[115] Sir William Macnaghten’s Report to the Secretary of Government. Left unfinished at his death.—[MS. Records.]
[116] Report of Major-General Elphinstone.
[117] Letter of Brigadier Shelton: May 28, 1842.—[MS. Records.]—The engineer officer sent by Shelton to the Balla Hissar was Lieutenant Sturt, who had been despatched to the Brigadier’s camp, at Seeah Sungh, with instructions from General Elphinstone, and arrived there about nine o’clock. So writes Lady Sale. Brigadier Shelton’s report confirms the accuracy of that portion of Lady Sale’s narrative—based, it is to be presumed, upon the information of Lieutenant Sturt.
[118] See the expression of the Envoy, in a letter quoted in the Appendix.
[119] Letter from Brigadier Shelton, May 28, 1842.—[MS. Records.]
[120] Major Griffiths.
[121] “As soon,” says Mohun Lal, in a letter to Mr. Colvin, “as the murder of Sir Alexander (whose name was awfully respected), and the pillage of treasure was known in the adjacent villages, it brought next day thousands of men under the standard of the rebels.”—[MS. Records.]
[122] It would seem that the party, instead of taking the shortest and safest route to the Lahore gate, took the longest and the most dangerous.
[123] General Elphinstone had, on the preceding day, expressed his desire to garrison this fort with our own troops; but Sir William Macnaghten declared that it would not be politic to do so.
[124] General Elphinstone speaks of this party as a reinforcement. He says: “On the 4th instant another attempt to throw in reinforcements failed. The troops employed suffered considerably, particularly the 5th Cavalry.” Two different attempts are here mixed up together. Captain Johnson says, that the first was an attempt to reinforce Lieutenant Warren; but that the second, on which the 5th Cavalry were employed, was an attempt to bring off the commissariat guard. Lieutenant Eyre and Lady Sale speak of both movements in the light of efforts made to enable Lieutenant Warren to abandon his position. It is certain that the second was.