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

CHAP'. VI

THE SIKH ARMY

169

In the year 1822 the French Generals, Ventura and 1822.
Allard, reached Lahore by way of Persia and Afghanistn, Th Sikh
and, after some little hesitation, they were employed and army.
treated with distinction.1 It has been usual to attribute the
superiority of the Sikh army to the labours of these two
officers, and of their subsequent coadjutors, the Generals Arrival of
Court and Avitabile; but, in truth, the Sikh owes his excel- French
officers at
lence as a soldier to his own hardihood of character, to that Lahore,
1822.
'God the helper, Ranjit Singh '-an inscription strongly resembling
the 'God with us' of the Commonwealth of England. Professor
Wilson (Journal Royal Asiatic Society, No. xvii, p. 51) thus seems
scarcely justified in saying that Ranjit Singh deposed N5nak and
Gobind, and the supreme ruler of the universe, and held himself to
be the impersonation of the Khalsa!
With respect to the abstract excellence or moderation, or the
practical efficiency or suitableness of the Sikh government, opinions
will always differ, as they will about all other governments. It is not
simply an unmeaning truism to say that the Sikh government suited
the Sikhs well, for such a degree of fitness is one of the ends of all
governments of ruling classes, and the adaptation has thus a degree of
positive merit. In judging of individuals, moreover, the extent and
the peculiarities of the civilization of their times should be remembered,
and the present condition of the Punjab shows a combination of the
characteristics of rising mediaeval Europe and of the decaying
Byzantine empire-semi-barbarous in either light, but possessed at
once of a native youthful vigour, and of an extraneous knowledge of
many of the arts which adorn life in the most advanced stages of
society.
The fact, again, that a city like Amritsar is the creation of the Sikhs
at once refutes many charges of oppression or misgovernment, and
Col. Francklin only repeats the general opinion of the time when he
says (Life of Shah Alam, p. 77) that the lands under Sikh rule were
cultivated with great assiduity. Mr. Masson could hear of no complaints in Multan (Journeys, i. 30, 398), and although Moorcroft
notices the depressed condition of the Kashmiris (Travels, i. 123) he
does not notice the circumstance of a grievous famine having occurred
shortly before his visit, which drove thousands of the people to the
plains of India, and he forgets that the valley had been under the
sway of Afghan adventurers for many years, the severity of whose
rule is noticed by Forster (Travels, ii. 26, &c.). The ancestors of the
numerous families of Kashmiri Brahmans, now settled in Delhi,
Lucknow, &c., were likewise refugees from Afghan oppression; and
it is curious that the consolidation of Ranjit Singh's power should
have induced several of these families to repair to the Punjab, and
even to return to their original country. This, notwithstanding the
Hinduism of the Sikh faith, is still somewhat in favour of Sikh rule.
1 Murray, Ranjit Singh, p. 131, &c.