=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!”