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590 army, for which purpose he had taken into his service many officers who had been long trained in the wars of Napoleon, it must be admitted that the army and the general who were now called on to cope with them in the field had a more arduous task before them than any hitherto recorded in our military annals.

It is quite unnecessary, and indeed would only tend to puzzle the reader, to give anything like an historical account of the Sikhs prior to our collision with them on the Sutledge. It will be sufficient to say that, on the death of their great and sagacious sovereign, Runjeet Singh, or the Lion of Lahore, who had always carefully maintained a friendly connexion with the English, the government, in the impotent hands of his successor, became, as is usual in the East, a mere focus of intrigues, plots, and cabals; producing a fruitful harvest of outrage, assassination, and wholesale slaughter. In these frightful transactions, the leaders of the army bore an active part; and, could they have agreed amongst themselves, might unwittingly have imitated the Prætorian bands, and set the empire up to auction. The Court intriguers, however, who then monopolised the royal authority, with a degree of cunning that base minds are so often gifted with, directed the energies of the troops into another channel, and held up to their vanity and ambition the glory of a contest with the English, who, though they had conquered all other nations of the East, must necessarily yield to their superior prowess.

Unhappily for themselves, the army of the Punjaub embraced the idea with enthusiasm. The soldiery talked of themselves as pre-eminently the "Punt'h Khalsajee," or congregation of believers, and their leaders were awed into submission by the resolute spirit with which they were animated. They had been accustomed, under Runjeet Singh, to invasions and conquests, and to the profits derivable therefrom. They were elated by many years of success; they formed an immense force numerically; they possessed what seemed inexhaustible military stores;