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SIR HENRY LAWRENCE

obviously advisable in arranging to replace a troublesome Governor in a wild district. It was treated as an ordinary change of officials during high peace. Even as regards the escort, instead of the unison between the British officers and their men, that was usually so much attended to, being cared for on this occasion, the officers never saw the escort till they reached Múltán; and then the attitude of the people and the events that occurred were a complete surprise. When they were with Mulráj, on April 19, the day after they arrived, the British officers were attacked by his Darbár troops, being first wounded and afterwards killed. Mulráj, who had fled immediately, at first wrote saying that his people were dominating him and would not allow him to resign; but presently he threw off the mask and declared hostility to the English control. Mulráj, it must be understood, was not a Sikh, neither was the Sepoy who began the fray by attacking Agnew, whereas, when Agnew was struck, the man who defended him and knocked over his assailant was a Sikh trooper of his escort; and Khán Singh, the new diwán, who was a Sikh Sardár, rescued Agnew, and was himself made a prisoner and maltreated. The measure that caused the rising was the substitution of Khán Singh, a Sikh Sardár, for the Khatrí Mulráj, and this certainly did not incite the Sikhs there to oppose the step. The only circumstance ever suggested as having led to their being hostile to it was the rumour that the Darbár intended to disband the local Sikh regiment at the instigation