Machine transcription
- 102 -
between the people. Everyone knows that Ranjit Singh from the
time of the Saduzais was merely a governor of the Saduzais in
the Punjab; and that the Sikhs under him, from the early times
of ruler of Zaman Shah at the instigation of the English had
been intrasigent; till the then Saduzai king made him a govenor
of Lahore; a governor of the king of Afghanistan. This Sikh
ruler, taking advantage of the death of Zaman Shah, and the
conflict of the Barakzai Brothers, ha proclaimed himself as a
Maharaja. Nor was it all, but he started a series of aggressions
in Kashmire, in Peshawar and even in the areas beyond the river
Indus. When Amir Doust Mohamed Khan became king and a battle
was fought between him and the Sikhs regarding Peshawar and
animosity was further increased, the Sikhs thought that advantage
should be sought from the antagonism of the Saduzai Shah Shuja
and the Barkazi Brothers; so that the greed of Shah shuja made
he used against the rightful king of Afghanistan. As Shuja was ever
ready to sign a treaty between himself and the Sikhs in order to
gain the throne; but just at that time, the English arrived in the scheme
of things as a third party. Some of the English writers try rery
hard to keep themselves out of the real reason of the devise; and
aplogise that their inclusion was due to the insistence of the
other two; and that the matter of animosity that existed between
the Sikhs and the Afghans was something with which the Engish had
no connection, and it was without the consent of the English that
the Sikhs had been making inroads beyond the Indus; but the
fact is that the inciment did come to the Sikhs from the English
side in the name of Shah Shuja. The first Afghan war, and the
English interference in matters of Afghanistan are factors the
root cause of which can be found in this treaty beteen the
three parties.
In the beginning of this affairs, the English were very pliant;
and were even desirous that an alliance might be cemented between
the Sikhs and Shah Shuja; and it was proposed that only a few
fighting men may be provided by Shah Shuja, and the rest of the army
should consitute the Sikhs; and the cost of the military expedition
may be given by the English. Lord Canning the then Governor
General in India was most keen to see the scheme come to practi-
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.
