Note 109 — Chapter I

Moorcroft seems to have been upheld only by the kindly encouragement of Sir Charles (then Mr.) Metcalfe, who, as Resident at Delhi, took the greatest interest in his enterprise, and afforded him all possible assistance. He attributed the unwillingness of our Government to explore the countries beyond our frontier, to some vague apprehension of alarming the Sikhs. “It is somewhat humiliating,” he wrote to Metcalfe, “that we should know so little of countries which touch upon our frontier; and this in a great measure out of respect for a nation that is as despicable as insolent, whose origin was founded upon rapine, and which exists by acquiring conquests it only retains by depopulating the territory.”—[MS. Correspondence.]