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- 101 - THE TRIPARTITE TREATY: The English, The Sikhs & Shuja. ARTICLE TWENTY SEVENTH It is possible that the readers may have heard of this Treaty, which was signed between the English, the Sikhs and Shuja. There would hardly be a Treaty more ridiculous and laughable than this treaty. Quite apart from the fact that a king who had no throne and was a refugee; had no right whatever to contract a treaty; the terms of the reaty make it quite apparent that the degree of greed had made Shuja an object of play in the hands of the Sikhs, and to what extent the Sikhs themse- lves had become the tools of the English chicanry. The text of that document due to its absolutely laughable texture introduce to us Ranjit Singh and Macnaughton. Ranjit wanted to get a documents from the king-without a throne for the acquiring of some land; and the English desired that the amalgamated forces of the Sikhs and those of Shuja may be thrown upan a people, who according to the English, were threatening the western def- ences of India. That all this should be done for the benefit of a policy of imperial expension is quite obvious. The text of this treaty has been copied from a handwritten manuscritpt which contains the facts about the reign of Shashuja; and the style of writig is very good. Shah Shuja, the refugee king, and hiding for his life as a prisoner of the Sikhs, who saw much cruel treatment at hands of Ranjit Singh; and lived at Ludhiana, in his greed to acquaire the throne and land over wihch he once ruled ignominiously was alwsys willing to become the tool of the Sikhs and the English. The treaty which was contracted between Shahshuja, the Sikhs and the English is one of those treaties which are obsol- utely illegal without truth and without a principle, which expresses greed on the part of Shahshuja, on the oart of the Sikhs an urge to acquire territory and on the part of the English it port- rayed the hidden intentions of interference and of placing conflict