1 78 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS.
2 Ranee who now conducted affairs, not to measure
3 arms with a people whom they would not allow to
4 False basis on be wholly invincible like themselves. True, the
5 which formed.
6 British had been the paramount power in India for
7 many years, even the Sikhs on the left bank of the
8 Sutlej avowed its supremacy; but still its army
9 had been annihilated in Affghanistan : and calculat-
10 ing on this disaster as the result of deteriorated
11 skill, instead of the consequence of irresolution, mis-
12 placed confidence, and the inclemency of a northern
13 winter, the Sikhs had now the temerity to resolve to
14 Advantages on encounter the British army in its own territory, or
15 the side of the
16 British.
17 at least on its own side of the Sutlej, led by a de-
18 termined commander who had never known defeat,
19 and supported by the Governor-general of India,
20 a soldier himself, who would spurn all their arts of
21 circumvention, and listen to no terms of peace until
22 he had avenged the insult offered by a proud and
23 ambitious nation, to the country whose welfare had
24 been committed to his charge, and at a season when
25 the cold air of December had invigorated the
26 European frame, and restored many to health and
27 strength, who had been laid on a bed of sickness,
28 during the debilitating and pestilential months of
29 July and August, It is a curious feature in the
30 history of the Sikhs, that instead of crossing the
31 Sutlej in the hot winds, when the European soldier
32 could never withstand the burning sun of India, and
33 his services therefore be unavailable without the
34 risk of death from fever, apoplexy, or cholera, they