1 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS. 141
2 very doubtful. He was brought a prisoner to
3 Akhberwala, and along with him four of the cap- Peart
4 . tured guns. ‘These were exquisitely finished and broughé from
5 ornamented. They had been manufactured by hed-auarters.
6 Lena Singh Majeetheea, who paid great attention
7 to the mechanical arts.
8 When the army of the Sutlej crossed that river Poder is shter
9 at a later period,and the prisoners captured at Bud- et.
10 deewal were restored by Goolab Singh, they stated
11 that but for Potter their condition would have been
12 worse, and that he had interceded for them. The
13 Governor-general, therefore, gave Potter his liberty.
14 Potter was not the only European soldier in the
15 Sikh force. A man named Lairdie, under the as- Boies and
16 joyle deser-
17 sumed name of Sultan Mohummud, and who had ters from the
18 British, also in
19 deserted from Captain Delafosse’s troop of horse the Sikh army.
20 artillery in 1842 or 1843, was among the Sikhs,
21 and a man named Boyle, a deserter from the first
22 European light infantry, likewise. The artillery- Ten ae of
23 men must have been of infinite service to the Sikhs eee
24 in training them as gunners, and the conduct of the
25 latter showed that their instructors had not be-
26 stowed their labour in vain. The Sikh gunners Brig
27 were as much attached to their guns as are the Sikh gunners
28 ¥ ‘o their guns,
29 Native artillery-men of Hindostan: at Alleewal,
30 for example, one of these brave fellows was found
31 clasping his gun, and could not be separated from
32 it until cut down or bayoneted.
33 The battle of Alleewal was a fortunate and brilliant ? coarine and
34 event : Loodianah was released, the Sikhs dispersed vistny a
35 and driven across the Sutlej, after losing all their