1 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS. 313
2 is necessarily the object of dislike to those men who
3 have been disbanded, and it appears clearly, that
4 previous to the Sikh invasion, such a large body of
5 foot and horse had been engaged by the Sikhs, that
6 the payment of their full arrears of pay was out of Impossibility
7 the question. ‘They had received money in hand, ete pay.
8 with a promise of more when the Khalsa troops
9 should reach Delhi and Calcutta. Frustrated in
10 their thirst for conquest, these disappointed hordes
11 being discharged, agreeably to the treaty, are loud
12 in their demands for arrears, and have occasionally
13 asked the aid of the agent, who, in remonstrating
14 with Lal Singh, appeared to excite the displeasure Lal Singh's
15 of the latter, who plainly told him that the treasury Lean
16 of Croesus would not satisfy the cupidity of the?"
17 disbanded troops. He added, that he considered
18 the agent’s business was to assist the Sikh govern-
19 ment in putting down the refractory troops, and
20 not to interfere in matters of payment.
21 As the mutinous Sikh army crossed the Sutlej
22 against the wish of the government, whose treasury
23 it had exhausted, and in the full hope of procuring
24 means of supporting itself in the British territories,
25 it appears somewhat unreasonable that the Sikh
26 government should now be expected to settle the
27 arrears; such a compromise would defeat the ends
28 of justice. If discontented and unruly subjects pisbandea
29 chose to engage in war, in defiance of the govern- poeaneten:
30 ment, they must expect the just reward of such"
31 conduct, by either falling in the field of battle, or
32 receiving their discharge with ignominy.
33 Dascontent must. of course. follow the measnres