R. H. Gretton

Source.—Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837-1861, vol. ii., p. 257.
(London: 1907.)

The Earl of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria.

Camp, Ferozepore, March 24, 1849.

The Governor-General is not without fear that he may have intruded too often of late upon your Majesty’s time. But he is so satisfied of the extreme pleasure which your Majesty would experience on learning that the prisoners who were in the hands of the Sikhs, and especially the ladies and children, were once again safe in the British camp, that he would have ventured to convey to your Majesty that intelligence, even though he had not been able to add to it—as happily he can—the announcement of the surrender of the whole Khalsa army, and the end of the war with the Sikhs.

Major-General Gilbert pushed on rapidly in pursuit of the Sikhs, who were a few marches in front of him, carrying off our prisoners with them.

At Rawul Pindee, halfway between the Jhelum and Attock, the Sikh troops, as we have since heard, would go no further. They received no pay, they were starving, they had been beaten and were disheartened; and so they surrendered.

All the prisoners were brought safe into our camp. Forty-one pieces of artillery were given up. Chuther Singh and Shere Singh, with all the Sirdars, delivered their swords to General Gilbert in the presence of his officers; and the remains of the Sikh army, 16,000 strong, were marched into camp, by 1,000 at a time, and laid down their arms as they passed between the lines of the British troops.

Your Majesty may well imagine the pride with which British officers looked on such a scene, and witnessed this absolute subjection and humiliation of so powerful an enemy.

How deeply the humiliation was felt by the Sikhs themselves may be judged by the report which the officers who were present have made, that many of them, and especially the grim old Khalsas of Runjeet’s time, exclaimed, as they threw their arms down upon the heap: “This day Runjeet Singh has died!”