. 6 of the Governor-General's letter to (Parliamentary the Secret Committee of the 2nd Dec. 1845. Papers, 26th Feb. 1846, p. 21.) Major Broadfoot, however, states of Gulab Singh, what was doubtless true of many others, viz. that he believed the English had designs on the Punjab. (Major Broadfoot to Government, 5th May 1845.) It is indeed notorious that Sikhs and Afghans commonly said the English abandoned Kabul because they did not hold Lahore, and that having once established themselves in the Punjab, they would soon set about the regular reduction of Khorasan.
Sir Charles Napier's
acts considered further proof of hostile
views.
The Lahore chiefs
make
use of the persuasion of the people for their own ends.
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. IX
pursuit of certain marauders, and in seizing them, the Lahore soldiers were reported to have used needless violence, and perhaps to have committed other excesses. Nevertheless, the object of the troopers was evident; and the boundary of the two provinces between the Indus and the hills is nowhere defined, but the governor. Sir Charles Napier, immediately ordered the wing of a regiment to Kashmor, a few miles below Rojhan, to preserve the integrity of his frontier from violation. The Lahore authorities were thus indeed put upon their guard, but the motives of Sir Charles Napier were not appreciated, and the prompt measures of the conqueror of Sind were mistakenly looked upon as one more proof of a desire to bring about a war with the Punjab.
The Sikh army, and the population generally, were convinced that war was inevitable; but the better informed members of the government knew that no interference was likely to be exercised without an overt act of hostility on their part.^ When moved as much by jealousy of one another as by a common dread of the army, the chiefs of the Punjab had clung to wealth and ease rather than to honour and independence, and thus Maharaja Sher Singh, the Sindhianwalas, and others, had been ready to become tributary, and to lean for support upon foreigners. As the authority of the army began to predominate, and to derive force from its system of committees, a new danger threatened the territorial chiefs and the adventurers in the employ of the government. They might successively fall before the cupidity of the organized body which none could control, or an able leader might arise who would absorb the power of all others, and gratify his followers by the sacrifice of the rich, the selfish, and the feeble. Even the Raja of .mention made in the first edition about a proposal to station a considerable force at Kashmor having been disapproved by the Supreme Government is incorrect, and he offers his apologies to the distinguished leader misrepresented for giving original or additional currency to the errors in question. 1 Cf. Enclosure No. 6 of the Governor-General's letter to (Parliamentary the Secret Committee of the 2nd Dec. 1845. Papers, 26th Feb. 1846, p. 21.) Major Broadfoot, however, states of Gulab Singh, what was doubtless true of many others, viz. that he believed the English had designs on the Punjab. (Major Broadfoot to Government, 5th May 1845.) It is indeed notorious that Sikhs and Afghans commonly said the English abandoned Kabul because they did not hold Lahore, and that having once established themselves in the Punjab, they would soon set about the regular reduction of Khorasan.
©
2026
Lehal.net