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

132

HISTORY OF THE SIKHS

CHAP. V

1803-5. In little more than a year after Shah Zaman quitted the
Shah Za- Punjab, he was deposed and blinded by his brother Mahmfid,
man de- who was in his turn supplanted by a third brother, Shah
ShS dMah Shuja, in the year 1803. These revolutions hastened the
mud and fall of the exotic empire of Ahmad Shah, and Ranjit Singh
theDurrani was not slow to try his arms against the weakened Durrani
weakened; governors of districts and provinces. In 1804-5 he marched
to the westward; he received homage and presents from
wherefore the Muhammadans of Jhang and Sahiwal, and Muzaffar
Ranjit
Singh pro- Khan of Multan, successfully deprecated an attack by rich
ceeds to the offerings. Ranjit Singh had felt his way and was satisfied;
south-west
of the Pun- he returned to Lahore, celebrated the festival of the Holi
jab, 1805. in his capital, and then went to bathe in the Ganges at
Hardwar, or to observe personally the aspect of affairs to
the eastward of the Punjab. Towards the close of 1805 he
made another western inroad, and added weight to the
fetters already imposed on the proprietor of Jhang; but
Returnsto the approach of Holkar and Amir Khan recalled, first
the north Fateh Singh, and afterwards himself, to the proper city of
on Holkar's
approach, the whole Sikh people. The danger seemed imminent, for
1805. a famed leader of the dominant Marathas was desirous of
bringing down an Afghan host, and the English army, exact
in discipline, and representing a power of unknown views
and resources, had reached the neighbourhood of Amritsar.1
A Sikh A formal council was held by the Sikhs, but a portion
Gurfi- only of their leaders were present. The singleness of purpose,
matta, or
national the confident belief in the aid of God, which had animated
council, mechanics and shepherds to resent persecution, and to
triumph over Ahmad Shah, no longer possessed the minds
of their descendants, born to comparative power and
affluence, and who, like rude and ignorant men broken
loose from all law, gave the rein to their grosser passions.
officers the public is indebted for the preservation of a continuous
narrative of Ranjit Singh's actions.
The latter portion of the present chapter, and also chapters VI
and VII, follow very closely the author's narratives of the British
connexion with the Sikhs, drawn up for Government, a [literary] use
which he trusts may be made, without any impropriety, of an unprinted paper of his own writing.
1 See Elphinstone, Kabul, ii. 325; and Murray, Ranjft Singh,
pp. 56, 57.