Lehal Library

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In this Second Edition the author has made some alterations in the text of the last chapter, where it seemed that his readers had inferred more than was meant, but the sense and snirit of what was originallywritten have been carefully preserved, notwithstanding the modifications of expression now introduced. Throughout the grammatical imperfections detected on reperusal have been removed; but no other changes have been made in the text of the first eight chapters. Some notes, however, altogether new, have been added, while others have been extended; and such as by their length crowded a series of pages, and from their subject admitted of separate treatment, have been formed into Appendices. The author's principal object in writing this history always been understood, and he therefore thinks it right to say that his main endeavour was to give Sikhism its place in the general hi. 'ory of humanity, by showing its connexion with the different creeds of India, by exhibiting it as a natural and important result of the Muhammadan Conquest, and by impressing upon the people of England the great necessity of attending to the mental changes now in progress amongst their subject millions in the East, who are erroneously thought to be sunk in superstitious ap'^thy, or to be held spell-bound in ignorance by a dark and A secondary object of the designing priesthood. author's was to give some account of the connexion of the English with the Sikhs, and in ^jart with the Afghans, from the time they began to take a direct interest in the affairs of these races, and to involve them in the web of their policy for opening the navigation of the Indus, and for bringing Turkestan and Khorasan within theit commercial influence. It has also been remarked by some public critics and private friends, that the author leans unduly towards the Sikhs, and that an officer in the Indian army should appear to say he sees aught unwise or objectionable in the acts of the East India Company and its delegates is at the least strange. The author has, indeed. nas not "^ ^ I V (i I