'^m: gKETCK OF THE ^ SIKHS'; 



wherever found; and, to give eife6l to this iiiandate, a reward wasoflfer-- 

 ed for the head of every Sikh; and all Hindus were oi'dered to shave their 

 Iiair off under pain of death. The few SiMis, that escaped this general 

 execution, fled into the mountains to the N. E. of the Penjdb, where they 

 found a refuge from the rigorous- persecution by which their tribe was pur- 

 sued, while numbers, bent before the tempest, which they could not resist^ 

 and abandoning the outward usages of their religion, satisfied their con-- 

 sciences with the secret practice of its rites. 



From the defeat and deslh of Band a till the invasion of India by Na- 

 dir Shah, a period of nearly thirty years, we hear nothing of. the Sikhs;. 

 but on the occurrence of that event, they are stated to have fallen upon 

 the peaceable inhabitants of the Penjdb, who sought shelter in the hills, 

 and to have plundered them of that property which they wei*e endeavoring 

 to secure from the rapacity of the Persian invader. 



Enriched with these spoils, the Sikhs left the hills, and built the fort 

 of Dalewdl, on the Ravi, from v.'hence they made predatory incursi- 

 ons, and are stated to have added, both to their wealth and reputation, by 

 harassing and plundering the rear of Nadir Shah's army, which, when it 

 returned to Persia, was encumbered with spoil, and marched, from st 

 contempt of its enemies, with a disregard to all order. 



The weak state to which the empire of Hindustan was reduced, and the 

 confusion into which the provinces of Lahore and Cdbul were thrown, by 

 the death of Na'dir, were events of too favorable a nature to the Sikhs to 

 be negle6led by that race, who became daily more bold, from their num- 

 bers being greatly increased by the union of all those who had taken shel- 

 ter in the mountains ; the readmission into the se6l of those who to save 

 their lives, had abjured, for a period, their usages ; and tlie conversion .of a 



