It is recorded, that in the year 1776, Sir W. Howe, in a despatch on the American entrenchments, wrote: "If I could have made approaches I could easily have taken the enemy's entrenchments."[27] Whether Colonel Irvine proposed to make approaches I cannot say; certain it is, that it was agreed to follow the plan laid down by Brigadier Smith, Colonel Irvine being of opinion that it would be better to leave the conduct of the affair in the hands of the officer who had formed a digested plan. Had Brigadier Smith been superseded, a delay of two or three days at least must have ensued. Now, without knowing the exact cause for the delay, it is stated in the "Blue Book" that certain proposals had been made by the Lahore Durbar, or by some of the principal chiefs. Some say, that the celebrated Goolab Singh of Cashmere had made certain offers, to which an answer was required in three days. An officer of artillery remarked to the Commander-in-Chief, that the remainder of the supplies, stores, etc., from Delhi, would reach camp in two days. Lord Gough, in his Despatch of the 13th of February, says:--"Part of my siege train having come up with me, I resolved, on the morning of the 10th, to dispose our mortars and battering guns," etc.[28] This waiting of two days or more would have consumed more time than it was thought politically right to expend. We must remember that an answer was required in three days. Now, if Goolab Singh was the real proposer of these terms, it would seem that it could not answer to grant them. Perhaps he undertook to pay us the expenses of the war, to reduce the Sikh army, and to accept a British Resident at Lahore; these conditions, or something like them, must have been proposed. Such offers could not have satisfied the government of India, because, when after the treaty of 1846, we took a slice of the Punjaub (Jullundur), and allowed the Sikh Durbar to keep up an army of 32,000 men, they raised more, either openly or covertly; hence, if they acted thus under our own eye, while holding the reins of government at Lahore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they would follow up the plan _in extenso_ in our absence, for a Resident would have been no adequate check. Goolab Singh was evidently playing a game for himself: if he could be the means of saving the country, then Cashmere ought to be his reward; but, when affairs went in a contrary direction, he was forced to be no longer an actor on the scene. But, distrusting Goolab Singh, and supposing him to have been a traitor to his country, yet might he not be meditating the destruction of the English? He had his own troops with which he could turn the scale against us. Thus, whatever were the terms, or the nature of the terms, they were clearly less than we could accede to. Colonel Irvine, as I have remarked, instead of acting as Chief Engineer, became an aide-de-camp, and partly a spectator.