Page:The Sikhs (Gordon).djvu/202

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166
THE SIKHS.

body of Sikh troops who had been so lately fighting against us, was the transfer effected. Lal Singh was proved guilty by the production of his own letters; not a voice was raised for him, and he was banished to his native land in Hindostan.

A Council of Regency of the principal chiefs was now formed under the direction of the British Resident; but at the Lahore Court the witches' caldron, brimful with intrigue, again began to bubble. The queen-regent had hoped that everything except the dread Khalsa would have been restored to her as before the war. She bitterly resented the expulsion of her favourite minister, the arch-traitor Lal Singh, and after a short time the sardars also came to repent of the treaty they had made. Faithlessness to the tee merciful British Government was encouraged; an army and guns still remained to them; disaffection was excited among the soldiery and the disbanded Khalsa, who swarmed, discontented, in the villages. The new wine,