The descen how the head of the Sikhs, Runjeet Singh, had extended his authority and become the ally of the Company. The death of Runjeet, during the Afghan war, withdrew the chief guarantee for the continuance of order in his dominions. Runjeet left behind him several children. His first wife had presented him in 1807 with two boys, Shere Singh and Tara Singh. By another woman, to whom he was betrothed as a boy, Runjeet had a son, Khurruk Singh. Singh, a weak and indolent lad, whose claims to the succession were set aside in favour of his son, Nao Nihal Singh. In addition to these descendants, a few months before the Afghan war, another woman, wife or concubine to Runjeet, had borne him a son, known afterwards as Dhuleep Singh.1 dants of Runjeet The children or descendants of Runjeet Singh each had their own adherents. But, in addition to his descendants, Runjeet, throughout his reign, had always had favourites. around him. The men who ranked highest in his favour were three brothers whose behaviour and whose grace had promoted them from menial offices to the highest positions at his Court. The eldest of the three, Gholab Singh, was given the chieftainship of the great hill district of Jummoo, in Cashmere, to which he either had or was supposed to have some hereditary claim. The two younger, Dhian and Soochet Singh, were retained near Runjeet's person and admitted to his closest confidence.2 On his deathbed in 1839, Runjeet either nominated or was said to nominate his son Khurruk Singh as his successor, and Dhian Singh as minister of the kingdom.3 Khurruk A settlement thus made hardly endured the making of it. Shere Singh, on his part, raised his claim to the throne; Nao Nihal Singh, forcing himself into his father's apartments, suffered his father's favourite to be murdered in his presence. Thenceforward he became king in fact, though his father remained king in name. But his reign was of short duration. 1 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, pp. 228-230, 238. After a little more than a year, the father, Khurruk, died prematurely old. The son, celebrating his father's Shere Singh obsequies, was either accidentally or purposely de- Maharaja. stroyed by a falling gateway, and Shere Singh rose to the throne to which he had so long aspired. These successive changes did not tend to peace. Chund Kour, mother to Nao Nihal, and widow of Khurruk Singh, could not be expected to acquiesce in a settlement which had been baptized at the obsequies of her husband with the blood of her son. She asserted her right to the throne, and for a short time filled it. But, in the beginning of 1841, her pretensions were destroyed by the action of Shere Singh. That chief had the dexterity to gain the support of the capable Dhian Singh; he placed himself at the head of the army, and, submitting to its dictation, was recognised as monarch. Thenceforward the supreme authority in the Punjab was practically held by an army which punished its own officers, plundered the people, and conducted, by a committee of its own choosing, its own affairs and the affairs of the country.1 The evils which Rome had experienced during the decline and fall of the Empire from the predominance of the Prætorian Guards recurred in the Punjab during the closing period of Sikh independence. The Sikh army su preme. Disorder in a Native Indian state always produces the same advice from Indian statesmen. From their standpoint a British army cannot be better employed than in punishing a mutinous soldiery encamped in a territory adjoining the British frontiers. Happily this advice, given to the GovernorGeneral by the British Resident in the Punjab, could not be acted on. In 1841, Auckland, meditating on the probable fall of his old colleagues in England and on his own approaching retirement, was much more anxious to retreat from Afghanistan than to commence a new act of interference in the Punjab. In 1842, Ellenborough, preparing for war with the Ameers, was in no mood for fresh undertakings on the Upper Indus. In 1843 the campaign of Napier in Scinde was sufficient work 1 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, pp. 241, 246. Increasing disorder for the British army; and throughout these years disorder went on increasing in the Punjab, and the turbulence of the Sikh soldiery rose and fell as the star of in the Punjab. the British waxed or waned. In 1842, Chund Kour, the mother of Nao Nihal, was beaten to death by her own retinue; in September 1843 Shere Singh was shot dead by one of his companions, and Dhian Singh, who accompanied his master, shared his fate. One of Shere Singh's sons, Heera Singh, "roused by his own danger and his filial duty," boldly appealed to the troops to avenge their monarch's murder. Bribed by a promise of higher pay, the troops responded to the call. Shere Singh's murderers were slain; Dhuleep Singh, the child of Runjeet's declining years, was raised to the throne, and Heera Singh assumed the office of minister.1 Those who succeed to power by the sword sometimes perish by the sword; and the adage proved true of Heera Singh. After a year of vigorous and not unsuccessful office he offended the soldiery by whom he had been raised to power, and the same bloody fate which he had allotted to his father's murderers was reserved for him in 1844. On his death the power temporarily fell into the hands of Jowahir Singh, the brother of the Raja Dhuleep's mother.2 His short administration was marked by the insurrection of Peshawura Singh-real or adopted son of Runjeet. Peshawura met the usual fate of unsuccessful insurgents, but his murder was the last success of his rival Jowahir. Drinking heavily, immersed in intrigues, plotting to assassinate his rivals, and dreading their counterplots, he drifted through the summer of 1845 to his inevitable end. On the 21st of September the army, by an act such as even the Sikh army had not hitherto committed, decided that he should die, and, executing its own sentence, slew him by a discharge of musketry.4 3 These events naturally excited apprehension in the Gover 1 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, pp. 238, 261, 263. 2 Arnold's Administration of Lord Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 33 seq.; Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, p. 274. 3 Ibid., pp. 268, 277. 4 Papers respecting Late Hostilities on N.-W. Frontier of India, Session 1846, No. 85, p. 8. nor-General's council chamber. A mutinous army, wielding the whole authority of a State, was not an agreeable The attitude neighbour. With unusual forbearance, however, of India. the British abstained from interference in Sikh affairs. The Governor-General hoped that anarchy might be exhausted by its own violence, or that some chief might arise able to control a mutinous army and to construct a strong government.1 Bent on maintaining a pacific policy, he contented. himself, therefore, with strengthening the British forces on the frontier, and he proceeded thither himself in October 1845. These measures of precaution had the effect, however, of irritating rather than alarming the mutinous Sikh soldiery. "Defensive measures took in their eyes the form of aggressive preparation ;" 2 and, as they could not imagine that their own divisions endangered the British Empire, they concluded that the mustered on the Sutledge was formed for the invasion of the Punjab. army Thus, as the autumn of 1845 wore on, the Sikhs, turbulent from mutiny and alarmed at the defensive measures of the British-the British, anxious for peace, but disturbed by the mutinous conduct of the Sikh soldiery-both drifted towards war. Unfortunately, moreover, for the cause of peace, Clerk, who for years past had been British Agent in the Punjab, and who had won by his conduct the confidence of his employers and the regard of the Sikhs themselves, was promoted in June 1843 to the Lieutenant-Governorship of Agra. He was ultimately succeeded at Lahore by Broadfoot, an Broadfoot Engineer officer who had acquired repute in Afghanistan, but whose temperament was better fitted for the stern work which he helped to do at Jellalabad than for the delicate negotiations in which he was involved in Lahore. Broadfoot succeeded in making the Sikhs distrust the British, and in making the British distrust the Sikhs.3 On the 20th of at Lahore. 1 See Lord Hardinge's despatch, Papers respecting Late Hostilities on N.-W. Frontier of India, Session 1846, p. 1. 2 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, p. 282; cf. as to Hardinge's defensive measures an important note in the Quarterly Review, vol. lxxix. p. 269. 3 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, p. 287. November he formally reported that the mutinous Sikh army was about to cross the Sutledge and invade British territory. On the 11th of December the entire Sikh army, convinced by its leader that the British preparations for defence were intended for aggression, passed the frontier and entrenched itself in what was known as protected territory at Ferozeshah.1 The first A movement of this character was not merely an act of war, it constituted a serious danger. Ferozeshah is situated to the south-west of Ferozepore, a station where Sir John Littler with a force of 7000 men was stationed. Littler's position was threatened by the movement of the Sikh army; and accordingly Gough, the Commander-in-Chief in India, who had been joined by the Governor-General, moved from Umballa with all the force at his disposal in Littler's support. Hastening by forced marches, under an Indian sun, the troops suffered greatly from heat and from want of food. Inspirited, however, by the example of Gough and the presence of Hardinge, the army moved on without complaint, and advanced to a struggle without desponding. On the 18th it won a battle at Moodkee; on the 21st and 22nd it achieved a decisive victory at Ferozeshah against an enemy superior in numbers and artillery, and with a discipline almost equal to its own. More than a hundred guns, the prizes of success, fell to the conquerors. Never before had a British army fought under greater disadvantages or won a greater victory. Yet, if the victory were great, the price paid for it was heavy; 872 officers and men fell at Moodkee; and Sale, the hero of Jellalabad, met a soldier's death on the battlefield. At Ferozeshah, where Hardinge himself offered his sword to Gough, and assumed the second place in the army, 2415 officers and men were killed and wounded. The Sikhs, however, disheartened by the issue of the battle, withdrew across 1 Papers relating to Hostilities on the N.-W. Frontier of India, p. 24. By the arrangements made between the British and the Sikhs under Runjeet, the whole of the Punjab north of the Sutledge was virtually given up to the Sikhs. Between the Sutledge and British territory were several small tribes known as Protected States. In the protected territory the British held military stations at Loodiana, a place well known in the history of Shah Sooja, and at Ferozepore. |