The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-26 00:00:00

.REASONS FOR THE WAR.

" Lord Ellenborough was more than justified in his
sweeping reform. And it was a conviction that the loose
mode of intercourse hitherto carried on with the Ameers
had led to mischief, and was derogatory to such a power-
ful government as the Anglo-Indian, which induced Sir
Charles Napier at once to assume a frank though stern
tone with these Sindian rulers. For well he knew, that
however much modes and customs may differ with na-
tions, man is intrinsically the same all over the world,
and to be governed by his passions. He held it shame-
ful and wicked to tempt the Ameers by any appearance
of infirmity of purpose, to display their arrogance when
the Governor-General had assured him the sword of
vengeance would be inexorably bared for the first fault.
They had, however, already been tempted, by an un-
steady diplomacy acting on proud minds, into a course
full of danger for them, and he was to make a true and
faithful report of their misdeeds. This he effected twelve
days after his arrival at Sukkur, showing a list of
offences more or less grave, but the whole proving a
settled design for war, when opportunity offered. Sup-
ported by evidence, as good as could be obtained where
the secret machinations of Princes, who had the power
and the will to destroy those who informed against them,
were to be laid open, this list of offences certainly war-
ranted a resort to arms, or the imposition of a fresh
treaty under pain of war.
" Against the Ameer Roostum of Kyrpooi they proved
secret intercourse with foreign States, contrary to treaty
and with designs hostile to the British ; maltreatment of
British servants ; obstructions to the commerce and na-
vigation of the Indus ; illegal imprisonment of British
subjects, and, through the agency of his Minister, Fut-
teh Mohamed Ghoree, aiding the escape of Mohamed
Shurreef, a public enemy, which happened about this
period.
" Against the Ameer Nusseer of Hyderabad, was the
assembling of troops to attack Shere Mohamed of Meer-
poor, upon a boundary dispute which had been referred
to the British arbitration ; perfidiously inveigling the
assistant political agent to meddle privately in a dispute
between the Ameer and his subjects, and then charging
this his own act against the British Government as a
breach of treaty ; repeated wilful violations of the
eleventh article of the treaty, with an avowed determi-
nation to set it aside ; delaying the transfer of Shikar-
poor, when he knew of the disasters in Affghanistan ;
secretly coining base money to defraud the British Go
vernment in the payment of tribute ; exacting illegal
tolls, refusing to refund, and obstructing the navigation
and commerce of the Indus ; opposing the free supply
of the bazaar at Kurrachee, and preventing his subjects
from settling and trading in the British cantonment ;
employing troops to menace the possession of another
Ameer, when the dispute had been referred to the Bri-
tish authorities, thus violating the third article of the
treaty. which guaranteed to each Ameer his separate
dominions ; neglect of tribute, and finally, exciting by
letter Beebruck, the chief of the Booghtee tribe, to take
up arms against the British troops, who were, he said,
retreating worsted from Khorassan, the name by which
the Sindians generally designated Affghanistan.
" These offences, which were all violations of treaty,
had been continued from early in 1841, up to September,
1842, showing a settled enmity; and at the very moment
of Sir C. Napier's arrival at Sukkur, Nusseer and Roos-
turn, the chief Ameers of Upper and Lower Sinde, con-
tracted a seeret alliance and confederacy, offensive and
defensive, against the British power. They sought to
draw Ali Moored into their views ; they prepared to
send away their wives and children; they collected their
troops, enlisted many of the Affghans who had followed
General England's column from Quettah ; issued in-
structions to all their feudatory chiefs to be in readiness
to take the field, and held councils with the chiefs of the
Murrees and other Brah•oe tribes. The English troops,
they said, were as their spies informed them, so weak,
miserable, and sickly, they could not resist, and if they
were healtly,' had theynot been driven from Affghanistan!
Let the priests proclaim a religious war against the
Feringhee caffirs! When they went against Khorassan
and Caubul, they made us promise three lacs of rupees
yearly for tribute. Now they have been driven from
thence, and we have an answer ready when the money is
demanded!'

" Here were ample grounds for a resort to force. Did
Lord Ellenborough eagerly seize the opportunity? Did
his General advise him to do so? The answer to these
questions will place their conduct in a true light, each
on its own pedestal, for their distinct position must
always be kept in view. Lord Ellenborough knew all
the odious process by which the treaties, giving him the
right now to resent these hostile measures of the Ameers,
were obtained. The General knew nothing of them, the
official correspondence explaining them was not then
published; he could not suspect its nature; he could not
ask for it, nor would it have been given to him if he had.
He could only look at the treaties as contracts, volun-
tarily made, and which he was in Sinde to uphold, both
as a political agent and as a military officer. As con-
tracts he saw friendship, alliance, protection, offered and
accepted by the weaker power; the promotion of trade,
commerce, and navigation; and in their effects the im-
provement of the people's condition. He saw those peo-
ple, of all classes, crowding into the British cantonments
to avoid the grinding exactions and barbarous tyranny
of their rulers. He saw those rulers debauched and
ignorant, trampling:for their pleasures, with the hoofs of
wild beasts, one-fourth of the fertile land which should
have fed the starving multitudes; and this with so little
remorse, that one had recently depopulated two villages
to make a Shikargah for his child of eight years old!
" It was with these things before his eyes, this suffer-
ing and wickedness on one side, this promise of remedy
on the other, that Sir Charles Napier made that report
to Lord Ellenborough which was to determine the latter's
course of action.

" And Lord Ellenborough's right to act, that also
must be considered, or there can be no just judgment I"
" It was the right of necessity, the right of self-pre-
servation, a necessity he had not produced; he found it,
but he was bound by it. In that consists its justice.
Take away this ground and it was a continuation of
Lord Auckland's aggressive policy ; yet always with
this palliation, that Lord Ellenborough sought no ag•
grandisement, put forth no mocking pretensions of friend-
ship to cover injustice. Standing on the right of treaties
concluded, he pursued the general interests of humanity,
disregarding only the conventional rights of besotted
tyrants, men who themselves trampled upon all rights,
and were ever ready sword in hand to take from the
porsessions of their neighbours. This is the worst view
that can be given of Lord Ellenborough's policy. But
he had also the plea of self-preservation ; and be it re-
membered, Sobdar of Hyderabad, and Ali Moorad of
Kyrpoor, had with a good will accepted the treaties from
the tirNt, and Shere Mohamed of Meerpoor, voluntarily
sought a treaty on the same footing as Sobdar, demur-
ring only to the payment of tribute.
" The origin of the Sindian war being thus placed on
a sound basis for fair discussion, the following view taken
by Sir Charles Napier will be more readily appre-
ciated :

SIR CHARLES NAPIER'S REPORT TO LORD

ELLENBOROUGH.

" ' It is not for me to consider how we came to oc-
cupy Sinde, but to consider the subject as it now stands.
We are here by right of treaties entered into by the
Ameers, and therefore stand on the same footing as
themselves ; for rights held under treaty are as sacred
as the right which sanctions that treaty. There does
not appear any public protest registered against the trea-
ties by the Ameers, they are therefore to be considered
as free expressions of the will of the contracting parties.
" ' The English occupy Shirkapoor, Bukkur, and
Kurrachee, by treaties which, if rigidly adhered to by
the Ameers, would render those princes more rich and
powerful, and their subject:more happy, than they now
are. If sticklers for abstract right maintain—as no
doubt they will—that to prevent a man from doing mis-
chief is to enslave him, then it may be called hard to en-
force a rigid observance of these treaties. But the evi-
dent object of the treaties is to favour our Indian in-
terests, by abolishing barbarism and ameliorating the
condition of society, by obliging the Ameers to do, in
compliance with those treaties, that which honourable
and civilised rulers would do of their own accord. It is
necessary to keep this in view, because though the de-
sire to do good would not sanction a breach of treaty, it
does sanction the exacting a rigid adherence to the trea-
ties by the Ameers ; and the more so that their infrac-
tions of them evinces the barbarism of those princes, their
total want of feeling for their subjects, and,their own un-
fitness to govern a country. These things must be kept
in mind, or what I am about to say will appear unjust,
which is not the case.

" ' By treaty, the time for which we may occupy our
present camps is unlimited ; but there is such hostility
to us on the part of the Ameers,—such a hatred of the
treaties—such a resolution to break them in every way ;
there is amongst their people such a growing attachment
to British rule, that the question • arises, whether we
shall abandon the interests of humanity and those of the
British Government, which in this case are one, and at
once evacuate Sinde ; or take advantage of existing tr( a-
ties and maintain our camps permanently ?
" If we evacuate the country, future events will ine-
vitably bring us back to the banks of the Indus. If we
remain, our camps will soon be filled with the Ameers'
subjects flying from oppression. These camps will
quickly grow into town., and the people within them will
carry on a transit trade along the Indus, to the exclusion
of the subjects of the Ameers without. Among the
latter misery and poverty will sojourn, for the exactions
of the Ameers will in a great measure destroy both com-
merce and agriculture among their people.
" This produces another question ; can such a state
of things long continue ? A Government hated by its
subjects, despotic, hostile alike to the interests of the
English and of its own people : a Government of low
intrigue, and so constituted that it must in a few year