The Sikhs gradually made themselves masters of the Duabs* of Jallindhara and Ravy, or country situated between the Ravy and Beyah,‡ and between the latter and the Setlege.§ They, however, received several checks from Mir Munnoo, the Mohammedan governor of Lahore, who named Adina Beg Khan to the charge of the countries in which the Sikhs had principally established themselves. Adina Beg defeated them in an action fought near Makhaval; but whether from policy, or as it is pretended from being himself secretly of their religion, instead of prosecuting hostilities, he entered into a negociation with them, which ended in their engaging on their part to desist from their predatory conduct, and on his, in promising to leave them undisturbed in the terri Duab signifies a tract of land nearly enclosed by the approximation of two rivers, That formed by the Ganges and Jumna is called, by way of pre-eminence, The Duab.-Rennell. Hesudrus. + Hydraotes. + Hyphasis. tories then held by them. At the death of Mir Munnoo, Adina Beg succeeded him in the government of Lahore. Threatened by the Afghans under their sovereign Ahmed Shah Duranny, or as he is more generally named, Ahmed Shah Abdalla, he entered into a confederacy with the Sikhs, by which they were encouraged to make incursions into the Afghan territories. Ahmed, irritated by the conduct of the governor of Lahore, who he knew was encouraged in it by the court of Dehly, resolved to invade India.-This celebrated person, founder of the Afghan monarchy, was born in Candahar, of an illustrious family. Hussein Cawn, governor of that province, had caused Ahmed and his brother Zulfecur Cawn to be arrested and confined, but they were released by Nadir Shah, on his invasion of that country, who sent them into Mezenderan. Zulfecur died there, but we find Ahmed, shortly after the return of Nadir from his eastern expedition, commanding a body of Afghan and Ouzbec cavalry in his army, and become one of his favourite generals. The day after the assassination of Nadir, Ahmed was summoned by the conspirators to meet them for the purpose of deliberating on the measures to be taken, but he refused attendance. Though the body of troops he commanded, consisted of only a few thousand cavalry, it was a select band. After a short but sharp action between him and some of the conspirators, finding his force and means unequal to maintaining the contest, and having learnt also, that Ali Kouli Khan, the nephew of Nadir, was at the head of the conspiracy, he ably withdrew, carrying with him a part of Nadir's treasure, which, some time before that event, had been committed to his care. Proceeding towards his own country, he found at Candahar a convoy of money coming from India to Nadir, which he also seized. He afterwards progressively took possession of and subdued, besides Candahar, all the extensive countries, which, afterwards, composed under him the Afghan empire. In consequence of the provocation given him by Adina Beg and the Sikhs, having crossed the Attock, Adina unable to op pose him, fled towards Dehly, while Ahmed continuing to advance, levied heavy contributions as he went. The emperor Mohammed Shah, who, in 1738, had been obliged to lay his crown at the foot of Nadir, still reigned at Dehly. He sent a numerous army to oppose the Afghans, under the command of his son, who like the leader of these was also named Ahmed. The prince was accompanied by the Vizir Kimmer Ul Dean Khan, the person in whom the emperor alone confided, and who in all his vicissitudes had ever remained * Nadir Shah entered India in the beginning of 1738, and re-crossed the Indus at the end of 1739. "The cruelties exercised by him in India, were such, that a dervise had the courage to present a writing to him, conceived in these terms: If thou art a god, act as a god; if thou art a prophet, conduct us in the way of salvation; if thou art a king, render the people happy, and do not destroy them. To which the barbarian replied: I am no god, to act as a god; nor a prophet, to shew the way of salvation; nòr a king, to render the people happy: but I am he whom God sends to the nations which he has determined to visit with his wrath."-Orme's Hist. vol. i. p. 23. pre faithful to him. The armies being in sence of each other, different partial actions took place. In one of these, the vizir was killed by a cannon shot. The news of this event being carried to the em peror, he was so deeply affected by it, that he died the next day in a convulsive agony of grief. The Shah-Zadda, or hereditary prince, on receiving intelligence of the demise of his father, gave the command of the army to the son of the late vizir, and hastened to the capital, where he was proclaimed emperor. We do not mean to follow the Afghan monarch in the course of his expeditions, either on the western or eastern side of the Indus. Returning from one of the latter to his own dominions, he left a body of troops in Sirhind, under one of his generals, named Jehan Khan; and another under his son Taimur in Lahore, with orders to take vengeance on the Sikhs, for having borne arms against him. The first enterprise of Taimur was on Amritsar, which he destroyed; an outrage, that so exasperated |