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Rh to draw the sword, and they were the first to lay it down and end the contest for supremacy by manly submission.

On the 1st February Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General, always definite and specific in his ideas, declared that "the peace and vital interests of the British Empire now require that the power of the Sikh Government should not only be defeated but subverted, and their dynasty abolished." In his words, the victory gained at Gujerat was "memorable from the greatness of the occasion, and from the brilliant and decisive nature of the encounter,—it equalled the highest hopes entertained." On the 29th March 1849 he proclaimed that "the kingdom of the Punjab is at an end, and that the territories of Maharaja Ranjit Singh are now and henceforth a portion of the British Empire in India." All the inhabitants of the Punjab, sardars and people, were called upon to submit themselves peacefully to the authority of the British Government. "Over those who shall live as obedient and peaceful