1 The Last Years of Ranjit Singh. 135
2 Until his death, Ranjit Singh never lost sight of
3 the fact that the welfare, nay, the very existence,
4 of his kingdom depended on the maintenance of
5 friendly relations with the British. The Sikhs
6 supported him in this, as they would have supported
7 him in any other policy, not because they approved
8 of it, but because it was his. During the latter part
9 of his reign they had shown, more than once,
10 that they did not approve of it; but they had
11 invariably bent before the iron will of their master.
12 It was not that the Sikhs had any special animosity
13 against the British as such ; they disliked the British
14 alliance because they distrusted British policy, the
15 ultimate object of which they conceived to be the
16 destruction of the strength of the Khalsa as a
17 military power. Ranjit Singh was statesman enough
18 to see that, so long as the British alliance existed,
19 it was to the advantage of the Government of India
20 to promote the welfare of the Sikh kingdom. Of the
21 two incapable rulers who followed, there is at least
22 this much to be said, that, in their dealings with the
23 paramount power, they endeavoured to follow in the
24 steps of their illustrious predecessor ; but whereas
25 the latter was strong enough to dictate his own policy
26 to the Khalsa, the former were but tools in the hands
27 of their more skilful and utterly unscrupulous
28 ministers and favourites, and the chief reason why
29 they supported the alliance was that they feared their
30 own army even more than they feared the British.
31 Some time, however, elapsed before the army took
32 matters into its own hands by openly declaring war
33 against the British ; but every day the spirit of