other. In this state a small body of Sikh horsemen, intoxi- A.D. cated with drugs, rushed on the centre in a mass, and 1849 caused a sensation of terror among the native cavalry which nothing could counteract. Just at this crisis some one in the 14th Dragoons uttered the words "Threes about!" The regiment at once turned to the rear and moved off in confusion, and as the Sikh horse pressed on, it galloped headlong in disgraceful panic through the cannon and waggons posted in the rear. The Sikh horse entered the line of artillery with the dragoons and captured four guns. The shades of evening put an end to the conflict. The troops were half dead with fatigue and parched with thirst, but no water could be procured except at Chillianwalla, two miles distant, to which the Commander-in-Chief was obliged to withdraw the force. During the night, parties of Sikh troops and of the armed peasantry traversed the forest which had been the scene of combat, mutilating the slain and murdering the wounded, and rifling both.

All

the guns
which had been secured during the engagement
were carried off, with the exception of twelve, which had
been brought into the camp.

Such was the battle of Chillianwalla, the nearest approximation to a defeat of any of our great conflicts in India. The Sikh army was not overthrown, but retired Results of to another position three miles from the field. the battle. Four British guns were captured, the colours of three regiments were lost, the reputation of the British cavalry deplorably tarnished, while the character of Sikh prowess was proportionately elevated. The number of killed and wounded, including eighty-nine officers, was 2,446. The Governor-General officially pronounced it a victory, and it was announced by salutes at all the Presidencies; but he was anticipated by Shere Sing, who fired a salute the same evening in honour of his triumph. By the community in India it was considered a great and lamentable calamity. The intelligence of the combat was received in England with a feeling of indignation and alarm. British standards had been lost; British cannon had been captured; British cavalry had fled before the enemy, and a British regiment had been annihilated. These disasters were traced, and justly, to the wretched tactics of Lord Gough, and he was recalled, with the full approval of the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Charles Napier was sent out to supersede him.

HB

LORD DALHOUSIE'S

ADMINISTRATION
THE SANTALE.

Siege of

THE Conflict at Chillianwalla had so seriously crippled the infantry as to constrain Lord Gough to await the capture of Mooltan and the arrival of General Whish's Mooltan. force before he undertook any further operations. At Mooltan the advantages gained by the spirited exertions of Lieutenant Edwardes had been lost by the defection of Shere Sing. Moolraj regained possession of the province and of its resources, and was enabled to provision the fort and to improve its fortifications. General Whish, who had retired to a fortified position in the neighbourhood, was doomed to three months of inaction by the dilatoriness of the Bombay military authorities in forwarding reinforceA.D. ments. The Bombay troops on their arrival raised his army 1848 to 17,000, with sixty four heavy guns, and he recommenced

the siege on the 27th December. After clearing the suburbs, which was not effected without the loss of 300 men and seventeen officers, the batteries opened on the town, and for five days and nights the discharge from howitzers, cannon, and mortars never ceased. On the third day the fury of the combatants was for a few moments arrested by the explosion of a magazine in the town containing 400,000 lbs. of gunpowder, which shook the earth for miles and darkened the sky with smoke. After a brief pause the firing was renewed, the Bombay and Bengal artillery vying with each other and the enemy vying with both. On the 2nd January the city was stormed, and presented a melancholy picture of desolation; the buildings had crumbled under the storm of shot and shell, which had never been suspended for 120 hours, and the streets were strewed with the dead and dying. Moolraj continued to hold the citadel with about 3,000 troops for another fortnight, and he and his brave soldiers sustained the most terrific fire of ordnance, direct and vertical, which had ever been discharged in India within the same narrow limits. At length, when every roof but one had been demolished, and the incessant 1849 volleys became insupportable, the valiant chief surrendered at discretion, and on the 22nd January rode into the English camp, his chiefs and soldiers prostrating themselves before him in passionate devotion as he passed.

Arrange

Guzerat.

After the battle of Chillianwalla the Sikh and British A.D. troops lay encamped within a few miles of each other for 1849 twenty-five days; the one at Russool and the other at Chillianwalla. On the 6th February ments of the Shere Sing evaded Lord Gough and marched battle of unperceived round the British entrenchments, and established his headquarters at Guzerat. The last brigade of General Whish's army having joined Lord Gough on the 20th February, the army moved up to that town. General Cheape, of the Bengal engineers, who had directed the siege of Mooltan with that professional skill and personal energy to which its success is to be attributed, joined the camp a week before the battle and assumed charge of the engineering department. With unwearied industry he applied himself to the duty of obtaining the most accurate information of the position of the enemy, the absence of which had produced the lamentable results of Maharajpore, Moodkee, and Chillianwalla. The army of Shere Sing, estimated at 50,000 men, with sixty pieces of cannon, was posted in front of the walled town of Guzerat, with the left supported on a streamlet, while the right was protected by the deep dry bed of the Dwara. Between them was a space of about three miles with two villages, loopholed and filled with troops. In all Lord Gough's battles he had trusted more to the bayonet than to his cannon, and the carnage had been severe. In the present case the principle was reversed. On the day preceding the engagement it was determined by the able engineer officers with the force that the artillery, in which no army in India had been so strong, should be brought into full play, and that the charge of the infantry should be reserved till the consistency of the Sikh army had been broken by the guns.

The infantry divisions and brigades advanced in parallel lines with eighty-four pieces of cannon in front, and the cavalry on the flanks. The army, invigorated by The battle of rest and food, broke ground at half past seven. Guzerat. The morning was clear and cloudless, and the sun shone brightly on the extended lines of bayonets and sabres. The Sikhs, ever ready with their batteries, opened them at a long range. The British infantry was halted beyond their reach, and the artillery pushed boldly to the front and commenced a cannonade, of which the oldest and most experienced soldiers had never witnessed a parallel for magnificence and effect. The Sikhs fired with great rapidity, but it was manifest that neither human fortitude nor the

A.D. best materials could withstand the storm which for two 1849 hours and a half beat on their devoted artillery; not a single musket was discharged before the fire of their formidable line had been subdued. The infantry then deployed and commenced a steady advance supported by their field batteries. The Sikhs fought with desperation, but the two villages were at length carried by the ardent courage of the British troops, and the whole Sikh line gave way and was pursued round the town by all the brigades of infantry. The cavalry, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, was then let loose, and onward they rushed, riding over and trampling down the flying and scattered infantry of the Sikhs, and converting the discomfited enemy into a shapeless mass of fugitives. It was not till half-past four, after they had advanced fifteen miles beyond Guzerat, that the cavalry drew rein, and by that time the army of Shere Sing was a wreck, deprived of its camp, its standards, and fifty-three pieces of cannon. The battle of Guzerat was one of the noblest achievements of the British army in India, and as it was gained by the judicious use of the arm in which the force had a preponderating power, it has justly been designated the "battle of the guns." The happy contrivance by which the Commander-in-Chief was restrained from interfering with the order of battle, and hurling the infantry, as usual, on the enemy's batteries, is well known.

Pursuit of

The day after the battle Sir Walter Gilbert left the camp with 12,000 infantry, cavalry, and horse artillery, and pursued the relic of the Sikh army, now reduced the Sikhs to about 16,000 men, along the great high road andAfghans. of the Indus, with such rapidity as to allow them no breathing time, and they sent Major George Lawrence, who had been their prisoner since he left Peshawur, to make terms with the general. On the 12th March Shere

Sing and Chutter Sing delivered up their swords to him at the celebrated monument of Manikyla, once considered a trophy of Alexander the Great; thirty-five subordinate chiefs laid their swords at his feet, and the Khalsa soldiers advanced one by one, and, after clasping their weapons, cast them upon the growing pile with a heavy sigh. It only remained to dispose of the Afghans whom Dost Mahomed had sent to co-operate with the Sikhs. The veteran Gilbert followed them across the Indus, with the buoyancy of youth, and chased them up to the portals of the Khyber, and, as the natives sarcastically remarked, "those who had

"rode down the hills like lions ran back into them like A.D.

"dogs."

Annexation

The battle of Guzerat decided the fate of the Punjab and finally quenched the hopes of the Khalsa soldiers. It was no ordinary distinction for that noble army to have met the conquerors of India successively at of the Moodkee, at Ferozeshuhur, at Aliwal, at Šob- Punjab. raon, at Chillianwalla, and at Guzerat; but after six such conflicts they resigned themselves with a feeling of proud submission to the power which had proved stronger than themselves, and there has never since been the slightest attempt at disturbance. The Punjab was now, by the indefeasible right of a double conquest, after unprovoked aggression, at the disposal of the British Government, and as there was not time for any reference to the Court of Directors, Lord Dalhousie annexed it to the Company's dominions, in a proclamation which stated that, "as the only "sure mode of protecting the Government of India from "the perpetual recurrence of unprovoked and wasting wars, "he was compelled to resolve on the entire subjugation of a "people whom their own government had long been unable "to control, whom no punishment could deter from violence, "and no acts of friendship could conciliate to peace."

The

On the 29th of March the youthful maharaja Duleep Sing took his seat for the last time on the throne of his father, and in the presence of the high British functionaries and the nobles of his court, heard Lord Dalhousie's proclamation read, and then affixed his initials to the deed which transferred the kingdom of the five waters to the Company, and secured to himself an annuity of five lacs a year. British colours were hoisted on the ramparts, and a royal salute announced the fulfilment of Runjeet Sing's prediction that "the Punjab also would become red,"—in allusion to the colour which distinguishes the British possessions on the map of India. The jageers of the leaders of the rebellion were confiscated, and they retired into oblivion on small stipends. Moolraj, after a fair trial before a special court, was sentenced to imprisonment for life, but died within a short time. Lord Dalhousie was elevated to the dignity of a Marquis, the fourth marquisate bestowed on the Governors-General who had enlarged the Company's territories. The reproach of Chillianwalla was forgotten in the triumph of Guzerat, and Lord Gough received a step in the peerage.

Lord Dalhousie, having thus annexed the Punjab to the

1849