The Sikh fire became more feeble, their best battalions unsteady, and the British pressed boldly on. Wavering troops rarely withstand a struggle when the bayonet comes into play, and the Khalsas broke entirely, and hurried from the field to the river and bridge. But the hour of retributive vengeance had arrived, and the waters of the Sutlej offered small protection to the fugitives. The stream had risen, the fords were unsafe, and flying from the fire of the horse-artillery, which had opened on the mobbed fugitives with grape shot, hundreds fell under this murderous cannonade, while thousands found a grave in the no longer friendly waters of their native rivers, until it almost excited the compassion of an irritated enemy.
At every point the intrenchments were carried. The horse artillery galloped through, and both they and the batteries opened such a fire upon the broken enemy as swept them away by ranks. “The fire of the Sikhs,” says the commander-in-chief, “first slackened, and then nearly ceased; and the victors then pressing them on every side, precipitated them over the bridge into the Sutlej, which a sudden rise of seven inches had rendered hardly fordable. The awful slaughter, confusion, and dismay were such as would have excited compassion in the hearts of their conquerors, if the Khalsa troops had not, in the early part of the action, sullied their gallantry by slaughtering and barbarously mangling every wounded soldier whom, in the vicissitudes of attack, the fortune of war left at their mercy.
At Sobraon, the final blow which extinguished the military power of the Sikhs, was delivered. Sixty-seven pieces of artillery, two hundred camel-guns, standards, tumbrils, ammunition, camp equipage—in a word, all that forms the matériel of an army in the field, fell into the hands of the victors. In native armies, no regular returns of the killed and wounded are made out, but the Sikh losses were computed at 8000 men, and the amount was not exaggerated.
On the bloody height of Sobraon the Sikh war virtually terminated, for, on that evening, the Anglo-Indian army commenced their march upon Lahore. Frightfully defeated, and humbled to the dust, the once haughty chiefs sent vakeels to implore mercy from the conqueror. The ambassadors, however, were refused an audience, and it was intimated that the British generals would condescend to treat with none except the Maharajah in person.
Trembling for his capital, which nothing but abject submission now could save, the youthful monarch, attended by Rajah Goolab Singh, repaired to the British camp. Stringent terms were most justly exacted, and while the rich district between the Sutlej and the Beeas, and what were termed “the Protected States,” were ceded for ever to Britain, a million and a half sterling was agreed to by the Sikh durbar, as compensation for the expenditure of the war, while the Punjaub should remain in military occupation until the full amount should be discharged.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE BATTLE OF MARTABAN.
1852.
The treaty of Yundaboo concluded the Burmese war of 1824. By its terms, the safety of British commerce and British merchants in Burmah was assured, and for a long period following the termination of the war the terms of the treaty were rigidly adhered to. By degrees, however, a spirit of resentment against the British began to spring up in the only half-civilised country, and in 1851 such resentment found open expression.
In the course of that year, a Mr. Sheppard, the master and owner of a trading vessel of Madras, complained to the Indian Government that he had been seized, ill treated, and imprisoned by the Governor of Rangoon, upon a false charge of throwing a man overboard, that his vessel had been detained, and over a thousand rupees extorted from him; adding that this was one of many acts of injustice, oppression, and tyranny suffered by British subjects in that port. Shortly after, another master of a British ship made a similar complaint, alleging that he had been subjected to extortions, as well as insult and indignity, by the Governor, on an equally false charge of murdering one of his crew. At the same time a memorial was sent from the merchants of Rangoon to the Governor-General of India, in which they alleged that they had, for a long time, suffered from the tyranny of the Burmese authorities, that trade was seriously obstructed, and that neither life nor property was safe, as the Governor had publicly stated to his dependants that he had no more money to give them, and had granted them his permission to get money as they could; that he had frequently demanded money without any pretext, and tortured the parties asked until his demands were complied with; and that, in short, affairs had arrived at such a crisis that, unless protected, the British merchants in Rangoon would be obliged to leave the country.
After careful consideration, the Governor-General came to the conclusion that the treaty of Yundaboo had been unquestionably set at nought, that gross injustice and oppression had been perpetrated, and that the court of Ava should make due reparation. Accordingly, Commodore Lambert, with H.M.S. Fox and two other steamers, was at once despatched to Rangoon to enforce this demand of the Indian Government, and to present a letter to the King of Ava setting forth the Government’s grounds for the taking of such a step.