1 78 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 his contemporaries, the greatness of the future that
3 lay before it. He had been brought up to regard
4 the British as his enemies, and some years had
5 still to elapse before this early prejudice was entirely
6 overcome. On this occasion he would, doubtless,
7 have lent his aid to Holkar, had he not seen the
8 folly of engaging in a conflict in which he knew
9 he must eventually be worsted. At the same time,
10 he was not blind to the advantage of having the
11 British for his neighbours. And that advantage
12 was a very great one ; for it was the knowledge
13 that his eastern frontier was secure from attack
14 that enabled him, throughout his reign, to devote
15 his entire strength to the extension and consolidation
16 of his power. Had the British been conquered
17 in the second Mahratta war, had Delhi become
18 a Mahratta capital and Malwa a Mahratta country,
19 the building up of the kingdom of Lahore could
20 never have been accomplished — could never even
21 have been attempted.
22 The Malwa Sikhs, over whom Ranjit Singh was
23 determined, if possible, to extend his dominion, had
24 no sooner been freed from the anarchy which had
25 prevailed during the Mahratta occupation than they
26 commenced quarrelling amongst themselves. As has
27 already been stated, the Phulkian misl was by far
28 the most powerful of the Cis-Sutlej confederacies.
29 Its founder was one Phul, a Jat, whose ancestors
30 had, as early as the eleventh century, migrated
31 from Rajputana to the district of Sirhind. In 1640
32 Phul became a convert to the Sikh faith. He built
33 a town named after himself, where, under the pro-