1 A. D. 1809. ADVANCE OF BRITISH ARMY. 67
2 under the command of Major General St. Leger, to be
3 prepared for any extended operations, the activity, and
4 supposed hostile desig^ns of RuNJEET Singh might ren-
5 der necessary.
6 Colonel OcHTERLONY crossed the Jumna at Booreea
7 on the 16th January 1809, and as he approached Umbala,
8 RuNJEET Singh's detachment left there retired to the
9 Sutlej. Taking- en route the several places visited by the
10 Sikh army, the British commander reached Loodeeana
11 on the Sullej, and took up a position there on the 18th
12 February following. His march was hailed by the people
13 and chiefs, as affording the promise of future protection
14 and tranquillity, and they vied with one another in the
15 display of their gratitude and satisfaction.
16 Up to this period, Runjeet Singh had maintained
17 in the conferences to which the envoy was admitted, that
18 the Jumna, and not the Sutlej, was the proper boundary
19 of the British possessions, and that in right of his supre-
20 macy over the Sikh nation, no less than as Governor of
21 Labor, he was warranted in asserting feudal superiority
22 over all the chiefs of that nation between those two rivers.
23 The existing independence of Puteeala and the other
24 principalities, had no weight in argument with a chief,
25 whose domination was the right to plunder and usurp,
26 according to the condition of his army, and who aimed
27 only to secure himself this. The arrival of Colonel OcH-
28 TERLONY on the Sutlej, however, opened his eyes to a
29 new fear, which was, that if he longer resisted, oflers of
30 protection might be made to chiefs in the Punjab, which
31 would effectually curb his ambitions views, and must
32 involve him in collision — and, perhaps, hostility, with a
33 I 2