Simla, 18th October 1842.
Lord Ellenborough, with his most humble duty to your Majesty, humbly offers to your Majesty his congratulation on the entire success which has attended the operations of the Fleet and Army under your Majesty's direction in the Yantze-Kiang,110 and submits to your Majesty the general order which, on the receipt of the intelligence of that success and of the peace concluded with the Emperor of China upon the terms dictated by your Majesty, he issued to the Army of India.
Your Majesty will have observed that in the letter of the 4th of July to Major-General Nott, that officer was instructed to bring away the gates of the Temple of Somnauth, from the tomb of Mahmood of Ghuznee, and the club of Mahmood also.
The club was no longer upon the tomb, and it seems to be doubtful whether it was taken away by some person of Lord Keane's Army in 1839, or by Shah Sooja, or whether it was hidden in order to prevent its being taken away at that time.
The gates of the Temple of Somnauth have been brought away by Major-General Nott.
These gates were taken to Ghuznee by Sultan Mahmood in the year 1024. The tradition of the Invasion of India by Sultan Mahmood in that year, and of the carrying away of the gates after the destruction of the Temple, is still current in every part of India, and known to every one. So earnest is the desire of the Hindoos and of all who are not Mussulmans to recover the gates of the Temple, that when ten or twelve years ago Runjeet Singh was making arrangements with Shah Sooja for assisting him in the endeavour to recover his throne,111 he wished to make a stipulation that when Shah Sooja recovered his power he should restore the gates to India, and Shah Sooja refused.
Lord Ellenborough transmits for your Majesty's information a copy of the Address he intends to publish on announcing that the gates of the Temple will be restored.112
The progress of the gates from Ferozepore to Somnauth will be one great national triumph, and their restoration to India will endear the Government to the whole people.113
Footnote 110: See ante, p. [441], note 107.