A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

CHAP. V THE SIKHS AND THE ENGLISH

125

punished by his supersession. He was not able, or he did 1803.
not try, to recover his authority by vigorous military
operations; he knew he had committed himself, and he
effected his escape from the suspicious Marathas to the Flees to
theEnglish,
safety and repose of the British territories, which were then then at war
about to be extended by the victories of Delhi and Laswari, with the
Marath~s,
of Assaye and Argaon.1 1803.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century the agents of Firstinterthe infant company of English merchants were vexatiously course ofs
the English
detained at the imperial court by the insurrection of the with the
Sikhs under Banda, and the discreet 'factors ', who were Sikhs.
The
petitioning for some trading privileges, perhaps witnessed mission to
the heroic death of the national Singhs, the soldiers of the Farrukh'Khalsa ', without comprehending the spirit evoked by ar iedeby
the genius of Gobind, and without dreaming of the broad the camfabric of empire about to be reared on their own patient paign
against
labours.2 Forty years afterwards, the merchant Omichand Banda,
1715-17.
1 Cf. Major Smith, Account of Regular Corps in Indian States,
p. 31, &c.
2 See Orme, History,ii. 22, &c., andMill,Wilson's edition, iii. 34, &c.
The mission was two years at Delhi, during 1715, 1716, 1717, and
the genuine patriotism of Mr. Hamilton, the surgeon of the deputation,
mainly contributed to procure the cession of thirty-seven villages
near Calcutta, and the exemption from duty of goods protected by
Englishpasses. This latterprivilege was a turning-point in the history
of the English in India, for it gave an impulse to trade, which vastly
increased the importance of British subjects, if it added little to the
profits of the associated merchants. [It may be added that a dispute
about the issue of those passes brought about an open rupture between
the East India Company and Mir Kasim, Nawab of Bengal, in 1763.
The latter was utterly defeated at the Battle of Bunar in 1764 and,
as one of the terms of peace in the following year-the year of Clive's
return to India-the Diwani (fiscal administration) of Bengal, Bihar
and Orissa was granted by the Emperor Shah Alam to the Company,
in return for a yearly payment of 26 lakhs, while the Nawab, the
successor of Mir Kasim, was deprived of all power and pensioned.ED.]
In the Granth of Guru Gobind there are at least four allusions to
Europeans, the last referring specially to an Englishman. First, in
the Akal Stut, Europeans are enumerated among the tribes inhabiting
India; second and third, in the Kalki chapters of the 24 Autdrs,
apparently in praise of the systematic modes of Europeans; and
fourth, in the Persian Hikayats, where both a European and an
Englishman appear as champions for the hand of a royal damsel,
to be vanquished, of course, by the hero of the tale.