et
Singh, which confined him to the other bank of the Sutlej; but
it has never paid allegiance to the British Government. Its
territory is of considerable extent, stretching nearly 300
miles along the river, by 100 miles average breadth; but great
part of the surface consists of sandy desert.

It has long since been evident[36] that Scinde, by that _principle of
unavoidable expansion_ to which we had so often had occasion to refer,
must eventually have been absorbed into the dominions of the Company;
but the process by which it at last came into our hands is so curious a
specimen of our Bonapartean method of dealing with reluctant or
refractory neutrals, that we cannot pass it altogether without notice.
Scinde, as well as Beloochistan, had formed part of the extensive empire
subdued by Ahmed Shah, the founder of the Doorani monarchy; but in the
reign of his indolent son Timour, the Affghan yoke was shaken off by the
_Ameers_, or chiefs of the Belooch family of Talpoor, who, fixing their
residences respectively at Hydrabad, Meerpoor, and Khyrpoor, defied all
the efforts of the kings of Cabul to reduce them to submission, though
they more than once averted an invasion by the promise of tribute. It
has been rumoured that Shah-Shoojah, during his long exile, made
repeated overtures to the Cabinet of Calcutta for the cession of his
dormant claims to the _suzerainte_ of Scinde, in exchange for an
equivalent, either pecuniary or territorial; but the representations of
a fugitive prince, who proposed to cede what was not in his possession,
were disregarded by the rulers of India; and even in the famous
manifesto preceding the invasion of Affghanistan, Lord Auckland
announced, that "a guaranteed independence, on favourable conditions,
would be tendered to the Ameers of Scinde." On the appearance of our
army on the border, however, the Ameers demurred, not very unreasonably,
to the passage of this formidable host; and considerable delay ensued,
from the imperfect information possessed by the British commanders of
the amount of resistance to be expected; but at last the country and
fortress were forcibly occupied; the seaport of Kurrachee (where alone
any armed opposition was attempted) was bombarded and captured by our
ships of war; and a treaty was imposed at the point of the bayonet on
the Scindian rulers, by virtue of which they paid a contribution of
twenty-seven laks of rupees (nearly L300,000) to