1 136 1 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 turbulent independence became more widely diffused
3 in its ranks, and the soldiers began to look more
4 and more to their officers, and less and less to
5 the government of the state, for the direction of
6 the affairs of the Khalsa. It was not until the
7 evacuation of Kabul and the annihilation of the
8 British garrison had destroyed their belief in the
9 invincibility of British troops, that their attitude
10 became actually threatening. During the remainder
11 of the Afghan war, portions of the Sikh contingent,
12 mainly through the influence of Major Henry
13 Lawrence, the officer in charge of operations at
14 Peshawar, continued to render valuable service ; but
15 the demeanour of other portions was distinctly
16 mutinous. One regiment refused point-blank to
17 take any further part in the campaign, and, in
18 defiance of its officers, marched back to Lahore.
19 This, and other incidents of a similar nature, indi-
20 cated plainly enough the temper of the Sikh army ;
21 and before the end of 1842, a war with the Punjab
22 was looked upon as a certainty.
23 But Ranjit Singh created more than one force
24 which none but himself could control. The Lahore
25 durbar, once his strong hand was withdrawn, became
26 as unmanageable as the army. The powerful chiefs
27 and sirdars of whom it was composed were, as has
28 already been shown, united neither by race nor creed.
29 The allegiance they had yielded to Ranjit Singh they
30 were willing to yield to no other. Each was bent on
31 his own aggrandizement and the downfall of his
32 rivals ; and each was prepared, in the absence of a
33 strong central authority, to secure his ends by