Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846

Crowning with laureate-wreaths an impious name,
Or lulling us with Siren minstrelsy
To false repose when peril most is nigh;
Decking things vile or vain with colours rare,
Till what is false and foul seems good and fair.

Hence are our hearts bewilder'd in their choice,
And hence our feet from Virtue led astray:
Truth calls imperious with repulsive voice
To follow on a steep and rugged way;
While Beauty beckons us along a gay
And flowery path, that leads, with treacherous slope,
To gulfs remote from happiness or hope.

Who will bring back the world's unblemish'd youth
When these two wander'd ever hand in hand;
When Truth was Beauty, Beauty too was Truth,
So link'd together with unbroken band,
That they were one; and Man, at their command,
Tasted of sweets that never knew alloy,
And trod the path of Duty and of Joy?

Chiefly the Poet's power may work the change:
His heavenly gift, impell'd by holy zeal,
O'er Truth's exhaustless stores may brightly range,
And all their native loveliness reveal;
Nor e'er, except where Truth has set his seal,
Suffer one gleam of Beauty's grace to shine,
But in resistless force their lights combine.

THE CAMPAIGN OF THE SUTLEJ

Of the whole wonderful annals of our Indian Empire, the campaign of the Sutlej will form the most extraordinary, the most brilliant, the most complete, and yet the briefest chapter. It is an imperishable trophy, not less to the magnanimity of British policy, than to the resistlessness of British valour. The matchless gallantry, felicity, and rapidity of the military operations against a formidable foe of desperate bravery and overpowering numbers, through a tremendous struggle and terrific carnage – the blaze of four mighty and decisive victories won in six weeks – proudly seal our prowess in arms. The spotless justice of the cause; the admirable temper of its management; the almost fastidious forbearance which unsheathed the sword only under the stern compulsion of most wanton aggression; and the generous moderation which has swayed the flush of triumph – nobly attest our wisdom in government. The character of a glorious warrior may fitly express the character of a glorious war, which has been sans peur et sans reproche. To record in our pages memorable deeds which have added lustre even to the dazzling renown of Britain, would be at any time, but at present, we conceive, is peculiarly, a duty. The cordiality of the public interest in these important events dwindles and shrinks, like paper in the fire, before the intensity of that more domestic sympathy which has been every where awakened by individual calamities. The frightful cost at which we have purchased success, may be heard and seen in the wail and the gloom round a multitude of hearths. No dauntless courage was more conspicuous, – alas! no gallant life-blood was poured out more copiously, – than that of the sons of Scotland. The eternal sunshine of glory which irradiates the memory of the fallen brave, may be yet too fierce a light for the aching eye of grief to read by; but we thought that a simple consecutive recital of the recent exploits of our army in India would be unwelcome to none. Designedly we mean to write nothing more than a narrative; and, in doing so, to use, as far as it is possible, the very words of the official reports of those distinguished men, who leave us sometimes in doubt whether the pen or the sword is the more potent weapon in their hands. A few reflections and remarks will probably inweave themselves with the tissue of the story, just because such things cannot be told or heard without a quickening of the pulse, a glow upon the cheek, a beating in the heart. Otherwise we shall attempt to be "such an honest chronicler as Griffith." It is indispensable, however, not only to preface the details of the campaign with a concise description of the condition of the disordered and degraded people whom our enmity and vengeance smote so heavily; but likewise to explain, with some degree of minuteness, the views and purposes which, from first to last, influenced our Indian government in its conduct of these delicate, and ultimately momentous transactions, in order fully to appreciate the union of moderation and energy which, under the auspices of Sir Henry Hardinge as governor-general of India, and Sir Hugh Gough as commander o the army of the Sutlej, has satisfied the world that right and might were equally on the side of Britain.

Since the death, in 1839, of the famous Runjeet Singh, when the sacred waters of the Ganges received the ashes of the greatest of the Sikhs, it is impossible for language to exaggerate the anarchy, the depravity, the misery of the Punjaub. Tigers, and wolves, and apes, have been the successors of the "Old Lion." The predominant spirit of that energetic and sagacious ruler bridled the licentious turbulence which for the last seven years has rioted in the unrestrained indulgence of all abominable vices, and in the daily perpetration of the most atrocious crimes. Five Maharajahs in this brief period, "all murdered," have been sacrificed to the ambition of profligate courtiers, or the rapacity of a debauched soldiery. Kurruck Singh, the son of Runjeet Singh, and the inheritor of an overflowing treasury and a disciplined and numerous army, was an uneducated idiot, and easily induced to frown upon his father's able favourite, the Rajah Dhyan Singh, and to invest his own confidential adviser, the Sirdar Cheyk Singh, with the authority, if not the title, of his prime-minister. But the humiliated Rajah found the ready means of revenge in the family of his incapable sovereign. The Prince Noo Nehal Singh lent a willing ear to the tempting suggestions of a counsellor who only echoed the inordinate desires of his own ambition. At midnight, in the private apartment and at the feet of the Maharajah, the Sirdar Cheyk Singh was assassinated by his rival. The murder of the favourite was rapidly followed by the deposition of Kurruck Singh, and the elevation to the throne of the prince, his son. The court of Lahore was now convulsed by dark intrigues, and debased by brutal sensuality. The ineradicable spirit of hatred against every thing British, vented itself harmlessly in the bravadoes of the tyrant; but was more dangerously inflamed among many of the native powers of India, by the secret diffusion of a project for a general and simultaneous insurrection. A double mystery of villany saved us, probably, at that time from the shocks and horrors of war in which we have been recently involved. The deposed Kurruck Singh suddenly expired – a victim, it was whispered, to the insidious efficacy of slow and deadly poison, intermingled, as his son knew, in small quantities every day with his food. The lightning-flash of retribution descended. On the return from the funeral of Kurruck, the elephant which bore the parricidal majesty of Noo Nehal Singh pushed against the brick-work of the palace-gates, when the whole fabric fell with a crash, and so dreadfully fractured the skull of the Maharajah that he never spoke afterwards, and died in a few hours.

The power or the policy of Dhyan Singh then bestowed the perilous gift of this bloody sceptre upon Prince Shere, a reputed son of Runjeet, Singh. His legitimacy was immediately denounced, and his government opposed by the mother of his predecessor, who actively assumed, and for three or four months conducted, the regency of the state. The capricious attachment of the army, however, to the cause of Shere Singh turned the current of fortune; and the Queen-Mother might seem to have laid aside the incumbrance of her royal apparel, to be more easily strangled by her own slave girls. The accession of Shere Singh opened the floodgates of irretrievable disorder; for the troops, to whom he owed his success, and on whose venal steadiness the stability of his sway depended, conscious from their position, that, however insolently exorbitant in their demands, they were able to throw the weight of their swords into the scale, clamoured for an increase of their pay, and the dismissal of all the officers who were obnoxious to them. The refusal of their imperious request had a result we are fortunately not obliged to depict; nor, without a shudder, can we barely allude to it. The ruffian and remorseless violence of lawless banditti occupied and ravaged the city and the plain. The story of their plunder of Lahore is rendered hideous by every outrage that humanity can suffer, and by a promiscuous carnage, for which the ferocity of unreasoning animals might pant, but which the untiring fury of the wildest of brutes, the human savage, alone could protract beyond satiety. The finger of their murderous rage pointed to every assailable European officer, of whom some were assassinated, some very narrowly escaped. Months rolled on under the terrible dominion of these uncontrollable miscreants, while the length and the breadth of the land were scourged by their cruelty, polluted by their lust, and desolated by their rapine. The pestilence was partially arrested by a glut of gold. A treasure of many lacs of rupees being intercepted on its way to Lahore, enriched and mollified its captors. But at last, gorged with slaughter, and surfeited with excess, they modified their claims within limits to which the government intimated its willingness to accede. The incurable evil was consummated. Henceforward the army has been its own master, and the master of the government and the country. A transitory mirage of internal tranquillity and subordination refreshed the Punjaub; the fiery elements of discord and ruin smouldered unextinguishably behind it, awaiting the necessity or the opportunity of a fresh eruption. The volcano was not permitted to slumber. Shere Singh, liberated from the imminent oppression of the soldiery, plunged headlong into a slough of detestable debauchery. But in our annals his memory must survive,

"Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

Influenced by what good genius, or by what prescient timidity, it may be difficult to discover, he was true to the British interest, and remained obstinately deaf to the seductive animosity of the Sikh council, which was prone to take advantage of the disasters in Caubul, and to attack the avenging army of Sir George Pollock in its passage to Peshawer. Loyalty to England was little less than an act of treason to the Sikh chieftains and the Sikh soldiery, which, added to the Maharajah's total neglect of public business, accelerated a fatal conspiracy by his brother-in-law Ajeet Singh, and Dhyan Singh, "the close contriver of all harms." Shere Singh, being invited to inspect his brother-in-law's cavalry at a short distance from Lahore, was there shot by Ajeet. The assassin, riding quietly back to the city, met on the way the carriage of Dhyan Singh, dismounted, and, seating himself beside his accomplice in guilt, stabbed him to the heart. Now came confusion worse confounded. The nobles were divided; while the troops, as their inclinations or their hopes of pillage prompted them, flocked to the conflicting standards. Ajeet, after murdering the whole of the late Maharajah's family, including an infant one day old, fortified himself in the citadel of Lahore, from which he was dislodged to be immediately beheaded by Heera Singh, the son of the Rajah Dhyan Singh.

Then it was, that, under the auspices of Heera Singh, the present Maharajah, Dhuleep Singh, a mere boy, and the alleged offspring of old Runjeet Singh, was raised to the throne of the Sikhs. The army again renewed the formidable pretensions which had formerly distracted and wasted the Punjaub, and with which Heera Singh was now forced to comply. But the powers of the throne were prostrate. The infant Maharajah, a puppet in the hands of intriguing kinsmen, or of the ungovernable army, passively witnessed the slaughter of a succession of his principal rajahs who aspired to be his ministers, and each of whom raised himself a step nearer the summit of his desire upon the butchered body of his predecessor. A glow, perhaps, of undefinable pleasure may have warmed the heart of the child, who wore

"upon his baby brow the round

And top of sovereignty,"

when he saw the horrible drama apparently closed by his mother taking upon herself the responsibility and duties of the administration of affairs. She was a more helpless slave than himself. There was but one man in the Punjaub who could have aided her in her extremity. Neither of them could trust the other. Goolab Singh, a brother of Dhyan Singh, had been playing a safe game throughout the complicated troubles in which so many were overwhelmed. Bad as the worst, unscrupulously villanous, profoundly treacherous, detestably profligate and exciting behind the scenes discontent, mutiny, tumult, and massacre, he appeared occasionally on the stage to check or perplex the plot, as it suited his purposes. His arm never visibly reached to any point from which it could not be safely drawn back; but his hand was stirring every mischief. He was well aware of the insane and unappeasable passion for a war with the British which had long infected the whole Sikh army. He saw, we believe, the inevitable collision and the inevitable issue. With an infant on the throne, and a woman as prime-minister, the barrier to the torrent was a shadow. And so it happened. The voice of authority was drowned by the thundering tread of thousands and tens of thousands on their march to the Sutlej. Goolab Singh, folding himself in the cloak of neutrality, crouched, cat-like, to watch the vicissitudes of the contest.

The condition of the Punjaub necessarily attracted the anxious attention of our Indian government. The horizon grew blacker every hour, as the total inability of the authorities at Lahore to subdue or restrain the refractory and warlike spirit of the Sikh army, was made more and more manifest in unmistakable characters of blood and violence. Upon the 22d of last November, the Governor-General of India, while moving from Delhi to join the Commander-in-Chief in his camp at Umballah, received from the political agent, Major Broadfoot, an official despatch, dated the 20th November, detailing the sudden intention of the Sikh army to advance in force to the frontier, for the avowed purpose of invading the British territories. This despatch was succeeded by a private communication of the following day, stating the same facts, and inclosing news, letters, and papers of intelligence received from Lahore, which professed to give an account of the circumstances which had led to the movement, which would appear (if these papers are to be depended upon) to have originated with the Ranee and certain of the sirdars, who felt the pressure of the demands of the army to be so urgent, and its present attitude and temper so perilous to their existence, that they desired to turn the thoughts of the troops to objects which might divert their attention from making extortionate demands for higher pay, by employing their energies in hostile operations against the British government.[13 - Governor-General to the Secret Committee, 2d December 1845.]

We shall quote the substance of Major Broadfoot's letters, presenting, as they do, a curious picture of the chaos of matters on the other side of the Sutlej, and forming, likewise, important links in the narrative. The following extracts are taken from his communications on the 20th and 21st of November to the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief: —

"I have received Lahore letters of the 18th instant (morning).

"During the night of the 17th the chiefs had agreed on, and the Durbar had ordered in writing, the following plan of operations: —

"The army was to be divided into seven divisions, one to remain at Lahore, and the rest to proceed against Roopar and our hills, Loodianah, Hurreekee, Ferozepore, and Seinde, while one was to proceed to Peshawer; and a force under Rajah Goolab Singh was to be sent to Attock.

"Each division was to be of 8,000 to 12,000 men against Ferozepore, under Sham Singh Attareewallah, whose estates adjoin the place against which it was to act. Against Hurreekee is to go Rajah Lal Singh; against Loodianah, Sirdar Tej Singh, the new commander-in-chief; and against Roopar, a brother of Sena Singh Mujeeteea.

"The force under Sham Singh is to be 4,000 horse, and two brigades of infantry, with guns; under Raja Lal Singh, 4,500 horse, and two infantry brigades; under Sirdar Tej Singh, four brigades of infantry (one of them irregulars, and one new levies) and 1,000 horse, &c; but till the plans of the Durbar are in actual execution, they cannot be considered fixed, and therefore I do not trouble our Excellency with further details.

"With respect to the probability of their actually moving, I must say that my correspondents in Lahore seem to doubt it, though they are perplexed."

"The Durbar of the forenoon of the 18th was protracted till 2 o'clock, but I have not the details of the afternoon Durbar.

"11 A.M. was the hour found by the astrologers as auspicious for the march of the troops; not a chief stirred from his house. The officers and punchayets of the troops, regular and irregular, to the number of a couple of thousand, crowded to the Durbar and demanded the reason; the Ranee tried to soothe them, saying, that the fortunate hour being passed, the march could not be undertaken till the astrologers found another. The crowd demanded that this should be instantly done, and the court astrologer was ordered into their presence to find the proper time. He pored through his tables for two or three hours, while the Ranee sought to divert the attention of the military mob; at length he announced that the most favourable day was not till the 15th Mujsur (28th November). The military were furious, and declared that he was an impostor, and that they had to get from him two crores of rupees which he had made from the public money; the pundit implored mercy, and said the 7th Mujsur (20th) was also a good day; the military were still angry, and the poor pundit left amidst their menaces.

"They proposed that the Ranee and her son should march, and intimated that till they made an example of some chief no march would take place.

"The Ranee complained that whilst the troops were urging the march, they were still going home to their villages as fast as they got their pay; and Sirdar Sham Singh Attareewallah declared his belief, that unless something was done to stop this, he would find himself on his way to Ferozepore with empty tents. The bait of money to be paid, and to accompany them, was also offered, and at length the Durbar broke up at 2 P.M. Great consultations took place in the afternoon, but I know only one result, that the Ranee had to give to her lover his formal dismissal, and that he (Rajah Lal Singh) actually went into the camp of the Sawars he is to command, and pitched his tent.

"What the Ranee says is quite true of the sepoys dispersing to their houses; the whole affair has so suddenly reached its present height, that many of the men themselves think it will come to nothing, and still more who had taken their departure do not believe it serious enough to go back. On the day after this scene took place, i. e., the 19th, the usual stream of sepoys, natives of the protected states, who had got their pay, poured across the Sutlej, at Hurreekee, on their way to their homes. Every preparation, however, for war is making with probably more energy than if it had been a long-planned scheme; for every person of whatever party must show his sincerity by activity and virulent professions of hatred to the English."

It is proper to add, that Major Broadfoot also announces, that when the Sikh intrigues and commotions assumed a serious form, he had addressed an official letter of remonstrance through the proper channel to Lahore. Five days after these letters were written, on the 26th of November, the Commander-in-Chief and Major Broadfoot joined, at Kurnaul, the Governor-General, who shall be the exponent of his own impressions, intentions, and plans: —

"I had the satisfaction of concurring in all the orders which his Excellency had given, to hold the troops in readiness to move at the shortest notice, and in the instructions which he had sent to the officers in command of the stations at Ferozepore and Loodianah. The force at the former post consists of one European regiment, seven regiments of native infantry, two regiments of native cavalry, and twenty-four field-guns, exclusive of heavy ordnance. The force at Loodianah consists of one regiment of Europeans, five regiments of native infantry, one regiment of native cavalry, and two troops of horse artillery.

"After a full and satisfactory consultation with his Excellency, and taking into consideration the improbability of the Sikh army crossing the Sutlej, I determined that no movement should be made towards the river by the forces from Umballah and Meerut, and I postponed for further consideration with his Excellency any change in the present distribution of the troops; eventually some alterations will be made, which, when they have been finally determined upon between me and the Commander-in-Chief, will be reported to you. At the present moment, his Excellency coincides with me, that no forward movement is required.

"In the midst of much hesitation and irresolution, the enterprise ordered by the Sikh government does not appear to have been formally abandoned; the intelligence received by Major Broadfoot on the day of his joining my camp, showed that the three brigades of the Sikh force had actually left Lahore a few miles in advance, to be followed the next morning by three other brigades including one of artillery. This was on the 24th ultimo. The intelligence received from that date has been communicated to me by Major Broadfoot each day, as it arrives.

"It is said they intend, in reply to Major Broadfoot's remonstrance, to allege that the fact of our having collected so large a force, with all the munitions of war, on the frontier, is the cause of the concentration of their forces on the Sutlej; that they intend to demand the reasons of our preparations; to insist on the surrender to the Lahore government of the treasure which belonged to the late Rajah Soocheyt Singh; the restoration by the Rajah of Nabba of the village of Mowran, escheated by the Rajah, and the escheat confirmed by us; and henceforth the free passage of their troops into the Lahore possessions on this side the Sutlej.

"I need only remark, on the first and most essential point, that the Sikh army did in the beginning of last January prepare to move to the Sutlej. The political agent remonstrated, and the troops were withdrawn; the reason then assigned for the movement being the same as that now intended to be brought forward, namely, the state of our military preparations on the frontier. The Governor-General in Council, in a despatch to Major Broadfoot of the 25th January 1845, entered into very full explanations, which were conveyed to the Lahore Vakeel.

"As regards the past, it is clear that no cause of complaint has been given by the government of India. If it should be asserted that our military preparations this autumn have given offence, the assertion is equally unfounded, and is a mere pretext for hostile proceedings, which have originated in the political weakness and the internal dissensions of the Lahore government; and, above all, in their desire to be released, on any terms, from the terror which the ferocity of their own troops has inspired. The proof is to be found in the fact, that at the time these disorderly movements commenced, no additional British troops had reached our frontier stations. The additional regiment of native infantry, destined for the reinforcement of Ferozepore, had not arrived. At Loodianah one of the two regiments of native cavalry had actually marched for Scinde before it was relieved, leaving that post, as it is at present, with one regiment, instead of the usual complement of two regiments of cavalry. At the other stations no alterations had been made, and the troops which had marched were peaceably engaged in completing the annual reliefs according to custom at this season.

"Such is the state of affairs at the present moment, and although my conviction is strong that the Sikh army will be deterred from acts of aggression, on account of the state of our military preparation, yet it is by no means impossible that we may be forced at any moment into war, and that operations, on a very extended scale, may be immediately necessary.

"My views and measures will be anxiously directed to avoid a recourse to arms, as long as it may be possible. On this point my determination is fixed. At the same time it is very apparent, from the general aspect of affairs, that the period is fast approaching when further changes will take place at Lahore, and that the weak government of the regent will be subverted by the violence of the troops, instigated by the intrigues of the party favourable to the Rajah Goolab Singh.

"I shall not consider the march of the Sikh troops in hostile array towards the banks of the Sutlej as a cause justifying hostilities, if no actual violation of our frontier should occur. The same privilege which we take to adopt precautionary measures on our side must be conceded to them. Every forbearance shall be shown to a weak government, struggling for assistance against its own soldiers in a state of successful mutiny."[14 - Governor-General to the Secret Committee, 2d December 1845.]

A week later, no act of open hostility having yet been committed, the Governor-General, then in the camp at Umballah, was informed that the authorized agent of the court of Lahore had joined the camp. Major Broadfoot was immediately directed to see the Vakeel, and to require from him a reply to the remonstrance, which, as we have said, had been previously made against the proceedings that had taken place at the time it was written. At this conference the Vakeel asserted that he had received no reply from the Durbar at Lahore. The Governor-General acted with the utmost temperance: —

"When Major Broadfoot reported to me, in the evening, the result of this interview, I immediately directed him to address to the Vakeel the written communication, a copy of which is inclosed.