for it, became his only plea, and in utter disregard both of justice and prudence A.D. 1839. he rushed headlong into a series of measures which were to issue in disgrace and fearful disaster. Before giving the details it will be proper to take a brief survey of the leading states through whose territories, as bounding with those of British India on the west, the invasion, supposed to be threatened, would of course be made. CHAPTER II. Relations with the Punjab, Scinde, Cabool, and Persia - Burnes' mission to the court of Dost territories N the north-west, British India was bounded at this period by Origin and the territories of the Sikhs, who, though at first only a religious of the Sikhs. sect, had, under skilful leadership, acquired political importance and become a powerful state. Their original seat was the upper part of the Punjab, the possession of which had often been keenly contested between the Moguls and the Afghans. By both of them the Sikhs were equally detested, and hence the alternate change of masters brought them no relief. The determination to extirpate them was openly avowed, and their only hope of escape was in their own prowess. Thus spurred by necessity they fought with the courage of despair. On various occasions they not only maintained their ground, but inflicted severe loss on their persecutors; and availing themselves of the confusion which prevailed during the last years of the Mogul empire, began to figure as conquerors. At first they existed as a confederacy composed of separate chieftainships, the heads of which claimed to be independent of each other, and were accustomed, when the common interest required it, to meet as equals in public diet at Amritser, where their principal shrine was situated. Towards the end of the last century the confederacy consisted of twelve associations or misals, which extended from the Indus eastward across the Sutlej as far as the Jumna. For a time, while it was felt that union Their twelve was indispensable to their mutual security, they acted together with some degree of cordiality; but in proportion as external danger diminished, internal dissension increased, and the different misals, disregarding the public interest, began to aim at individual aggrandizement. The endless feuds thus engendered produced so much confusion that the necessity of a change of political system became apparent. If the Sikhs were to maintain their independence it could only be by submitting voluntarily or compulsorily to the ascendency of some misals. A.D. 1762. one misal, which might then incorporate the others with itself, and form the nucleus of an undivided Sikh sovereignty. The manner in which this was accomplished must now be briefly traced. Rise of His progress. Among the twelve original misals the one which appears to have been last formed, and to have been regarded, in respect of territory, income, and influence, as the least important, was the Sookur-Chukea, which had its capital at Goojeranwala, about fifty miles north of Lahore. Its founder, Churut Sing, the son of a Jat, who had thrown off his own faith and avowed himself a Sikh convert, had commenced life as a freebooter, and become possessed of a small garhi or mud-fort, which served as a retreat for his family and followers, and a receptacle for his plunder. The extent of his depredations, and the dangerous proximity of his fort to Lahore, induced the Afghan governor of this capital to march against him in 1762, at the head of a large body of troops. The expedition proved a failure. The leading Sikh confederates made common cause with Churut Sing; and the governor, alarmed at the extent to which disaffection and treachery prevailed in his camp, was glad to secure his personal safety by a precipitate flight, leaving all his baggage and camp equipage behind him. The celebrated Afghan monarch, Ahmed Shah, in the course of the same year, amply avenged this defeat by hastening from Cabool and gaining a pitched battle, in which the Sikhs lost more than 12,000 men in killed and wounded. The state of his affairs however did not allow him to follow up his advantage, and on his sudden recall to Cabool to meet a still more pressing danger, the Sikhs were able to take the field at the head of a more powerful army than they had ever mustered before. No effectual resistance could be offered to them, and they extended their conquests on every side. Churut Sing, now recognized as one of the ablest of their leaders, was not neglectful of his own interest, and became the head of a misal, which took its name from the lands of which his progenitors had been merely cultivators. When no longer engaged in assisting to repel Afghan invasion, Churut Sing was ready for any enterprise from which additional territory or revenue might be acquired, and was therefore easily tempted to take part in a violent domestic quarrel between the hill-rajah of Jumoo and Brij-Raj his eldest son. The rajah wished a younger son to succeed, and Brij-Raj, as the most effectual means of frustrating this intention, had resolved to anticipate the succession by seizing it in his father's lifetime. With this view he applied to Churut Sing, and offered to reward his assistance, in the event of its proving successful, by the payment of a large annual tribute. Churut Sing at once consented, and, in league with Jye Sing, the head of the Ghunea misal, which could muster 8000 horse, while he had not more than 2500, proceeded northward to open the campaign. The rajah on his part had not been idle. In addition to several hillchiefs, he had secured the aid of Jhunda Sing, the head of the Bhangee misal, which of itself could bring 10,000 horse into the field. While the hostile armies lay encamped on the opposite sides of the Busuntur, a partial skirmish took A.D. 1774. place, and proved fatal to Churut Sing, who was killed by the bursting of his matchlock. This event, which happened in 1774, put an end to the campaign. Death of The allies of Brij-Raj withdrew, after the dastardly act of murdering Jhunda Churut Sing Sing by the hands of a hired assassin; and the Bhangee misal, thus atrociously deprived of their chief, had no longer any desire to continue the contest. ceeded by Maha Sing. Churut Sing was succeeded by his son Maha Sing, who was only ten years He is suc of age. For some years the government was conducted by his mother and the Ghunea chief, Jye Sing; but the young chief was too talented and ambitious to submit long to tutelage, and was only approaching the years of manhood when he took the reins of government into his own hands, and immediately commenced a series of aggressions on his neighbours. The object of his first attack was the strong fort of Ramnuggur, situated on the east bank of the Chenab, and held by a Jat Mussulman of the name of Peer Mahomed. The cause of quarrel was a celebrated gun which Churut Sing had captured from the Afghans and deposited with the Chutta tribe, of which Peer Mahomed was the chief, until he should be able to convey it across the Chenab and transport it to his own capital. The tribe, it was alleged, had violated the trust by giving up the gun to the Bhangee misal. On this pretext Maha Sing, in Conquests of concert with Jye Sing, made his appearance before Ramnuggur, and after a siege of four months compelled it to surrender. The capture was in itself of less value than the reputation acquired by it; for many chiefs who had previously been attached to the Bhangee misal, believing that its fortunes were on the wane, abandoned it, and placed themselves under Maha Sing's protection. The success of this first enterprise naturally stimulated to a second, and Maha Sing turned his victorious arms in the direction of Jumoo. The rajah above Maha Sing. Maha Sing. A D. 1791. referred to had died, and been succeeded by Brij-Raj. From the friendly relations which had subsisted between the latter and Churut Sing, it might Conquests of have been supposed that Jumoo was the last place which Maha Sing would have felt justified in attacking. With him however friendship was invariably sacrificed without scruple to what was considered policy; and he therefore no sooner learned that Brij-Raj's misgovernment was producing general discontent, than he first made claims upon him which he knew would be refused, and then made the refusal a pretext for ravaging his territory. Unprincipled though the proceeding was it proved successful, and Maha Sing returned from the pillage of Jumoo laden with spoil which, certainly not without great exaggeration, was estimated at £2,000,000 sterling. Alarm of the other Sikh chiefs. These successes were not unaccompanied with disadvantages. The other misals began to take alarm at the sudden aggrandizement of the one which had hitherto been regarded as the most insignificant of their number, and even Jye Sing was so much offended with the expedition to Jumoo, that when Maha Sing waited upon him at Amritser, he not only received him with the greatest coolness, but treated him with insult. As usual Maha Sing thought only of the manner in which he might turn this contumelious treatment to his own advantage, and suddenly made his appearance at the head of a large force before Butala, the capital of Jye Sing's possessions. Here fortune again favoured him, and Jye Sing was compelled to accept of peace on humiliating terms, after his son Goor Buksh, a promising youth in whom all his hopes were set, had fallen in battle. Maha Sing's ascendency among the Sikh chiefs was now established, but his ambition was not yet satisfied, and he proceeded once more to gratify it, without any scruple as to the means. In 1791 Sahib Sing, who had married Maha Sing's sister, became by the death of his father chief of Gujerat, situated in the Doab, between the Chenab and Jhelum. The disturbance occasioned by a new succession was too tempting an opportunity to be overlooked, and Maha Sing, totally regardless of the claims of affinity, determined to take an ungenerous advantage of his brother-in-law, by urging a claim of tribute which he knew to be groundless, and then making the refusal of it a pretext for hostilities. He accordingly collected his forces, and commenced operations by laying siege to one of his brother-in-law's forts. The attempt proved more difficult and dilatory than he had anticipated, as some of the other misals, now thoroughly alarmed at the unbounded ambition which he displayed, had come to the rescue. It is probable, however, that he would once more have triumphed, for he had driven the troops opposed to him from the field, and was prosecuting the siege with every prospect of success, when he was seized with an illness which obliged him to return to his own capital, and carried him off in the beginning of 1792, in the twenty-seventh of his age. year The state of affairs at the time of Maha Sing's death was very alarming. Maha Sing, He had wantonly provoked the hostility of several of the leading misals, and A.D. 1792. suddenly disappeared from the scene, leaving the succession to be taken up by his only son Runjeet Sing, who was then only in his twelfth year. An honest Death of and talented regency seemed alone capable of saving the country, but this was and successcarcely to be expected. The mother of the young prince, to whom the office naturally belonged, was notorious for her profligacy, and shared her power with sion of Runjeet Sing. training. a minister with whom she had formed a disgraceful connection. What but ruin was to be expected from a government administered by such unworthy hands! Nor was there much prospect that Runjeet Sing himself on arriving at manhood would be able to remedy the evils of previous misgovernment. When a mere infant an attack of the small-pox, which threatened his life, cost him the sight of one of his eyes, and had left its ravages strongly marked on his countenance. His education was almost entirely neglected, and instead of His early being trained to the duties which were expected to devolve upon him, means were actually and designedly taken to give him a disrelish, and unfit him for the discharge of them. His mother, anxious to retain the government in her own hands, sought to gain her object by indulging him in early familiarity with every form of vice. From such a youth, judging from appearance, nothing was to be expected, and therefore it is the more wonderful that he ultimately proved one of the ablest monarchs that ever reigned, united a number of disjointed federations into one compact and powerful kingdom, extended its limits by new conquests, raised it to a height of glory which it possessed only while he ruled it, and which it lost as soon as by his death the government passed into other hands. According to the preposterous custom prevalent in the East, Runjeet Sing was already married at the time of his father's death. His wife was Mehtab Koonwur, the only child of Goor Buksh, whose death in battle has been mentioned above, and consequently the grand-daughter of Jye Sing, chief of VOL. III. 231 |