“The bearer will deliver to you General Smith’s minutes. I have read them with much interest, and am much tempted to give you some of the reflections they have given rise to, but if I began I should run into a dissertation. Give the General my best thanks, and believe me,
“[G. Broadfoot] [Signature cut off].
“Major Havelock, C.B.”
[[128]] “Dâk: post, relays of palanquins or other carriages along a road” (Anglo-Indian Dictionary).
[[129]] For 26 December, 1843.
[[130]] “The Governor-General, with the ladies of his camp, rode on elephants beside the advancing columns” (Trotter, India under Victoria, vol. i. p. 100).
[[131]] Lord Keane.
[[132]] Sir Charles Napier, writing to Harry Smith early in 1844, treats humorously of the presence of Lady Gough, Juana Smith, etc., under fire at this battle. “I congratulate you on your feats of arms. You had a tough job of it: these Asiatics hit hard, methinks. How came all the ladies to be in the fight? I suppose you all wanted to be gloriously rid of your wives? Well, there is something in that; but I wonder the women stand so atrocious an attempt. Poor things! I dare say they too had their hopes. They talk of our immoral conduct in Scinde! I am sure there never was any so bad as this. God forgive you all. Read your Bible, and wear your laurels.”—W. Napier’s Life of Sir Charles Napier (1857), vol. iii. p. 45.
[[133]] On Sir Harry Smith’s appointment to the command of the 1st Division, his duties as Adjutant-General devolved upon Lieut.-Colonel Barr.
[[134]] It will be noted that Sir Harry Smith, in spite of all that followed, supports Sir H. Hardinge’s military judgment in the famous dispute on this occasion between him and Sir H. Gough. A contrary view is taken in Gough and Innes’ The Sikhs, etc., p. 107.