Sketch of the Sikhs, a Singular Nation Who Inhabit the Provinces of the Penjab, Situated Between the Rivers Jumna and Indus (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1812 Excerpt: ...empire of the Mahratas had, at this proud moment, reached its zenith. The battle of Panipat'h took place soon afterwards; since which it has rapidly declined. H made one of those rapid movements for which he was so celebrated, and reaching the Sikh army on the second day, completely surprised, and defeated it with great slaughter. In this action, which was fought in February, 1762, the Sikhs are said to have lost upwards of twenty thousand men, and the remainder fled into the hills, abandoning all the lower countries to the Afghans, who committed every ravage that a barbarous and savage enemy could devise. Amritsar was razed to the ground, and the sacred reservoir again choaked with its ruins. Pyramids were erected, and covered with the heads of slaughtered Sikhs: and it is mentioned, that Ahmed Shah caused the walls of those mosques, which the Sikhs had polluted, to be washed with their blood, that the contamination might be removed, and the insult offered to the religion of Muhammed expiated. This is a very common usage amongst eastern conquerors. The history of Jenghiz Khan, Taimur and Nadir Shah, afford many examples of this mode of treating their vanquished enemies. This species of savage retaliation appears to have animated, instead of depressing, the courage of the Sikhs; who, though they could not venture to meet Ahmed Shah's army in action, harassed it with an incessant predatory warfare; and, when that sovereign was obliged, by the commotions of Afghanistan, to return to Cabul, they attacked and defeated the general he had left in Lahore, and made themselves masters of that city, in which they levelled with the ground those mosques which the Afghans had, a few months before, purified with the blood of their brethren. Ahmed Shah, in 1763, retook La...