camped at Lahore, marched with a strong force to Amrut Sir,* and immediately engaged the Sicques; who, roused by the fury of a defperate revenge, in fight alfo of the ground facred to the founders of their religion, whose monuments had been destroyed by the enemy they were then to combat, difplayed, during a bloody conteft, which lafted from the morning until night, an enthusi, aftic and fierce courage, which ultimately forced Ahmed Shah to draw off his army and retire with precipitation to Lahore. The Sicques, it is alfo faid, pursued the enemy to that city, which they took after a short fiege; and that Ahmed Shah, having made his escape before the furrender, croffed the Indus. Any probability of this event can only he reconciled by a fuppofition, that the army of Ahmed Shah had fuffered fome extraordinary reductious, previously to the period in which this occurrence + is faid to have happened. Without a further difcuffion of this clouded fact, we will proceed to the common annals of the day, where it is feen that the Duranny returned into the Punjab, in the autumn of 1763, when he retook Lahore, and again drove the Sicques from the low country. The fucceffes of this prince, though decided at the moment, were not followed by either a benefit to himself or to the country he conquered; and could be only traced by flaughter and rapine; for in the course of the following year, during his *This place is about forty miles to the weftward of Lahore. > + A total eclipfe of the fun is faid to have happened on the day of action. fhort short abfence, the Sicques ravaged the Punjab, expelled the Afghan garrifons, and purfued their fortune with fo vigorous a rapidity, that during the year 1764, they had over-run, and seized on, an extent of territory reaching from the borders of the Indus to the districts of Dehli. AHMED SHAH, in the three following years, continued to maintain a defultory war with the Sicques; but poffeffing no treafure in India, fearing alfo the effects of a remote refidence from his native dominion, he must have at length shrunk from the difficulties of conquering a numerous people, who when driven from the plains, poffeffed impenetrable retreats in forests and mountains; and, what was more dreadful to their enemies, an invincible courage. AFTER the year 1767, the period of his laft campaign in India, Ahmed Shah, seems to have wholly relinquished the design of fubduing the Punjab. The Sicques now became the rulers of a large country, in every part of which they established an undivided authority, and raised in it the solid structure of a religion, in the propagation and defence of which, their perfevering valour merit a common applause. TIMUR SHAH, the reigning prince of Afghanistan, the son of Ahmed Shah, had made war on the Sicques with various success. During the interval of his last campaign in India, he wrested from them the city, with a large division of the province of Moultan which the Sicques, contrary to the spirit of their national cha VOL. I, N n racter, racter, evacuated after a weak refiftance. This furrender might on the first view be termed pufillanimous, especially when the inactive difpofition of Timur is confidered; but it seems to have been a natural confequence of their eternal divifions, and the fears entertained by the body at large, of the encrease of individual power. The dominions of the Sicques, whofe limits are ever in a state of fluctuation, was, in the year 1782, bounded on the north by the chain of mountains that extend in an oblique line across the head of the Punjab; on the east by the poffeffions of the emperor and his officers, which reach to Pannifrett and Kurrwaul; on the foutheaft by the Agra diftricts; on the fouth by Moultan; and on the west by the Indus, except where the town and independencies of Attock, and fome petty chiefships, are interspersed. THE Sicques have reduced the largest portion of the territory of Zabitah Khan, leaving him little more than the fort of Ghous Ghur, with a very limited domain in its vicinity. This chief, the degenerate fon of Najeb-ud-Dowlah, has made no vigorous effort in his defence; but thinking to footh them, and divert their encroachments, affumed the name of a Sicque, and oftensibly, it is faid, became a convert to the faith of Nanock.* It is not feen that he derived any benefit from his apoftacy; for at the period of my journey through the Duab, the Sicques were investing his fort, Durm Sing, was the name taken by Zabitah Khan. He was fucceeded by his fon Gholam Bhahauder, in 1785, who, though an active soldier, and respected by the Sicques, is not emancipated from their power. and and he was reduced to the desperate alternative of calling in a body of their mercenaries to his affistance. In the beginning of the year 1783, a party of Sicques traverfing the Ghous Ghur districts, approached the Ganges, where it forms the western limit of Rohilcund, with an intention of croffing the river, and invading the country of the vizier. Being at that time in Rohilcund, I witneffed the terror and general alarm which prevailed amongst the inhabitants, who, deferting the open country, had retired into forts and places inacceffible to cavalry. The Sicques, perceiving the difficulty of passing a river in the face of the vizier's troops, which were posted on the eastern bank, receded from their purpose. This fact has been adduced to fhew that the Sicques command an uninterrupted paffage to the Ganges.* THUS have I laid before you, according to the most substantial authorities that I could obtain, the origin of the Sicques; their first territorial establishment, and the outlines of the progrefs they made, in extending a spacious dominion, and confolidating the power which they at this day poffefs. We have seen this people, at two different periods, combating the force of the Moghul empire, and fo feverely depreffed by its fuperior strength, that the existence of their fect was brought to the edge of annihilation. *The Sicque forces affembled again in the beginning of the year 1785, when they entered the province of Rohilcund, and having laid it wafte, for the space of one hundred miles, they returned unmolested. The Afghan war involved them in a series of still more grievous calamity; as they had then laid the foundation of a growing power, and more fenfibly felt the ravages of a formidable foe. They were driven from the fanctuary of their religion, and persecuted with a rage which feemed to keep pace with the encreasing ftrength and inveteracy of their enemy: yet we have seen, that in the lowest ebb of fortune, they retained the spirit of resource; that they boldly feized on every hold which offered support; and, by an invincible perfeverance, that they ultimately rofe fuperior in a contest with the most potent prince of his age. Grand auxiliary causes operated alfo in the formation and final establishment of the Sicques' dominion. It hath already been noticed, that the first efforts of this people commenced at a time when the Moghul empire loft its energy and vigour; when intestine commotions, the intrigues of a luxurious court, and the defection of distant governors, had promoted the increase of individual interests, and a common relaxation of allegiance. THE decifive fuperiority obtained over the Sicques, by Meer Munnoo, would, we must believe, with a judicious application of its uses, have removed to a farther distance the rank which this state now maintains in Hindoftan. To develope the actions of men, with whofe hiftory we are trivially acquainted, would be fabricating too refined a fyftem of fpeculation; nor would I now investigate fo obfcure a fubject, were it not to generally observe, that the prefervation of the Sicques from the effects of Meer Munnoo's |