In the year 1805, the ambitious spirit of Holcar, the enterprising Mahomedan leader of the Maharatta forces, determined him to invade Upper India, and to invest Delhi. He met with a powerful resistance from Lord Lake, who drove him beyond the Sutlej, where he expected to find support from the Sikhs. Runjeet Singh had penetrated the Doab, between the Chenāb and the Indus. He had a meeting with Holcar at Umritsur, but finding it more to his interest to make friends with the English, the wily Maharajah put Holcar off, under the pretext that he must first reduce the Pathans of Kussoor. Friendly relations were then established with the British;[8] Runjeet Singh visited Lord Lake's camp in disguise, and a treaty was concluded, by which the English agreed not to encroach upon the Sikhs' territories so long as the chiefs of the Punjaub continued to maintain friendly relations. Runjeet Singh, speaking of this circumstance some time afterwards to Sir John Malcolm, remarks, that he "was very glad to get rid of two such troublesome guests," namely, Holcar and the British. It was a curious coincidence that both Runjeet Singh and Holcar had each but one eye, but those eyes were piercing, nor were they disliked by the fair sex, if report speak true. The news of the intended invasion of India by Napoleon, in 1808, spread a panic through the country, and the British government took instant measures to ascertain how far they could rely on the support of the various native princes. The most powerful and important of these was Runjeet Singh; and Sir Charles Metcalfe was accordingly despatched to the court of Lahore as British Envoy. The Maharajah was at that time engaged in the subjugation of some of the petty independent Sikh princes. His continued aggressions upon the Cis-Sutlej states, several of which he had made tributary, induced the princes of Sirhind to place themselves under British protection, and the envoy was charged with a remonstrance to Runjeet Singh upon this subject. He received the envoy at Kussoor, which he had just conquered, and seemed more intent upon the enlargement and defence of his own borders, than alive to the dangers of a French invasion. So far from entering into the views of the British government on the necessity of a defensive alliance between them and the Sikhs and Affghans, in order to oppose the ambitious designs of Napoleon, Runjeet Singh replied, that, as the head of the whole Sikh population, and as master of Lahore, he had an indisputable right to the enlargement of his own territories, and scorned the attempts of the British to confine him to the right bank of the Sutlej. He abruptly broke off the negotiation, and made a third invasion into the Cis-Sutlej territory; the British envoy remonstrated against these open acts of hostility, and remained on the banks of the Sutlej until the Maharajah returned victorious from the conquest of Fureedkot and Umballa.