The war broke out before Smyth could complete the book, Broadfoot had been killed at Ferozeshah, so the context at the time of its publication was inevitably entirely altered. Smyth's personal experiences of the war were such that he "wrote his account of the proceedings of the British with the same acid pen as he had used against the Sikhs. This rendered the book 'infamous', but at the same time it went a long way to exposing the hollowness of the British victory in the First Anglo-Sikh War..." Smyth was thorough in his research, he had spoken with Broadfoot on the subject, obtained translations of a number of indigenous sources, and had read Malcolm, Prinsep, Lawrence, and Steinbach, also being "conversant with some of the leading journals." But his main source were "the notes of a Captain Gardner [Alexander Gardner, Gordana Khan] of the Seik Artillery, who has for several years past supplied important information to the British Government" (Introduction). The questionable accuracy of parts of Smyth's account can be explained "by his undue reliance on Gardner who, though never as wicked as the Calcutta Review tried to make out, was never so dependable as Smyth projects him to be" (Khurana). However, as a document of the development of British understanding of the Sikhs it remains an important historiographical source. This copy is somewhat enhanced by copious, contemporary highly opinionated, marginal pencilled comments The hand is difficult and sometimes the notes slightly faded, but they were evidently added by a soldier familiar with the events and personalities described, and are almost equally acerbic about the British - particularly John Company and the Government - and the Sikhs. The author of the comments was almost certainly with the soth Regiment, who were in the thick of the action at Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon, each of the officers of that regiment being marked off in impressive subscribers list. Carmichael Smyth has a claim to great notoriety in being the man whose action in insisting on the issue of the new cartridge cases at Meerut in 1857 struck the first sparks of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. A scarce and highly desirable contemporary source on Anglo-Sikh relations.