caused our Engineers to burn a part and to sink a part of the vaunted bridge of the Khalsa army, across which they had boastfully come once more to defy us, and to threaten India with ruin and devastation."
The victory was complete; but it was not purchased without a severe loss on the part of the victors: 320 British soldiers lay dead upon the field, including Major-General Sir Robert Dick, Brigadier Taylor, and other distinguished officers; the number of wounded was 2,083. But the loss of the Sikhs did not amount to less than 8,000! Five days after the action, the sand-bank in the middle of the river was completely covered with their dead bodies, and the ground within their encampment thickly strewn with carcasses of men and horses. With the permission of Sir Hugh Gough, they returned to carry off their dead; but the task was found too irksome, and many hundreds, not swept away by the river, were left as food for the jackal, the wild dog, and the vulture.
That same night several regiments were pushed across the Sutledge opposite Ferozepoor; and a bridge of boats having been completed in a day or two, our army quietly crossed the river, but no enemy appeared to resist their progress: the Khalsa troops were irretrievably broken and scattered, without hope of being again able to take the field. Still more strongly to demonstrate how effectually they were humbled under the supremacy of their conquerors, the British army entered the Sikh capital on the 20th of February, 1846, and two days afterwards an English garrison occupied the citadel of Lahore.
The heads of a treaty were soon sketched and agreed to. The Government of Lahore was to pay, as an indemnity for the expense of the war, a crore and a half of rupees, or about a million and a half sterling. All the guns we had taken were to be retained, and all those which the Sikhs had ever pointed against the British were to be given up, and the turbulent portion of the troops, with their leaders, were to be disbanded for ever.
