A CONQUEST OF PASTS 161
step could have easily made the Talpur a target. Although their pre-
vious alliances with the emir in Kabul had long since deteriorated, the
Company grew suspicious that the Talpur were now in secret commu-
nications with the Afghan king, Dost Muhammad.
The Anglo-Afghan war was a stinging defeat for the new governor
general of the Company, Lord Edward Law Ellenborough (1790-1871).
Ellenborough dramatically brought back the "gates of Somnath" from
Kabul to mark that Company rule in India was to counter Muslim tyr-
anny. His declaration of 1842 to "all Princes and Chiefs and People of
India" announced that the return of the spoiled remains of the temple
of Somnath to India avenged "the insult of 800 years .... The gates of
the temple of Somanath, so long the memorial of your humiliation, are
become the proudest record of your national glory."^21
Ellenborough expanded the efforts to capture Sind and in 1842 ap-
pointed a new commander of Company troops, Sir Charles Napier
(1782-1853). Neither of these men seemed comfortable with the status
quo in Sind. Ellenborough was eager to take over the commercial con-
cerns of the Indus delta and was unhappy with the Talpur's lack of con-
trol over the activities of pirates and rogue traders (that is, Portuguese
traders) on the channels. Napier, a veteran military commander of im-
perial wars in Europe and self-described victim of fool-hardy politi-
cians, had arrived in India convinced that the Company had lost its
moorings in India, becoming beholden to commerce and shying away
from their Godly mission. A deeply religious man, Napier saw the lib-
eration of Sind from its despotic Muslim rulers as his Christian duty,
with the added benefit that achieving his goal would demonstrate his
brilliance as a tactical commander:
I made up my mind that although war had not been declared (nor is
it necessary to declare it), I would at once march upon Imangurh and
prove to the whole Talpur family of both Khyrpor and Hyderabad that
neither their deserts, nor their negotiations can protect them from
the Britisk troops. The Ameers will fly over the Indus, and we shall
become masters of the left bank of the river from Mitenkote to the
mouth; peace with civilization will then replace war and barbarism.
My conscience will be light, for I see no wrong in so regulating a set
of tyrants who are themselves invaders, and have in sixty years nearly
destroyed the country. The people hate them.^22