[16] Shere Singh despatched urgent purwannahs both to General Avitabile and to Raee Kishen Chund, calling upon them to aid the British by every means in their power. “You are a general of the Khalsa Government,” he wrote to the former, “and noted for the confidence placed in you. This is the time to serve the two allied powers; and you will, therefore, unreservedly devote your attention to discharge your trust, so as to please the two friendly governments, and to earn such a name that the services performed shall be known in London.” To the latter he wrote, “Orders have been issued to Koonwur Pertab Chund to march to Peshawur, and the zeal of the Durbar will at once make itself manifest to Mr. Clerk (as the sun suddenly shining forth from beneath a cloud) when he is informed of all by the letters of Captain Mackeson.”—[MS. Records.] When Mackeson received from George Clerk a copy of the purwannah to Avitabile he was in conference at that officer’s quarters with the Sikh general, Mehtab Singh, and the commandants of all the Sikh battalions. “I read out this purwannah,” says Mackeson, “but was somewhat confounded to find at its conclusion that the Durbar limited the operations of General Avitabile and the Sikh troops to Futtehgurh—their own frontier post. It was fortunate that, before the arrival of this purwannah, the commandants of the auxiliary Mussulman troops had left the room, having previously engaged to march as far as Ali-Musjid in support of our troops, and to move on again with General Pollock’s brigade.”—[Mackeson to Clerk: January, 1842. MS. Records.] The passages referred to in the purwannah might bear this construction, but it is doubtful whether this was their intent. George Clerk, in a marginal note to Mackeson’s letter, says: “The purwannah did not limit it; but directed them to move on to Futtehgurh and act in concert and by Captain Mackeson’s advice.”—[MS. Records.]
[17] A cousin of Captain Mackeson. Holding no recognised place in the army either of the Crown or the Company, his services were neither fairly estimated nor adequately rewarded. But there were few more gallant episodes in the war than his defence of Ali-Musjid. Mr. Mackeson had been long disabled by extreme sickness, but was carried about in a litter to superintend the defence.
[18] See Mackeson to Government: January 27, 1842. Published papers.
[19] “The Nujeebs struck their tents when we did, and moved back to Peshawar, and the Sikhs made no demonstration, though twice we wrote to General Avitabile during the night; and just before daylight I told him they were not moving, and again at sunrise.”—[Captain H. M. Lawrence to Mr. Clerk: 19th January, 1842.] Lawrence adds: “I impute no blame to General Avitabile for the man not telling us what we might expect from his miscreant troops. His own intentions are kind and friendly to our government and ourselves.” The misconduct of the Sikh troops was rendered more atrocious, and our own mortification more bitter, by the circumstance that Mackeson had advanced a lakh and a half of rupees to the Sikh authorities, for the payment of the men whose services we hoped to retain.
[20] “We have been disgracefully beaten back,” wrote Captain Lawrence to Mr. Clerk. “Both our large guns broke down; one was on an elephant, but was taken down to put together when the other failed, but its carriage breaking too, the Sepoys lost all heart, and I grieve to say that I could not get men to bring one off, though I tried for an hour, and at last, finding we were only expending ammunition, we left it in their hands, but it was broken completely down and spiked.”—[MS. Records.]
[21] “I confess,” wrote Captain Lawrence to Mr. Clerk, “that I never heard any very heavy fire, or saw the enemy in any numbers. I was not with the advance, and therefore may be mistaken; but was afterwards within a hundred yards of the advanced gun for an hour or more, and could see into the pass, but observed no breast-work, and but very few of the enemy; certainly not above a thousand, and not half that number of fire-arms.”—[MS. Records.]
[22] The two detachments met at the mouth of the pass.
[23] Mr. G. Clerk to Sir Jasper Nicolls: November 17, 1841. I have taken this passage from a MS. copy. It is quoted, however, in the Blue Book, but with the usual fatality attending such compilations, there are two errors in these few lines. Mr. Clerk is made to say that he had called upon “the commanding officer of Lahore and Ferozepore” to send forward the regiments.
[24] It is not very clear, however, that Captain Lawrence actually made any written requisition to the commanding officer at Ferozepore (Colonel Wild) for the despatch of artillery details. He wrote a private letter to Mr. Clerk, saying: “If four guns can be made effective, they also shall be got ready.” In this letter he says that he was about to call upon Colonel Wild; and he may orally have broached the subject of the guns; but in his official letter, written on the same day (November 14), there is no mention of artillery, although he suggests the expediency of sending forward the 10th Cavalry without delay.
[25] “Though I have not yet heard that any artillery is ordered up to the frontier, I would beg leave to recommend, in anticipation of the speedy arrival of reinforcements so necessary on the Sutlej, that artillery should move forward from hence. I shall transmit a copy of this letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Wild, in case he may think proper to halt one of the regiments under his command, until the arrival of such artillery as you consider can best be spared from Loodhianah or Ferozepore; but the latter is, I believe, for want of horses, incapable of moving; and this leaves an insufficiency for the due protection of this border, during an unsettled state of parties at Lahore.”—[Mr. George Clerk to Major-General Boyd: November 27th, 1841. MS. Records.]