We have had stirring times lately, though I personally have had little share in them. Mooltan is at last invested, and we expect daily to hear of its fall. Meanwhile, a new outbreak has occurred in Huzàra, a wild hilly region on the left bank of the Indus, above Attok, where one of the powerful Sirdars has raised the standard of revolt.
I suppose I may say to you at so great a distance, what I must not breathe here, that it is now morally certain that we have only escaped, by what men call chance and accidents, the effects of a general and well-organized conspiracy against British supremacy in Upper India. Our "ally" Gholab Singh, the creature of the treaty of 1848, the hill tribes, the whole Punjaub, the chiefs of Rajpootana, and the states round Umbâla and Kurnàl, and even the King of Cabul, I believe, have been for months and months securely plotting, without our having more than the merest hints of local disturbances, against the supremacy of the British Government. They were to unite for one vast effort, and drive us back upon the Jumna. This was to be again the boundary of British India. The rising in Mooltan was to be the signal. All was prepared, when a quarrel between Moolraj and the treacherous khan, Singh Mán, who was sent to commence the war, spoilt their whole scheme. The proud Rajpoot, Gholab Singh, refused to follow in the wake of a Mooltan merchant, and the merchant would not yield to the soldier. We have seen the mere ebullitions of the storm, the bubbles which float at the surface. I believe that now we are safe from a general rising, and that the fall of Mooltan will put a stop to mischief. If, however, our rulers resort again to half measures, if a mutinous army is retained in existence, the evil day will return again. Absolute supremacy has been, I think, long demonstrated to be our only safety among wild and treacherous races. _Moderation_, in the modern sense, is the greatest of all weakness.
You will have seen that our troops have been hard at it in Mooltan, and now I have to tell you that it has all been in vain; Rajah Shere Singh, and the whole of our worthy Sikh allies, have joined the rebel Moolraj, and General Whish has been compelled to raise the siege and retire.