1 284 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS.
2 Colonel Outram was not fully capable of managing
3 affairs at Hydrabad in a military capacity, but the
4 very constitution of political diplomacy is inert as
5 regards the semi-barbarous nations of the East.-
6 They pay no respect to civil institutions, and re-
7 gard the exercise of the functions of a political
8 agent as entirely dependent on the military force
9 at his command. Without a demonstration of this
10 power his orders are disregarded; and, therefore,
11 it might be moye effectual were’ orders to issue at
12 once from the military commandant.
13 The disaster at Cabul-is fresh in the recollection
14 of all. The splendid success in Scinde is equally
15 so. With two such glaring examples before’ our
16 eyes of the respective value of political and military
17 control, the choice was apparently easy. The
18 Governor of Scinde was at Lahore, and it becomes
19 a question whether it would not have been more
20 advisable to entrust Sir Charles Napier with the
21 full and complete command of the newly acquired
22 territory in the Punjab, as ‘well as the garrison of
23 Lahore and our political relations with the Sikhs,
24 than to send him back to a country which he had
25 already brought into a state of order and good
26 government. It may be urged, the one command
27 was inferior to the other; but this we are disposed
28 The eligibility to deny. The country of Scinde was under the
29 Napier for the rule of Mussulman Ameers, with a half-disciplined
30 : army which could never have opposed the disci-
31 plined troops of Runjeet Singh. The kingdom of
32 the latter has been virtually subdued by the British,