But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword plea, having the merit of honesty and openness, is by far the best that has been advanced; and yet, as he shows, it is only available in support of the right, and not of the policy, of the measure. After-events, he observes, alluding to the conquest of the Punjab, have given a value to Scinde, which in itself it did not possess; but he has omitted to remark that the one event very probably grew out of the other. The Sikhs, who not only had refrained, like the Ameers, from molesting, but had even assisted us in our recent difficulties, had some reason for apprehending that, in due time, the policy pursued in Scinde would be extended to their own more inviting country; while, as if to remove an obstacle to an apparently desired misunderstanding, Sir George Clerk was promoted to the nominally higher post of lieutenant-governor of Agra, and an officer, his very opposite in every quality excepting earnest zeal and undaunted courage, was appointed to be his political successor at Lahore. Though he is little disposed to state any case too favourably for the party opposed to us, this peculiarity in our relations with the Sikhs, immediately before their invasion of our territory, is frankly admitted by Mr Campbell. After mentioning various military movements calculated to give them alarm, he describes a political difficulty as to certain lands belonging to the Sikh state, lying on our side of the Sutledge, which he says had been so managed by two successive political agents, Sir Claude Wade and Sir George Clerk, that through their personal influence “it had so happened that our wishes were generally attended to.” He thus concludes:— “Sir George Clerk having been promoted, new men were put in charge of our frontier relations, and seem to have assumed as a right what had heretofore been yielded to a good understanding. In 1845 Major Broadfoot was political agent. He was a man of great talent and immense energy, but of a rather overbearing habit. In difficult and delicate times he certainly did not conciliate the Sikhs.... Altogether, I believe the fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk remained in charge of our political relations, the Sikhs would not have attacked us at the time they did; it might have been delayed: but still it was well that they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142, 143.) The annexation of the Punjab followed hard on the conquest of Scinde, and both events may be regarded as sequels to the Afghan expedition, and this again as but a fuller development of the anti-judicial school, which, since the downfall of the Cornwallis system, has held almost undisputed sway on the banks of the Ganges.