Note 16 — Chapter II

Shere Singh despatched urgent purwannahs both to General Avitabile and to Raee Kishen Chund, calling upon them to aid the British by every means in their power. “You are a general of the Khalsa Government,” he wrote to the former, “and noted for the confidence placed in you. This is the time to serve the two allied powers; and you will, therefore, unreservedly devote your attention to discharge your trust, so as to please the two friendly governments, and to earn such a name that the services performed shall be known in London.” To the latter he wrote, “Orders have been issued to Koonwur Pertab Chund to march to Peshawur, and the zeal of the Durbar will at once make itself manifest to Mr. Clerk (as the sun suddenly shining forth from beneath a cloud) when he is informed of all by the letters of Captain Mackeson.”—[MS. Records.] When Mackeson received from George Clerk a copy of the purwannah to Avitabile he was in conference at that officer’s quarters with the Sikh general, Mehtab Singh, and the commandants of all the Sikh battalions. “I read out this purwannah,” says Mackeson, “but was somewhat confounded to find at its conclusion that the Durbar limited the operations of General Avitabile and the Sikh troops to Futtehgurh—their own frontier post. It was fortunate that, before the arrival of this purwannah, the commandants of the auxiliary Mussulman troops had left the room, having previously engaged to march as far as Ali-Musjid in support of our troops, and to move on again with General Pollock’s brigade.”—[Mackeson to Clerk: January, 1842. MS. Records.] The passages referred to in the purwannah might bear this construction, but it is doubtful whether this was their intent. George Clerk, in a marginal note to Mackeson’s letter, says: “The purwannah did not limit it; but directed them to move on to Futtehgurh and act in concert and by Captain Mackeson’s advice.”—[MS. Records.]