Vans twenty years of vigorous and successful rule, left his wealth and the fortress to his son and heir, Moolraj. Lal Singh, who, at the time of Sawun Mull's death, was the guiding genius of the Sikh Government, claimed from Moolraj a large payment as succession duty. For many years the claim was not acknowledged. After the first Sikh war, however, Moolraj was persuaded to come to Lahore, and payment was arranged. Moolraj, vexed at the issue of the negotiation, 'expressed a wish to resign his post, and was taken at his word." 1 Another Sikh was appointed in his place; and two English officers, Vans Agnew and Anderson, were deputed to accompany him to Mooltan, and help him to conduct the administration of the surrounding district. On the 20th of April 1848, as they rode into the fortress, they were struck down, and, after a gallant defence by a portion of their escort, murdered. It is still uncertain. how far Moolraj was concerned in the outrage; 2 but there is no doubt that he used it as a reason for reasserting his authority. He at once called on the Sikhs to rise against, the British; and he succeeded in persuading Dost Mahommed to link the Afghans with the Sikhs. The traditions of the Sikhs, their faith, their organisation, all favoured the new movement. The British, it was at once seen, were likely to be involved in a new Sikh war. Yet the highest men in India and the Punjab hardly realised the situation. New to the country, Dalhousie imperfectly understood that the troops which had been defeated at Sobraon could be induced to resume a struggle with their victors. New to the Punjab, Currie was more anxious to lean on Calcutta than to extinguish the conflagration before it spread. The season was notoriously unhealthy, military operations could be more safely undertaken in the cool months of winter, 1 Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i. p. 248. 2 On this point cf. ibid., p. 249; Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 20; Life of Outram, vol. ii. Appendix I.-Anderson was brother-in-law of Outram-and Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 420, note, where Lawrence's memorandum that the murder was not committed by Sikhs is worth remembering. For the whole history cf. Arnold's Administration of Lord Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 63 seq. Edwardes. and the men, therefore, who should have taken action at once were content to wait and do nothing. A young subordinate, indeed, stationed on the frontier, with the Afghans Herbert on one side of him and the insurgent Sikhs on the other, understood the situation more accurately than his chiefs. Herbert Edwardes, for this was the young officer's name, occupied Leia, enrolled 3000 Patans, awaited the attack which Moolraj made upon him, and "drove him headlong back towards Mooltan." 1 This victory induced Currie to send a force, under General Whish, to besiege Mooltan. But the movement was too late. Whish's Sikh troops passed over to the enemy; Whish himself was forced to raise the siege and fall back. It was no longer doubtful that the British would have to fight; the experience of 1846 had taught them that they would have to fight hard, to re-establish their predomi nance. Sikh war. The full truth dawned at last on the Governor-General. "Unwarned by precedent, uninfluenced by example," so he publicly said as he hurried up from Calcutta to The second the front, "the Sikh nation have called for war, and, on my word, sirs, they shall have it with a vengeance." In November, Gough, the victor of Sobraon, put himself at the head of the army which was by this time massed at Ferozepore. After two indecisive actions at Ramnuggur and Sadoolapore, the Sikh army withdrew to a strong position at Chillianwalla, on the Jhelum. There, on the 13th of January 1849, Gough fought the great battle which was publicly announced as a victory, but which was privately admitted to be a reverse.2 British supremacy in India seemed, for the moment, imperilled by an engagement whose issue had long 1 Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i. p. 254, and Arnold's Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 80 seq. 2 Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i. p. 257, where Mr. Bosworth Smith follows the usual account. I have the high authority of Sir Patrick Grant for saying that Chillianwalla was 'not, as has been suggested, a drawn battle; it was a decisive victory, though not so decisive as it would have been had the plans of the commander-in-chief been duly carried out." The account in the text, however, represents accurately enough the general impression both in India and England at the time. been doubtful, and whose slaughter for a few weeks paralysed our arms. News of the battle was received everywhere with dismay. "All that we can do," wrote Dalhousie to Henry Lawrence, who had flung up his leave and returned to the Punjab on the first news of the war, "will hardly restore the prestige of our power in India, and of our military superiority, partly from the evidence of facts, and partly from the unwise and unpatriotic and contemptible croaking in public of the European community itself all throughout India, high and low." So great was the consternation in England that the Ministry at once sent for Napier, the victor of Meeanee, and sent him out in haste to supersede Gough and to assume the chief command. But before Napier could arrive, the gallant old hero of Sobraon had retrieved his failure. On the 21st of February 1849, he attacked the Sikhs at Gujerat, broke them with his artillery, drove them from their position, and forced them to surrender all their guns and all their ammunition. The Sikh army was destroyed by the battle.1 The annexation of the Punjab. It was then that the iron nature of Dalhousie's character became apparent. He would hear of no terms but unconditional surrender, of no arrangement but the annexation of the Punjab. He brushed away with scorn the arguments of Henry Lawrence for lenient treatment of the enemy; he turned a deaf ear to his suggestion that annexation, though perhaps just, was inexpedient. Two such wars as those of 1846 and 1849 no doubt justified a policy of conquest, and the Governor-General declined to leave the Sikhs the power which might enable them to force the British to do their work a third time. In fact, of all the acquisitions which the British had made, the annexation of the Punjab stands in least necessity of 1 Kaye, in his History of the Sepoy War, vol. i. pp. 1-47, has a brilliant summary of these transactions. The East India Company, with the recollection of Scinde before it, strongly objected to Napier's appointment; and it was only with the utmost difficulty that the Ministry obtained the consent of the Directors to it. Greville, second series, vol. iii. pp. 274, 280; and for the Duke of Wellington's opinion of Napier, ibid., p. 214. defence. The outbreak of 1848 could only lead to two results-victory or defeat. Successful, moreover, as Indian administration on the whole has been, its success was nowhere greater than in the Punjab. The province was placed under a commission of which Henry Lawrence was chief, and on which John Lawrence served. The story of that commission, of its external labours and internal differences, is so blended with the lives of the Lawrences that it has been made more familiar to Englishmen than any other work which their fellowcountrymen have achieved in India. It cannot be told at length in these pages. Those who wish to know how internal peace was preserved; how the frontier was guarded; how the various establishments of the State were organised; how violent crime was repressed; how the penal law was executed; how prison discipline was enforced; how civil justice was administered; how taxation was fixed and the revenue was collected; how commerce was set free, agriculture fostered, and the nation's resources developed,1 must refer to the commissioners' report. When they have mastered it, they will perhaps realise the full meaning of the touching words which their chairman desired for an epitaph, or the similar, though more flattering inscription, which it was afterwards suggested should be placed on Lord Lawrence's grave.2 1 The words in the text are, mutatis mutandis, from the 452nd paragraph of the first Punjab Report; cf. Arnold's Administration of Lord Dalhousie, vol. i. pp. 227–403; cf. Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i. p. 280 et seq. 2 'Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty," is the simple inscription on the tombstone of one brother in Lucknow. "Here lies John Lawrence, who did his duty to the last," was the epitaph which it was suggested should be placed on Lord Lawrence's tomb in Westminster Abbey. The touching epitaph on Henry Lawrence's grave was no new phrase for him to use. It occurs in the beautiful letter in which he announced to his sons their mother's death, and is applied to them :—“ Her pleasure, nay delight, was always great when all was well, and her sons seemed trying to do their duty." Life of Sir H. Lawrence, p. 521. CHAPTER XXVII. DALHOUSIE AND CANNING. THE annexation of the Punjab under Dalhousie concludes a distinct period of the history of the English in India. For the eleven years which preceded it, the gaze of Indian statesmen had been almost exclusively concentrated on the northwestern frontier of Hindostan. Dread of danger from this quarter had driven Auckland into the follies of the Afghan war, had led Ellenborough into the iniquitous annexation of Scinde, and had produced the long chain of circumstances which had culminated in the conquest of the Sikh territory. The dread had at last been temporarily removed. The huge range of mountains, the north-western barrier of Hindostan, seemed adequate protection against the advance of an external enemy. The men who had experienced the difficulties and dangers of the Bolan and Khyber Passes were not likely to suffer from the later delusion that these mountain tracts afforded a convenient approach for a Russian army. The laurels, which had been gathered at Meeanee, at Sobraon, and at Chillianwalla, had effectually covered the stain with which the disasters at Cabul had tarnished the British armour. Secure, therefore, both in their position and in the proved prowess of their troops, Indian statesmen were once more able to turn their attention to other Indian questions; and the fears which had influenced Auckland, and from which his successors had been hardly free, were, except during one short interval in 1856, forgotten for a quarter of a century. In 1826 a long and difficult war in Burma had been brought to a successful conclusion.1 The Burmese, worsted 1 Ante, p. 126. The first of these treaties is known as the treaty of Yandaboo. It was signed on the 24th of February 1826. It and the subsequent commercial 232 |