1 90 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS.’
2 that they might calculate with certainty on eating
3 their dinner at Feerozpore, or on the bank of the
4 _Sutlej; nay, it was a mooted point, whether they
5 “might not be on the right bank of the Sutlej on the
6 same day, and the Sikhs in full retreat upon Umrit-
7 sir and Lahore, An officer who for some time had
8 held in his hands the direction of the British affairs,
9 as connected with the Lahore government, was of
10 a different opinion from the rest as regarded the
11 warlike purposes of the Sikhs, and the writer of
12 these pages heard Major Broadfoot on the morning
13 of the 20th, when addressing some officers, thus give
14 Opinion en- his opinion, “ You may be prepared for one other
15 Moor Broad- desperate fight at least.” His words were destined to
16 solic ‘te be verified to a further extent than even he had anti-
17 cipated, and this energetic and gallant soldier was
18 doomed to fall in the very struggle which he pre-
19 dicted would take place.
20 Major Broadfoot had been selected by Lord
21 Ellenborough to fill an important post in the
22 Tenasserim district or province; but when Colonel
23 Richmond, chargé d’affaires in the Punjab, was
24 transferred to the residency of Lucknow, the Major
25 was appointed his successor. The military reputa-
26 tion he had acquired in Affghanistan was of the
27 highest order ; there, in the rough defiles and pre-
28 cipitous heights of the Khyber Pass, was he to be
29 seen, ever foremost in the struggle; no danger or
30 difficulty ever arrested his progress in his eager
31 desire to assert the interests and honour of his
32 His high mili: country. He was the admiration of all, and some-
33 lary character.