Tempo:
CHAP. IX
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
259
for a war which they expected and deprecated, and whicji they knew could only tend to their own aggrandizement. The proceedings of the English, indeed, do not exhibit that punctilious adherence to the spirit of first relations which allows no change of circumstances to cause a departure from arrangements which had, in the progress of time, come to be regarded by a .weaker power as essentially bound up with its independence. Neither do the acts of the English seem marked by that high wisdom and sure foresight, which should distinguish the career of intelligent rulers acquainted with actual life, and the examples of history. Treaties of commerce and navigation had been urged upon the Sikhs, notwithstanding their dislike to such bonds of unequal union; they were chafed that they had been withheld from Sind, from Afghanistan, and from Tibet, merely, they would argue, that these countries might be left open to the ambition of the English; and they were rendered suspicious by the formation of new military posts on their frontier contrary to prescriptive usage, and for reasons of which they did not perceive the force or admit the validity. The English looked upon these measures with reference to their own
schemes of amelioration; and they did not heed the conclusions which the Sikhs might draw from them, although such conclusions, how erroneous soever, would necessarily become motives of action to a rude and warlike race. Thus, at the last, regard was mainly had to the chance of predatory inroads, or to the possibility that sovereign and nobles and people, all combined, would fatuitously court destruction by assailing their gigantic neighbour', and little thought was given to the selfish views of factious Sikh chiefs, or to the natural effects of the suspicions of the Sikh commonalty when wrought upon by base men for their own Thus, too, the original agreement which left ends. the province of Sirhind free of troops and of British subjects, and which provided a confederacy of dependent states to soften the mutual action of a half-barbarous military dominion and of a humane and civilized government, had been set aside by the English for
objects which seemed urgent and expedient, but which were good in their motive rather than wise in their The measure was misconstrued by the Sikhs scope. to denote a gradual but settled plan of conquest; and hence the subjective mode of reasoning employed was not only vicious in logic, but, being met by arguments even more narrow and one-sided, became faulty in
1845-6.
WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
259
for a war which they expected and deprecated, and whicji they knew could only tend to their own aggrandizement. The proceedings of the English, indeed, do not exhibit that punctilious adherence to the spirit of first relations which allows no change of circumstances to cause a departure from arrangements which had, in the progress of time, come to be regarded by a .weaker power as essentially bound up with its independence. Neither do the acts of the English seem marked by that high wisdom and sure foresight, which should distinguish the career of intelligent rulers acquainted with actual life, and the examples of history. Treaties of commerce and navigation had been urged upon the Sikhs, notwithstanding their dislike to such bonds of unequal union; they were chafed that they had been withheld from Sind, from Afghanistan, and from Tibet, merely, they would argue, that these countries might be left open to the ambition of the English; and they were rendered suspicious by the formation of new military posts on their frontier contrary to prescriptive usage, and for reasons of which they did not perceive the force or admit the validity. The English looked upon these measures with reference to their own
schemes of amelioration; and they did not heed the conclusions which the Sikhs might draw from them, although such conclusions, how erroneous soever, would necessarily become motives of action to a rude and warlike race. Thus, at the last, regard was mainly had to the chance of predatory inroads, or to the possibility that sovereign and nobles and people, all combined, would fatuitously court destruction by assailing their gigantic neighbour', and little thought was given to the selfish views of factious Sikh chiefs, or to the natural effects of the suspicions of the Sikh commonalty when wrought upon by base men for their own Thus, too, the original agreement which left ends. the province of Sirhind free of troops and of British subjects, and which provided a confederacy of dependent states to soften the mutual action of a half-barbarous military dominion and of a humane and civilized government, had been set aside by the English for
objects which seemed urgent and expedient, but which were good in their motive rather than wise in their The measure was misconstrued by the Sikhs scope. to denote a gradual but settled plan of conquest; and hence the subjective mode of reasoning employed was not only vicious in logic, but, being met by arguments even more narrow and one-sided, became faulty in
1845-6.
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