1 80 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 Lahore for decision, a famous brass cannon and
3 a necklace of diamonds being offered as payment
4 for his services. This time the dispute was ended
5 before the umpire arrived on the scene, and Ranjit
6 Singh had some difficulty in establishing his claim
7 to the promised reward. But the army at his back
8 was a powerful argument in his favour, and the
9 gun and necklace were handed over. As before,
10 the Maharaja turned the occasion to his own ad-
11 vantage, and, ere recrossing the Sutlej, he had
12 reduced the greater portion of the Firozpur district.
13 These aggressions were viewed with apprehension
14 both by the British and by the Cis-Sutlej chiefs.
15 The latter had no desire to accept the ruler of
16 the Punjab as their overlord, and to preserve their
17 independence, which they regarded as the birth-
18 right of every true Sikh, they decided to appeal
19 to the British Government for protection. Accord-
20 ingly, a deputation, headed by the chiefs of Jind
21 and Patiala, was dispatched to Delhi to lay their
22 cause before Mr. Seton, the Resident. Had the
23 policy of the British not been influenced by other
24 and weightier causes, there is no doubt that the
25 request of the chiefs would have been fully complied
26 with, and steps would then and there have been
27 taken to confine Ranjit Singh to the north of the-
28 Sutlej. But the dread of Napoleon and his scheme
29 for the establishment of a French-Indian empire
30 was, at this time, the dominating factor in Asiatic
31 politics. In the council chamber at Calcutta the
32 possibility of a French invasion influenced the de-
33 cisions on all questions of foreign policy, and