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52 that the war, now on the point of breaking out, had been so long delayed, owing to the Sikhs being sufficiently engrossed with their own affairs. During the interval since Ranjít Singh's death the disasters and humiliations which the British had suffered in Afghánistán had terribly lowered their prestige and excited the minds of the native races — of none more so than those of the Punjab. Wars, due primarily to the results of these feelings, had ensued in Sind and Gwalior, in the very year after the return of Pollock's army from Afghánistán; and if the Sikhs also had challenged the British power at the same time, the difficulty in dealing with them, great as it proved to be afterwards, would undoubtedly have been very much greater then. The Government therefore had been sensibly relieved by the outbreak of those other wars thus occurring at an opportunely early date, before the more serious crisis arose with the Punjab.

Of course, they had ever since the close of the Afghán war been fully alive to the excited and dangerous state of the Sikh army and the Punjab, and had been arranging to meet the storm whenever it should burst. Major Broadfoot, who had latterly succeeded to the charge of the frontier, had kept Sir Henry Hardinge, who was now the Governor-General, as well informed as possible of the progress of events, and gradually it became but too certain that a war with the Sikhs was inevitable.

Sir Henry however was determined that the Sikhs