1 XVIII INTRODUCTION.
2 Heera Sing was the Alexis, the delicias domini : I do not
3 mean to assert, however, that Dulleep Sing is the offspring
4 of the old impotent sinner, but he certainly is his mother's
5 son, and that may give him some small claim to the Guddee.*
6 I think it is in Don Juan, Byron says of the Emperor Alex-
7 ander of Russia,
8 " Oh mighty Alexander, if you be,
9 Your mother's son, that's quite enough for me ;"
10 and had Sheer Sing been the son of Metab Kour, it would have
11 been quite enough for the British Government ; and Sir William
12 Macnaghten would never have asserted that he could not by
13 the most forced construction be considered the posterity of
14 Runjeet Sing.
15 Our connection with the Lahore Government, it is supposed,
16 was much the same as our connection with Bhurtporejf the
17 Rajah was independent, but we were bound to support the
18 reigning family, and yet, when Sir David Ochterlony (clarum
19 et venerabile nomen) had the moral courage to come for-
20 ward, and convince the Indian community that even a petty
21 Prince might rely on the fulfilment of a Treaty entered into
22 with the paramount authority, he was rebuked and disgraced
23 by the Members of the Government at the time, with the
24 exception (according to his own statement) of Sir Edward
25 Paget; for this high-minded man has no paltry feelings;
26 he is as little acquainted with jealousy as with fear, and
27 would have been delighted if Sir David Ochterlony had taken
28 Bhurtpore, and obtained the Peerage \ — but the unjust treat-
29 * Dulleep Sing's mother, Mai Chunda, was not, however, one of Runjeet Sing's
30 wives; he was only married to two women, Metab Kour, the daughter of Suda
31 Kour and Mai Nekee, the mother of Kurruck Sing ; and he only performed even
32 the Chadardalna with three women, namely, the two widows of Sahib Sing, of
33 Guzerat, and Gool Begum, a Kunchenee of Lahore.
34 t See Agra Guide and Gazetteer.
35 t Ochterlony's military reputation was established, and he had no wish to wade
36 through carnage to a Coronet ; but on the contrary was a peacemaker, like the
37 able and amiable Metcalfe; his letter to Lord Amherst shews he would have