The part enacted during the late war by our old enemies, the Afghans, has been a matter of surprise to many. The natural and religious antipathy between the Afghans and Sikhs is a sufficient cause for a want of co-operation at the outset, but the overthrow of the Feringhee would have been a temptation which, if gilded with a fair chance of success, must have overcome all minor prejudices. Situated at a distance of five hundred miles from the scene of action, and the news travelling at anything but a railroad pace over this long interval, the Afghan chiefs learned of the Sikh invasion and the result of the actions under so many shapes, that they were at a loss which to believe.
Akbar Khan, having assembled his forces, was hurrying in a state of commotion towards the lower gorge of the Khyber pass, when the news of the Sikh defeat at Sobraon reached him, which induced that chief to refrain from any further proceedings. If any entertain a doubt as to whether his real intentions were to co-operate with the British or with the Sikhs, this last measure must amply explain them, for what better opportunity could have presented itself to the mountain chief for striking a blow at Peshawur than the period of paralyzation ensuing after so many rapid and severe defeats of the Sikh forces?
Had matters befallen otherwise, there is little doubt that success on the part of the Sikhs would have ensured the performance of the promises of assistance sent by Akbar Khan to Lahore, and such a swarm of Eastern warriors would have spread over our north-western provinces, as had never been seen since the days of the victorious Nadir Shah.
Affairs being now in a train for settlement, it was no longer deemed necessary to keep the whole army concentrated at Lahore. Two regiments (the 16th Lancers and 31st Foot) were permitted to volunteer previously to proceeding to Calcutta and embarking for England, and as, during such occasions, liquor is freely administered, and discipline necessarily relaxed, the camp afforded daily evidence of the prevailing tastes of the English soldier.
It is a general opinion in the service, and I believe a correct one, that soldiers who have served long in India are not the best material for home employment. It does not at all surprise me, that men who have been employed in storming batteries and overcoming armies, whose days have been passed in marching under the fiery beams of an Eastern sun, and whose nights have been spent in watchfulness through the chilling damps of a January night in India, should not feel much relish for resuming their recruit's skin. When a man has done the utmost which the service requires of him, nay more, when his conduct has become the theme of encomium, and he has enjoyed a private's full share of the thanks of Parliament, he is not generally over well pleased when set assiduously to work at battalion drill with a herd of recruits, to help and make a new regiment. It is on this account, I think, that soldiers who have served in India are not the best qualified for English duties, and not because the habits they have contracted in the East have become so inveterate that they are unable to shake them off. Yet, with this conviction on my mind, it certainly was a painful sight to witness the breaking up of a regiment, which must ensue under the volunteering system. A man awakes on the morrow after his intoxication, and finds that he had bound himself with hopeless fetters to exile. Another presents himself as a willing offering for service in the East, which he could hardly hope to see to an end, abandoning all ties of home and kindred, and embracing with satisfaction, as his adopted country, in lieu of old England, the land of the stranger and of the heathen. How many an anxious mother, or orphan sister, has looked forward, with eager expectation, for the return of a regiment to their native country, and found that after all the perils of war had been overcome, the blandishments of an Eastern bazaar had induced the expected son or brother to abandon and forget the natural ties of kindred, and to separate himself for ever from those who ought to have some hold on his affections!
On the evening of the 3rd of March, previously to the breaking up of the army, the three British cavalry regiments which had been engaged in the late actions, assembled to dine together, when the extensive tables spread under long rows of tents exhibited a motley array of uniforms, and an equally varied collection of dinner-equipage, such as will rarely be met with again. The number of black bottles would have been startling to the advocates of plate and decanters; but on this occasion they were all applied to their legitimate purposes. Formerly, the case had been widely different; for many regiments, after the sorrows of Buddewal, had devoted those unseemly flagons, not only to the service of wine, but to the more urgent calls of illuminating the tables; and Guinness's portly bottles had often stood in homely familiarity beside their more slender and elegant claret brethren; both alas! degraded to the vile purpose of supporting wax candles.
The next morning, the two regiments above-named quitted their fellow-comrades to commence their roasting expedition towards Calcutta; and a few days afterwards, the greater part of the army returned towards their allotted cantonments in India, leaving Sir John Littler, with ten thousand men, to form the garrison of Lahore.
The Governor-general, who had now been raised to the honour of a peerage, proceeded by the sacred city of Umritsir towards his summer abode in the Himalayah mountains; and the forces under Brigadier Wheler, with some additional native corps, occupied the newly-ceded territories in the Jullundur Dooab.
Amidst this general departure and dispersion of our forces, there remained but one troublesome and refractory party, in the killedar, or native governor of a fort, near the foot of the hills, called Kote Kangra. Deaf to the orders from the Lahore Durbar, he resolutely objected to surrender his command; and the fort was known to be so strong, that it was found necessary to despatch additional troops, with some guns of heavier metal, to reduce the place.
For upwards of three months, this obstinate killedar continued to refuse possession of his fortress. After numerous parleys and conferences, which were accorded with the humane intention of preventing any further bloodshed on either side, a suitable train of battering-guns reached the British camp, when, seeing that any further resistance would be hopeless, the commandant of the fort surrendered to the detested Feringees, marching out his garrison with the honours of war.