ABSTRACT
While Napier wanted to save the Sindhis from oppression, Ellenborough wanted to use Napier to take the country and remove the distribution point for the Malwa opium. Nonetheless for a long time Napier remained ignorant of the aggressive policy which the Governor-General had in mind. 1 But eventually he had his suspicions. When he finally sent Ellenborough his views on 20 October, he told the Governor-General that he could not ‘understand how any sane man could contemplate the extension of our Indian territory beyond her Rivers’. 2 Yet Napier himself had already begun to advocate occupying Sukkur – for several reasons: to safeguard it from bandits; to make it a centre of British trade and influence; and to save the Sindhi refugees in the city from having to live once again under the Amirs. 3 So even in Napier’s mind it would be a good idea to disattach a section of the Amirs’ lands – Sukkur – for the good of the people.
