1 20 EARLY HISTORY OF RUNJEET SING.
2 Punjaub a battle field for two foreign armies. He, however,
3 hastened to Lahore and there received Jeswunt Rao the chief
4 of the Mahrattas, but gave him so little encouragement to hope
5 for aid, that instead of continuing his flight through the coun-
6 try the fugitive chief was content to make terms with his
7 pursuers, and thus the evil which Runjeet dreaded was averted.
8 In 1808, the British Indian Government desiring to engage
9 Runjeet Sing, now one of the acknowledged princes of India, in
10 a grand combination against the ambitious designs of Napoleon
11 who meditated an invasion of the country, sent one of its
12 servants, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe on a mission to the
13 Seik Chief. The British envoy found Runjeet engaged in the
14 subjugation of the various independent states betwixt the Sutlej
15 and the Jumna. As the British claimed the sovereignty
16 of all the territory up to the Sutlej they protested against
17 these proceedings of the Seik Chief; and being ready to back
18 their protest with an armed force, Runjeet deemed it pru-
19 dent to listen to their remonstrance. Negotiations ensued,
20 and the result was that he was allowed to retain possession of the
21 states he had already won, while those which had not yet
22 submitted to him were taken under British protection. He
23 was by the treaty now executed, confined in a great measure
24 to the right bank of the Sutlej, not being allowed to maintain
25 more troops to the south of that river than were absolutely
26 necessary for the internal duties of the small states then belong-
27 ing to him. The Sutlej thus became the proper boundary of
28 his dominions to the south and east, and so it continued
29 until his dying day.
30 It was while Mr. Metcalfe was at Umritsir carrying on
31 negotiations with the Maharajh of the Seiks, as Runjeet
32 now called himself, that an event occurred which, though trivial
33 in itself not only inspired the latter with a profound respect
34 for the power of his British neighbours, but made him anxious
35 to possess himself of similar means of securing respect.