The following is Mr Campbell’s short and flippant account of that transaction, reminding us in one passage of a letter from the Empress Catherine to one of her French correspondents, wherein she congratulated herself “qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à garder avec les Turcs”:—
“But though we withdrew from Cabool, our military experiences were not yet over. On invading Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass, Scinde became a base of our operations, and troops were there cantoned. When our misfortunes occurred, it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs would have liked to have turned against us, but dared not—did not.
“Major-General Sir C. Napier then commanded a division in Bombay; he was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic temperament, but somewhat quarrelsome disposition; had at one proud period of his life been in temporary charge of a petty island in the Mediterranean, but was, I believe, deposed by his superior—most unwisely, as he considered; and he had ever since added to his military ardour a still greater thirst for civil power—as it often happens that we prefer to the talents which nature has given us those which she has denied us. He was appointed to the command in Scinde; and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer of heroes, subsequently invested him with political powers. He soon quarrelled with the chiefs, and came to blows with them. Their followers were brave, but undisciplined, and they had no efficient artillery. An active soldier was opposed to them; he easily overcame them, declared the territory annexed, and was made Governor of Scinde.”
Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other right to the territory than the sword; and we, having the better sword, were perfectly justified in taking it from them if we chose, without reference to the particular quarrel between Sir Charles and the chiefs, the merits of which have been so keenly disputed, and on which I need not enter. But the question was one of expediency; and this premature occupation of Scinde was not so much a crime as a blunder,—for this very simple reason, that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary, was a very heavy burden, by which the Indian Government has been several millions sterling out of pocket.
“The Ameers had amassed, in their own way, considerable property and treasure, which the general obtained for the army. He was thus rewarded by an unprecedented prize-money, and with the government of Scinde, while Bengal paid the costs of the government he had gained. Scinde was so great a loss, for this reason—that it was not, like other acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous to, our territories, but was at that time altogether detached and separated by the sea, the desert, and the independent Punjab; while on the fourth side it was exposed to the predatory Beloches of the neighbouring hills. Consequently, every soldier employed there was cut off from India, and was an expense solely due to Scinde; and while a great many soldiers were required to keep it, it produced a very small revenue to pay them. It is, in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is the fertile valley of a river running through a barren country, where no rain falls. But there is this difference—first, that while no broader, it is not so long, nor has the fine delta which constitutes the most valuable portion of Egypt; second, that while Egypt is free from external predatory invasion, Scinde is exceedingly exposed to it; and, thirdly, that while Egypt has a European market for its grain, Scinde has not. Altogether, the conquest was, at the time, as concerns India, much as if we had taken the valley of the Euphrates.
“Half a dozen years later, when we advanced over the plain of the Indus, and annexed the Punjab, we must have arranged to control Scinde too, directly or indirectly, as might be done cheapest; but during those intermediate years it was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause of the late derangement of our Indian finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).
The better sword gives the better title! When such is the doctrine maintained, even by a man of the pen, we cannot wonder at its finding a ready expositor in the man of the sword.
But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword plea, having the merit of honesty and openness, is by far the best that has been advanced; and yet, as he shows, it is only available in support of the right, and not of the policy, of the measure. After-events, he observes, alluding to the conquest of the Punjab, have given a value to Scinde, which in itself it did not possess; but he has omitted to remark that the one event very probably grew out of the other. The Sikhs, who not only had refrained, like the Ameers, from molesting, but had even assisted us in our recent difficulties, had some reason for apprehending that, in due time, the policy pursued in Scinde would be extended to their own more inviting country; while, as if to remove an obstacle to an apparently desired misunderstanding, Sir George Clerk was promoted to the nominally higher post of lieutenant-governor of Agra, and an officer, his very opposite in every quality excepting earnest zeal and undaunted courage, was appointed to be his political successor at Lahore.
Though he is little disposed to state any case too favourably for the party opposed to us, this peculiarity in our relations with the Sikhs, immediately before their invasion of our territory, is frankly admitted by Mr Campbell. After mentioning various military movements calculated to give them alarm, he describes a political difficulty as to certain lands belonging to the Sikh state, lying on our side of the Sutledge, which he says had been so managed by two successive political agents, Sir Claude Wade and Sir George Clerk, that through their personal influence “it had so happened that our wishes were generally attended to.” He thus concludes:—
“Sir George Clerk having been promoted, new men were put in charge of our frontier relations, and seem to have assumed as a right what had heretofore been yielded to a good understanding. In 1845 Major Broadfoot was political agent. He was a man of great talent and immense energy, but of a rather overbearing habit. In difficult and delicate times he certainly did not conciliate the Sikhs.... Altogether, I believe the fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk remained in charge of our political relations, the Sikhs would not have attacked us at the time they did; it might have been delayed: but still it was well that they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142, 143.)