GREAT COUNTRY'S LITTLE WARS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 ENGLAND, AFFGHANISTAN, 
 
 AND 
 
 SINDE; 
 
 BEING 
 
 A SKETCH, WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR MORALITY AND POLICY, 
 
 OF RECENT TRANSACTIONS ON THE NORTH-WESTERN 
 
 FRONTIER OF INDIA. 
 
 
 BY HENKY LUSHINGTON. 
 
 _ — *. — , 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLIV. 
 
Li 
 
 London : 
 Harrison and Co., Prjntkrs, 
 St. Martin's Lank. 
 
 fa|£*i«Y MORSE STEPHENS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introductory Chapter 1 
 
 Why was Affghanistan invaded^ . . . . 17 
 
 The Affghan War 82 
 
 Sinde in 1838 and 1839 .169 
 
 Sinde in 1842 and 1843 213 
 
 Note on a recent Article in the "Edinburgh 
 
 Review." 275 
 
 512685 
 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 The following pages, from 17 to 168, consist 
 principally of the reprint of two Articles on the 
 invasion of Afghanistan, which were respectively- 
 inserted in a periodical work in the months of May 
 and July, 1843. In compliance with some opinions 
 which seemed entitled to attention, they are now 
 offered to the public in a separate form. 
 
 With the exception of some slight additions to 
 the historical sketch of our proceedings in AfTghan- 
 istan, they are printed nearly as they originally 
 appeared: a circumstance which is mentioned to 
 account, for the convenient reviewing plural which 
 might otherwise be unexpected in the pages of a 
 little book with a name in the title-page. No ma- 
 terial alterations have been made in these chapters; 
 nothing having appeared during the last year calcu- 
 lated to shake the author's impression of the facts to 
 which he has referred, or to modify the opinions he 
 has expressed. The two chapters on Sinde have 
 been recently written, and are now printed for the 
 first time. 
 
 The striking and terrible events which marked 
 the winter of 1841, and led to the termination of 
 
% , INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 our Affglian dominion, excited in a large number 
 of persons a feeling of strong but mere curiosity 
 respecting the military details and personal adven- 
 tures connected with our calamity. This curiosity, 
 in its nature transient, was largely fed and soon 
 satisfied by works whose circulation in a few weeks 
 entered upon the seventh thousand, and probably 
 has not since overpast that limit. It was the in- 
 terest of the crowd in the topic of the day, the 
 anxiety for news — above all for excitement, felt by 
 the fashionable and reading public. Another kind 
 of anxiety was felt by men to whom it was not in- 
 different whether all that had been done so ineffectu- 
 ally, so disastrously, had been also done wickedly 
 and wrongly ; men who cared to know whether the 
 forward step, for the first time retracted by England, 
 was to be considered henceforth as a misfortune, or 
 as morally and politically criminal. It was for all 
 who share this feeling that the following pages were 
 written, and to them they are now offered as an 
 attempt to illustrate the origin and progress of our 
 u little wars;" as exhibiting, in a chapter of recent 
 Indian history, too many specimens of what the 
 conduct of a great country ought not to be. 
 
 We cannot undo the past; but a clear and just 
 judgment on the past is the best and only prepara- 
 tion against the difficulties of the future; difficulties 
 which seem to come nearer to us with every month's 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 3 
 
 dispatches from India. The Affghan war indeed is 
 over. Sinde, whether by wrong or by stern neces- 
 sity, is ours, unless the deadly climate wrest from us 
 the land which the Beloochees so bravely though in 
 vain defended; but there are yet chiefs with whom 
 peace will be troublesome and quarrel easy ; there 
 are yet states to tempt us with weakness, and pro- 
 voke us with perversities; and a great army ready 
 to act lies on the frontier of the coveted and disor- 
 ganized Punjaub. It is impossible justly to antici- 
 pate events whether in the way of censure or praise; 
 nor is it desirable to lay down for our course in 
 India any definite rule of abstinence from future 
 acquisition. Such rules have been laid down before 
 now, and have not recommended themselves by 
 their peculiar efficiency. Acquisition of additional 
 dominion may be right or may be wrong; every 
 case when it arises should be considered on its own 
 grounds, and judged on its merits. But the rulers 
 of India have a claim to know what it is which their 
 country requires of them; whether to do what is 
 right, or, per fas aut nefas, to extend her dominion. 
 At present, is it unfair to say ? the country re- 
 quires — neither. 
 
 Let a Governor-general go out, intending on the 
 whole to do his duty towards India as well as 
 towards England, with no extraordinary inclination 
 for profitable injustice, it is scarcely possible that 
 
 b 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 the indifference of the Home Legislature — of all but 
 a few individual members of Parliament — should 
 not tend to relax the strictness of his morality. If 
 such a man, wavering on some critical occasion 
 between an inner consciousness of right, and plau- 
 sible reasons for expedient wrong, should fall back 
 for guidance upon that which must always strongly 
 influence even the strongest mind, his country's 
 probable judgment on his conduct — what parallel 
 and recent case will occur foremost to his mind? 
 He has seen the invasion of Afghanistan, con- 
 sidered, it may be, by himself as unjust; known by 
 all to have been disastrous ; yet passing unexamined, 
 uncensured, except by individuals. He has seen 
 men who agree in nothing else, — men who never 
 voted with the Whigs, and men who never voted 
 with the Tories, — men to whom a grant for May- 
 nooth is an abomination, and men to whom church- 
 rates are tyranny, — men who can hardly discuss the 
 appointment of a constable without finding or 
 making a cause of party quarrel, combining to evade 
 the responsibility of a decision as to the justice or 
 injustice of an Asiatic war. 
 
 The most genuine feeling called out by Indian 
 debates, involving the conduct of great public ser- 
 vants, appears to be this : — a sense of shocked 
 decorum, of personal discourtesy. "A grievous 
 injustice," says some " petulant," that is, earnest 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 5 
 
 accuser, "has been committed; examine for your- 
 selves and see" Forthwith, member after mem- 
 ber rises, Government and opposition alike, — all 
 forward to bear their " humble testimony to the 
 high worth of that noble lord, and the incompati- 
 bility of the conduct attributed to him with that 
 character, for which, though his political oppo- 
 nents, they are proud and happy to take this 
 opportunity of expressing " — all the sentiments 
 which, on this occasion, are not to the purpose. 
 The end is — " He is incapable of such actions, and, 
 therefore, we will not examine." 
 
 This defence, so effective on Indian affairs, — 
 why is it confined to them only ? When the late 
 Government were charged with recklessly staking 
 the finances of the Nation against their own conti- 
 nuance in office, why was not an indignant and 
 sufficient refutation deduced from a list of Lord 
 John Russell's private virtues? Why was not the 
 question of the Dublin Jury List fought out on the 
 broad ground of Sir Robert Peer's irreproachable 
 character? Because, perhaps, in these questions 
 both sides were in earnest. 
 
 All things are capable of some defence, and the 
 imaginary case in question may be capable of many, 
 but this form of defence ought once for all to be 
 protested against, and finally ejected from Parlia- 
 ment. It is a venerable principle of the British 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Constitution, known to every member who is also a 
 magistrate, dinned at every assizes by every judge 
 into the ears of every jury, that an otherwise proved 
 charge is not to be rebutted by the best of charac- 
 ters. 
 
 But let the praise of a Statesman's personal 
 character be as well deserved as it is vaguely and 
 thoughtlessly bestowed, the defence inferred from it 
 rests upon the general but transparent error, that a 
 good man in private life is incapable of injustice as 
 a ruler. A man may be good and amiable towards 
 Englishmen, and yet unjust towards Affghans and 
 Beloochees. The influences by which he is more 
 closely surrounded, — habit, prejudice, interest, tend 
 to keep him generally right in the one case ; in the 
 other they may, and often do, tend to lead him 
 directly wrong. His position requires not only 
 readiness to fulfil his duties, but something of 
 enlarged intellect and sympathies to apprehend 
 them. We meet with many more models of private 
 than of public virtue. Perhaps no man ever passed 
 through life in an elevated station without grave 
 and noticeable errors in his public conduct. Why 
 is this ? Because the discernment of right is more 
 difficult, and the temptation to wrong more un- 
 checked and stronger. Lord Auckland, then, and 
 his advisers may have been, individually and collec- 
 tively, the most amiable men who ever gave or 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 7 
 
 attended a ball at the Government House in Cal- 
 cutta. This is no answer to the charge that they 
 perpetrated in Sinde and Affghanistan aggressions 
 as unjust as were ever perpetrated by a government 
 in India. 
 
 In the recent debate on Sinde (February 9th, 
 1844,) Sir J. Hobhouse, in a speech which, being 
 lively and personal, appears to have been considered 
 by many an effective answer to the argumentative 
 statement of Mr. Roebuck, made use of one pecu- 
 liar and most remarkable expression. Mr. Roebuck 
 had, he complained, almost u sprinkled himself and 
 Lord Auckland with the blood n shed in the 
 Affghan war. To what particular terms in Mr. 
 Roebuck's speech the reference is made, does not 
 appear in the report ; but the complaint can only 
 imply that Mr. Roebuck had charged, perhaps in 
 strong terms, the guilt of blood shed in a war 
 believed and asserted by him to be causeless and 
 unjust, upon those who caused or authorised the 
 war. Upon whom else should he charge it ? Are 
 not the commencers of a war guilty or innocent 
 of the consequent bloodshed, as the war itself is 
 wrongfully or rightfully undertaken ? Yet a minis- 
 ter feels it to be strange and discourteous that this 
 blood should be u sprinkled " upon him, and pro- 
 tests, as an injured man, against the plain-speaking 
 of his accuser. The blood was shed far off, — his 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 hands were never stained with it, — why should it 
 be required at his hands? 
 
 Sir J. Hobhouse (who stands on this occasion 
 in the place of the late Indian Government) looks 
 at the question from the wrong side, and applies to 
 his own case the defence volunteered by so many 
 for Lord Auckland. He would throw off all uneasi- 
 ness about the war, because his conscience truly 
 tells him that he is not indifferent to bloodshed. 
 But that is not the question. No one charges him 
 with that; the charge is that the war was unjust. 
 Impolicy, error, want of judgment, — these are calm 
 terms which trouble and shock no one ; but the 
 charge of shedding blood without just cause, is felt 
 at once to be no trifle. Let it be felt so more and 
 more. If commendation of the wisdom and fore- 
 thought which originated the Affghan war were in 
 question, there would be no want of readiness to 
 claim the praise of the design, — 
 
 Me, me, adsura qui feci, 
 would be the exclamation of many. Let those who 
 would accept the praise, — those, indeed, who have 
 grasped at and worn — and with no lack of pride — 
 the laurel of victory, accept and meet the attack 
 upon the injustice which caused the quarrel. 
 
 In me convertite ferrum. — 
 Let them finish the line, for they are responsible. 
 And let them not think it is in discourtesy only, or 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9 
 
 in faction, that they are charged with unjust blood- 
 shedding by those who deliberately believe that the 
 invasion of Afghanistan was a deed which every addi- 
 tional fact, every attempted defence, strips more and 
 more utterly bare of every shadow of justification. 
 
 I leave it to the jurists of the Portfolio to main- 
 tain, that all the officers and men who took part in 
 the Affghan war, are, by the law of England, indi- 
 vidually indictable at the bar of the Old Bailey 
 for murder; and to denounce the conduct of the 
 directors of our foreign relations as explicable only 
 on the supposition of treason. While the statesmen 
 of a free country share the feelings of those whose 
 consent or will placed them where they are, there 
 will be more probable and easier explanations 
 nearer at hand ; all, perhaps, essentially included in 
 the statement of a distinguished ornament of the 
 Lower House : — " The British nation does not care 
 a bit about foreign affairs. It does not care two- 
 pence'' 
 
 True, but surely not right. Foreign affairs are 
 
 the affairs of the rest of the world, and the British 
 
 nation has a good deal to do, directly or indirectly, 
 
 with the rest of the world. Englishmen live in 
 
 every climate ; the ships of England are on every 
 
 sea — 
 
 She moving— at her girdle clash 
 
 The golden keys of East and West. 
 A few words written in the Cabinet of England 
 
 B 3 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 are like the sudden removal of a tiny bolt, setting 
 free the complex forces of a great engine. The vast 
 machinery of Oriental war stirs and works ; armies 
 march, artillery rolls, lands are wasted, cities are 
 stormed, the thrones of Asia go down, half the 
 human race is shaken with alarm. And for all this — 
 the nation does not care. It must learn to care, if it 
 would keep the right to be proud of its empire. It 
 must learn to care, or it may find that even careless- 
 ness is not exempt from the penalties of wrong- 
 doing. It must learn to care, if it would not have 
 the charges of injustice and tyranny, which it zea- 
 lously throws in the teeth of Russia and France, 
 flung back on itself with the added brand of hypo- 
 crisy. 
 
 Those who care to discuss any particular case of 
 acquisition by a civilized from an uncivilized power, 
 generally divide themselves into two classes of 
 arguers. There are many trained in the school of 
 Exeter Hall, who find it easier to be benevolent 
 than just, to denounce than to examine; and with 
 them any advance made by a powerful state is at 
 once set down as criminal; "All acquisitions are 
 unjust; this is an acquisition, therefore this is un- 
 just :" such is the staple of their argument; and it is 
 one which, coupled with some affecting details of 
 the sufferings in the particular case, at once grati- 
 fies its supporters with the sweet excitement of their 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 11 
 
 own philanthropy, and furnishes weapons to their 
 opponents. It plays into their hands; it saves them 
 the necessity of defending the particular act in 
 question ; it suggests generalities, with which to meet 
 general denunciations. The charge is confessed and 
 avoided. u All acquisitions are unjust, you say," is 
 the answer: "be it so; this then is like others, and 
 no worse than others. Why waste virtuous time in 
 denouncing it? We respect your benevolence, we 
 appreciate your intentions, but we know that while 
 men are men, the stronger will gain on the weaker. 
 These things are regulated by an 'uncontrollable 
 principle' It always was so, it always will be so." 
 And there the matter rests, having indeed reached 
 the farthest point to which this argument can con- 
 duct it. The result is not satisfactory. 
 
 One who, though ready to join in censure of 
 many acts, does not willingly allow that our Indian 
 empire is one great edifice of wrong, — one who 
 would willingly hope that the historical conduct of 
 England may be distinguished from that of Russia, 
 must deny the assumption that all acquisitions are 
 unjust, and must wish that the denouncers of any 
 act of oppression would attempt to show that the 
 course pursued in this particular case has been in- 
 consistent with some acknowledged principles of 
 right. This line of argument is more troublesome 
 than the other; but it has the direct advantage of 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 being infinitely more effective if successful; and the 
 collateral advantage of being the only course con- 
 sistent with truth and reason. It is the course 
 which I have attempted to pursue in my remarks 
 on the origin of the Affghan war, and on our suc- 
 cessive steps of aggression in Sinde. 
 
 It is to Sir Robert Peel that we owe, along with 
 much excellent morality, this convenient silencer of 
 inconvenient inquiries ; the doctrine of * an uncon- 
 trollable principle" necessitating the encroachments 
 of civilized upon uncivilized nations. It would be 
 discourteous to assume that the Premier meant 
 nothing, and impossible to believe, as some have 
 suggested, that Sir Robert Peel meant to elevate 
 into a principle the mere selfish desire of gain. Let 
 us try to assign to the words of so high an authority 
 at least a plausible meaning. 
 
 In the position of a powerful and a weak state 
 bound, whether by treaties or otherwise, to the 
 observance of mutual rights, which there is no third 
 party to enforce, there is perhaps an inherent diffi- 
 culty. In the first place, the stronger party can 
 never be punished for the violation of its engage- 
 ments or duties. This difficulty, however, it rests 
 with the stronger to avoid, by the simple process of 
 keeping its engagements. Next, the weaker party, 
 being also by supposition the lower in civilization 
 and morals, is likely enough to give offence; and in 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 13 
 
 every case of offence or even of dispute, the offended 
 and stronger party is also the judge, and as a 
 supreme tribunal without appeal, carries into effect 
 the judgment demanded by its own sense of its own 
 claims. This is, and must be — perhaps for thou- 
 sands of years. Between two parties each confident 
 of right, where there is no other arbiter, strength 
 will decide; and English civilization is stronger 
 than Asiatic barbarism. 
 
 Let all this be granted, and what follows? The 
 chance, or even certainty of provocation, the par- 
 tiality of men in their own case, the absence of an 
 arbiter — are all these things, ten times multiplied, 
 " an uncontrollable principle," making useless the 
 search after right, and so justifying indifference to 
 wrong? They constitute at most a tendency, which 
 the simplest rules of duty order us to watch and 
 control. They are a difficulty making strait the way 
 to right; but they do not make the wrong way 
 right — they do not meet one single objection to any 
 one action or series of actions. A nation must act 
 on its own sense of its own claims, and may be in 
 error respecting them; is it therefore released from 
 the obligation of seeking out the just course, from 
 the responsibility of choosing the wrong one? Is it 
 therefore to make its own interests the single 
 measure of its claims? This is an inference which 
 it requires some power of logic, as well as of con- 
 science, to draw. 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 It amounts to saying, that because men are 
 partial in their own cause they need not try to be 
 impartial; that because men may be misled by their 
 passions in estimating their own rights, therefore 
 there is no essential right or wrong; that where 
 among men there is no judge, there, too, there is no 
 idea of justice. Conclusions as deadly as they are 
 false, striking at the very root of morality. 
 
 It is the sense of right, the desire of justice, 
 which has set up the judge among men. The same 
 sense, and the same desire, exist even where the 
 judge has not yet appeared; not less in the dis- 
 putes of nations than in the farthest back woods of 
 Canada : and their existence is a prophecy that he 
 will yet be found. Meanwhile, and until the nations 
 find him — a great but conceivable discovery, which 
 distant and peaceful centuries have perhaps in store 
 — let us not dispute the reality of that justice, which 
 is at least already divine, and may become human, 
 and which every one profoundly respects so long as 
 he considers it on his own side. Passion and interest 
 may dim our eyes, but that is no reason why we 
 should deliberately bandage them with " an uncon- 
 trollable principle/' We may be shortsighted; but 
 we are not quite blind. No uncontrollable principle 
 necessitates an attack on the unoffending; no un- 
 controllable principle necessitates the breach of 
 solemn engagements. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 15 
 
 Seeing that Christianity has only existed about 
 two thousand years in the world, it would be too 
 much to require that the powerful should be 
 generous, where they cannot be sure that they are 
 impartial. But, at any rate, there are some few 
 broad and older rules, applicable to the dealings of 
 nations, as well as of individuals. " Thou shalt not 
 steal;" "Thou shalt not bear false witness/' are 
 among the number. By these we are ready enough 
 to try the conduct of others — by these, let us try 
 our own; and we may perhaps be helped towards a 
 practical conclusion by laying down an axiom co- 
 extensive with the free will of man, that there is 
 no such thing as a principle at once wrong and 
 uncontrollable. 
 
WHY WAS AFFGHANISTAN INVADED? 
 
 The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins 
 Remorse from power. 
 
 "We are now indebted for advice and censure to 
 gentlemen, who, till our measures forced it upon 
 their knowledge, had never heard the name of 
 Herat, and did not know Cabool from Candahar." 
 
 To something like this effect spoke Lord Pal- 
 merston, when vindicating the Eastern policy of the 
 late Government, in one of the earlier debates on 
 the subject. Whatever more or less direct bearing 
 this piece of satire may have upon the merits of 
 Lord Palmerston and his colleagues, they are enti- 
 tled to its full benefit; for it is true. It would have 
 been well for England, for India, for Afghanistan, 
 and perhaps for Lord Palmerston himself, if the 
 assertion had been less true. 
 
 Five or six years since, the degree of information 
 possessed by the educated portion of society gene- 
 rally, was little more than that above attributed to 
 members of the House of Commons. We had a 
 general idea that AfTghanistan was a mountainous 
 country, and that it lay somewhere between India 
 and Persia; we had heard the names of Cabool, 
 Candahar, and Ghuznee; and we attached some 
 meaning, very slightly connected with latitude and 
 longitude, to the mention of Herat. Our political 
 conceptions were equally vague with our geographi- 
 
18 STATE OF OPINION IN 1837- 
 
 cal. We had two or three names of persons, which 
 we fitted with varying degrees of incorrectness to 
 the two or three names of places above-mentioned; 
 we believed that Dost Mahomed held in Affghan- 
 istan some kind of supremacy from which Shah 
 Soojah had been deposed, and stood in some relation 
 or other, of friendship or hostility, towards Prince 
 Kamram of Herat, whose name was at that time 
 rather the most familiar of the three. We con- 
 ynected these names in different combinations with 
 ^ an indefinite fear of danger to our Indian empire. 
 We heard much of the influence of Russia at the 
 Court of Persia, of her intrigues in Central Asia, of 
 her emissaries and stirrers-up of discontent in India; 
 and our most fixed was our most well-founded idea, 
 that Russia, whether dealing with Circassians, Per- 
 sians, or Affghans, was neither moderate in her 
 wishes nor scrupulous in her choice of means, that 
 she cared less than nothing for our interests, nothing 
 for those of general humanity, and much for her 
 own. Such in the early part of 1837 was, upon 
 these subjects, the amount of the public knowledge, 
 and the disposition of the public mind. 
 
 At length there arrived intelligence of a definite 
 and important event; the attack of the Persians 
 upon Herat, with the countenance and aid of Rus- 
 sian officers, and in defiance of the remonstrances of 
 the representative of England. The danger appre- 
 hended from the west, seemed to have taken the 
 first step in advance towards our frontier; and we 
 began to look with some interest at the map of Cen- 
 
PROCLAMATION OF SIMLA. 19 
 
 tral Asia. The cause of the besiegers was the cause 
 of Russia, the cause of the besieged was the cause 
 of England; and we heard with satisfaction and 
 pride, of the degree in which the skill and resolution 
 of an English lieutenant had contributed to the 
 determined and ultimately triumphant resistance of 
 the besieged. It seemed not impossible that the 
 two great powers, from the indirect struggle of 
 diplomacy and encouragement of antagonist inter- 
 ests, might pass into direct collision. Suddenly we 
 heard that we were at war — with Russia? No,-~~ 
 with the existing rulers of Affghanistan. An Anglo- 
 Indian force of 20,000 men was about to cross the 
 Indus, with the object of deposing Dost Mahomed 
 and his brothers of Candahar, and reinstating Shah 
 Soojah on the throne of Cabool. The declaration 
 of October 1st, 1838, announced to the world at 
 once the intention of the Governor-general, and the 
 grounds on which he proceeded. 
 
 It was natural that most readers of this docu- 
 ment should take for granted that this statement of 
 facts, at least, was well-founded; it was natural, too, 
 though less excusable, to receive the announcement 
 of such a step with some tendency towards acquies- 
 cence; to believe that no English minister would 
 recommend, no Governor-general would adopt, a 
 measure so extraordinary, involving possibilities so 
 tremendous, without the existence of strong grounds 
 both of justice and policy. The intelligence of the 
 commencement of the Affghan war was received by 
 the public in accordance with these feelings, by 
 
20 JUSTIFIED BY SUCCESS. 
 
 Parliament with that indifference to foreign affairs 
 which characterizes the senate of the most commer- 
 cial nation of the world. A few questions were 
 asked and answered; papers were refused, produced, 
 or to be produced hereafter; the foreign minister 
 made bold assertions, the leader of opposition cauti- 
 ously reserved his opinion, and the subject of Af- 
 ghanistan slept at least until the arrival of the next 
 mail from India. Then came the fall of Ghuznee, 
 the flight of Dost Mahomed, the unopposed entrance 
 of Shah Soojah into Cabool. The Affghan expedi- 
 tion had all the vindication it could derive from suc- 
 cess; and that, for the time, was all it needed. We 
 had successful generals to make into lords, success- 
 ful diplomatists to make into baronets, a successful 
 army to thank and praise; remonstrances on the 
 score of impolicy were answered by the event; 
 remonstrances on the score of injustice could get no 
 hearing. The very ease with which Shah Soojah^s 
 restoration had been effected, proved that his rule 
 was acceptable to the Affghans; in placing an effec- 
 tual barrier between our own territories and Russian 
 intrigue, we had bestowed upon them the inestim- 
 able benefit of a strong and settled, yet popular, 
 government. We had replaced an oppressive and 
 usurping ruler, by a legitimate and beloved monarch; 
 we had opened a way to the extension of our com- 
 merce into vast and unknown regions. A war, 
 undertaken on grounds, which had been, or should 
 be proved, to be irrefragable, was over, in fact if not 
 in name, and we had only to reap its benefits, and 
 reward its instruments. 
 
BLUE BOOKS PRESENTED. 21 
 
 The latter was done forthwith, but it was soon 
 apparent that the former might yet be delayed. 
 Months passed on, and became years, and still every 
 Indian mail brought intelligence of " disturbances" 
 in Affghanistan. There were still " insurrections;" 
 there were still u rebels" to put down; predatory 
 tribes to be restrained, turbulent chieftains to be 
 humbled. A war of detachments seemed to be 
 spread over the country; there were no great bat- 
 tles; but there were "brilliant affairs," and "dash- 
 ing exploits" without end, each of them costing 
 many valuable lives; and our usual success was not 
 unchequered with serious disasters. Even the sur- 
 render, in November, 1840, of Dost Mahomed, did 
 not restore tranquillity to the country. It appears 
 from a summary, drawn up in the Bombay Times, 
 that between January, 1840, and August, 1841, our 
 troops in Affghanistan and the neighbouring coun- 
 tries, were engaged in thirty-four distinct conflicts. 
 The Affghans and Beloochees were slow to learn the 
 benefits of the state of things we had introduced 
 among them. 
 
 In the mean time, as much attention was be- 
 stowed upon the subject at home as could be 
 expected. Parliament did not neglect its duty, as 
 far as that duty was to be inferred from its ordinary 
 practice. Masses of printed paper, bound in blue, 
 were distributed to the members of the House of 
 Commons, and partly read by some of them. The 
 general result of the correspondence produced, was 
 in favour of Lord Auckland's policy. The invasion, 
 
22 PARLIAMENT ACQUIESCES. 
 
 if invasion it was to be called, of Affghanistan, 
 appeared to have been recommended by some of the 
 authorities, to whose opinions on all topics respect- 
 ing these countries, most weight was attached; and 
 the opinions of Sir Alexander Burnes to the con- 
 trary, his expressions in favour of Dost Mahomed, 
 and even his statements of facts, militating against 
 the views of the Government, were withdrawn from 
 the notice of Parliament, by a system of careful 
 selection, as Lord John Russell designates it, — 
 omission, as it might be more accurately denomi- 
 nated. In short, a case was, to a certain extent, 
 made out, and any one who chose to acquiesce in 
 the policy of the Government, might point to the 
 blue book as his reason for so doing. The Affghan 
 war was not a party question, that is, it was a ques- 
 tion upon which each individual member had still to 
 form his opinion from his own researches, and upon 
 his own responsibility; and, therefore, (the inference 
 is a singular one, but so uniformly drawn that its 
 soundness may be held to have been established 
 inductively,) it excited little interest. Had the sub- 
 sequent disasters occurred in the early part of the 
 war, the case would doubtless have been otherwise. 
 There would have been no triumph of our arms 
 to dazzle the eyes of inquirers, and voices which 
 were silenced by victory, would have been clamorous 
 for an explanation of the causes of a war resulting in 
 defeat. For the comparative tranquillity he enjoyed, 
 Lord Palmerston was indebted less to the Blue 
 Book than to the petard which blew open the gates 
 
OUTBREAK IN 1841. 23 
 
 of Ghuznee. But, by the help of the one and the 
 other, and the Whig Budget, and the pressure of 
 more domestic matters, the Affghan war was acqui- 
 esced in. Months and years passed away, leaving 
 Afghanistan still occupied by our army, and many 
 began habitually to regard it as virtually a perma- 
 nent addition to our empire. In the summer of 
 1841, Sir J. C. Hobhouse spoke exultingly of our 
 extended dominion; Lord Palmerston of its perfect 
 tranquillity; and hardly a voice was raised through the 
 country to censure the one, or contradict the other. 
 
 But the time was approaching, when the name 
 of the Affghan war should no longer be pronounced 
 with indifference in England. The account of the 
 commencement of the great outbreak at Cabool 
 reached England early in 1842 ; and from that time, 
 every mail brought intelligence of disasters so new 
 and so terrible, that it was difficult to replace the 
 involuntary incredulity they excited with a sense of 
 their reality. At length, after an interval of painful 
 suspense, we knew that our principal force in 
 Affghanistan had been utterly destroyed. It would 
 be vain to deny that these events were the first 
 which, by the doubt which they cast on the policy, 
 really and thoroughly awakened the mass of Eng- 
 lishmen to question the justice of the original 
 quarrel. But whether it was just or not, was not 
 for the time the nearest consideration, while the 
 Affghans yet beleaguered our garrisons, and held 
 numerous prisoners in their hands. A short and 
 decisive campaign accomplished at once the recovery 
 
24 POLICY OF 1838 
 
 of the prisoners, and the important and collateral 
 object of retrieving the slur upon our military 
 reputation ; and then, with the entire withdrawal of 
 every part of our forces, closed the four years' 
 drama of war in AfFghanistan. 
 
 Such is a sufficiently accurate outline of the 
 course of these events, and of the feelings with 
 which they were successively received in England. 
 If our account of the latter is true, we need not 
 wonder at the very imperfect degree of knowledge 
 still existing respecting the origin of the war. 
 Still there are features in the case sufficiently re- 
 markable to excite more curiosity. 
 
 A war was undertaken with very general acquies- 
 cence, continued for four years, and then terminated 
 with all but universal satisfaction. The natural 
 inference would be, that it terminated in the ac- 
 complishment of the objects for which it was under- 
 taken. How far such an inference would be just, 
 let the facts known to all the world answer. 
 
 We entered Affghanistan to effect a change of 
 dynasty — we withdrew from it, professing our readi- 
 ness to acknowledge any government which the 
 AfFghans themselves may think fit to establish. 
 We entered it to establish a government, above all, 
 friendly to ourselves. Are the Affghans our friends 
 now ? In short, a struggle which we commenced in 
 furtherance of a certain line of policy, and with a 
 view to certain objects, has ended in our renouncing 
 those objects, and reversing that policy. Under an 
 assumed necessity, we crossed the Indus: after 
 
REVERSED IN 1842. 25 
 
 a war in which twenty thousand lives have been, 
 sacrificed on our side, and countless lives on the 
 other, we have retired within the Indus: and, 
 except for the anarchy we have left in the place of 
 order, the hatred in the place of kindness, all is as 
 it was before. Our conduct of 1842, stands forth 
 before the world as contrasted with and condemning 
 our conduct of 1838. These are results not to be 
 obtained by a laborious search into the history of 
 the last four years, from a comparison of State 
 Papers, they are facts before all the world — to be 
 seen by all eyes which are not resolutely kept shut — 
 as far beyond misrepresentation and doubt as beyond 
 denial. We would urge them again and again upon 
 all those who, having looked with indifference on 
 the commencement, are ready enough to look with 
 equal indifference on the termination of the Affghan 
 war, as presenting in themselves a prima facie case 
 against its originators, or, if they prefer it, its con- 
 cluders. If we were right formerly, we cannot be 
 right now. If we are not wrong now, we must have 
 been wrong formerly. Without understanding how 
 we were in the wrong, can we feel sure that we are 
 now in the right ? 
 
 And, supposing that we are entirely satisfied of 
 the rectitude of our present conduct, is the injustice 
 of four years back a matter of indifference ? a sub- 
 ject, not to be tried by contemporary judgment, to 
 be questioned at the bar of living opinion, but to be 
 elucidated at some time or other, by curious histo- 
 rical inquiry? Is the statute which limits the time 
 
 C 
 
 
26 WHICH WAS EIGHT? 
 
 for the recovery of a debt due from one individual 
 to another, to be applied, and narrowed in its appli- 
 cations, to the transactions of nations ? We have 
 been led, influenced by imperfect knowledge, into a 
 course of conduct which, with our present know- 
 ledge we would have avoided — how came we to be 
 misled? How far was that knowledge possessed by 
 our responsible leaders ? Was their conduct cen- 
 surable ? Was it justifiable ? Was it excusable 
 error, or flagrant injustice ? 
 
 He who is indifferent to the answer to those 
 questions, as regards the events of four years back, 
 would surely feel little interest in the right or wrong 
 of any quarrel into which we might enter to-morrow. 
 In our judgment, enough has already appeared on 
 the subject of the Affghan war to make further 
 inquiry most desirable. That inquiry has been 
 demanded, and hitherto steadily refused. In its 
 absence, the public have a right to assume that the 
 whole case is before them, and to form such a judg- 
 ment as they can from the existing materials : and 
 we believe that an examination of the question as 
 it stands will lead most persons to a conclusion, in 
 accordance with our own, that the war was unneces- 
 sary, unwise, and above all, unjust. To prove the 
 first of these, is, in the present state of the British 
 empire, to prove the second; to prove the third 
 ought to supersede the necessity of proving the 
 other two. The following observations will be 
 principally directed to this point; but they may 
 perhaps be found to contain, incidentally, sufficient 
 evidence upon the others. 
 
DEFENSIVE WAR JUST. 27 
 
 The received code of international morality is 
 not, even in the nineteenth century, very strict. 
 One principle, however, seems to be admitted in 
 the theory, if not the practice, of civilized men, 
 that an aggressive war — a war undertaken against 
 unoffending parties, with a view to our own benefit 
 only— is unjust; and, conversely, that a war to 
 be just, must partake of the character of a defen- 
 sive war. It may be defensive in various ways — 
 in the way either of preventing an injury which 
 it is attempted to inflict, or of exacting repara- 
 tion for one inflicted, and taking the necessary secu- 
 rity against its future infliction: but, in one way 
 or other, defensive it must be. Still it does not 
 follow, that the party who strikes the first blow is 
 always the aggressor. A state may with as much 
 justice advance beyond its own frontier, to oppose 
 the known designs of a hostile state, as an individual 
 may prevent by anticipating the blow of the mur- 
 derer. In this case, however, it lies upon the 
 assaulting party to bring his conduct within the 
 general rule of self-defence, from which it apparently 
 departs, by showing that he had grounds for appre- 
 hending attack. 
 
 Such is the case of the AfTghan invasion. It is 
 not pretended that the Affghans had injured us 
 either nationally or individually. In the cities of 
 Cabool and Candahar our emissaries had been 
 courteously received and kindly treated. Even the 
 Murrees, Brahoes, Khyberries — the warrior-robbers 
 of their tremendous passes, whose hand has been, 
 
 C2 
 
28 WAS THE AFFGHAN WAR DEFEiNSIVE? 
 
 from of old, against every man, had robbed us as 
 little as, before he sought them in arms, the Trojans 
 had robbed Achilles, and for much the same 
 reason — 
 
 ov yap ttoittot €fias j3ovs fjXacrav, ovbe fiev nnrovs, 
 
 , €7Tcitj fxaka 7ro\\a [xtraZv 
 
 ovped tc o-Kioevra, 6d\aar<rd re T)xV e(ra ' a ' 
 
 Many a dark mountain-range and broad river 
 lay between us and them. Of the many articles 
 which they covet, camels are the most attractive; 
 yet, up to the year 1838, we do not know that we 
 had lost by them a single camel ; if we have since 
 lost fifty thousand, perhaps they who acted after 
 their custom, and according to their knowledge, 
 are hardly more to blame than the party who sought 
 the collision. From the Affghans we had sustained 
 no wrong. 
 
 But we apprehended wrong. As it is stated in 
 Lord Auckland's proclamation, the ruler of Cabool 
 ie avowed schemes of aggrandizement and ambition, 
 injurious to the security and peace of the frontiers 
 of India;" and, again, he and his brothers, chiefs 
 of Candahar, are spoken of as " ranging themselves 
 in subservience to a hostile power, and seeking to 
 promote schemes of conquest and aggrandizement. " 
 The former of these clauses refers to the claims of 
 Dost Mahomed upon Peshawur, then, and since 
 1835, in the possession of Runjeet Singh; the latter 
 to the Persian attack upon Herat, the anticipated 
 progress of Persia towards India, and the extension 
 of Persian, — that is to say, of Russian, — influence 
 
AMBITIOUS SCHEMES REPROBATED 29 
 
 over the whole of Afghanistan. The whole ques- 
 tion of the Affghan war turns upon these two 
 points — Peshawur and Herat. 
 
 An intricate series of rebellions, murders, wars 
 within wars, in the course of which the Affghans 
 gave in turn to almost every living member of the 
 Suddozye family his trial as king, terminated about 
 1810 in their final expulsion, in the person of Shah 
 Soojah. Herat alone remained in the hands of 
 Kamram, a branch of the royal race. The Barukzye 
 family, sprung from the great Affghan minister, 
 Futteh Ali, shared among themselves the three other 
 principalities, — Cabool, Candahar, and Peshawur. 
 
 We are content to give one version of the facts 
 respecting Peshawur, in the words of a writer in the 
 Edinburgh Review, a professed defender of Lord 
 Auckland's policy. 
 
 "Dost Mahomed was never ruler in 
 
 any form, or under any title, of the province of 
 Peshawur, of which, in truth, he demanded not the 
 restitution, but the gift; and which he modestly re- 
 quired that we should extort, as the price of his 
 alliance, from the close grasp of the old lion of the 
 Punjaub. Dost Mahomed was ruler of the city of 
 Cabool, with an insecure authority over some other 
 districts. In the division of power among the 
 Barukzye chiefs, Peshawur fell exclusively to Sultan 
 Mahomed Khan, a half-brother of Dost Mahomed, 
 who seceded from the confederacy with that chief, 
 and thought it for his interest to succumb to the 
 power of Runjeet Singh, and to hold a large jagheer 
 
30 IN DOST MAHOMED. 
 
 (fief) within the Peshawur territory as the subject of 
 the Seikh government. This he was holding at the 
 time of our negotiations with Dost Mahomed, who 
 regarded him as his enemy, because he had sub- 
 mitted to the Seikhs. But the territory he had ceded 
 to them was quite as much his, to dispose of, as 
 Cabool was Dost Mahomed's." 
 
 On this it may be observed, in the first place, 
 that with any quarrel between Runjeet Singh and 
 Dost Mahomed, we could not pretend to any direct 
 concern whatever. Both were independent powers, 
 at perfect liberty, as far as other states were con- 
 cerned, to make peace or war with each other; of 
 which liberty, as might be expected from Eastern 
 rulers of hostile races and religions, they had not 
 been slow to avail themselves. If Dost Mahomed, 
 as Lord Auckland remarks, in a tone of virtuous in- 
 dignation, avowed " schemes of aggrandizement and 
 ambition injurious to the security and peace of the 
 frontiers of India," that is, of the kingdom of the 
 Punjaub, under the dominion, not of the English, 
 but of Runjeet Singh, his persevering and powerful 
 enemy, — Runjeet Singh had not been altogether in 
 the habit of abstaining from schemes of aggrandize- 
 ment and ambition injurious to the security and 
 peace of the Affghan territories. The terms of our 
 alliance with him were not such as could give us a 
 right to interfere between him and the Affghans, 
 except for purposes of mediation; and if we ever 
 so interfered, justice would have required that our 
 mediation should be for the advantage of both par- 
 
AFFGHAN CLAIMS ON PESHAWUR. 31 
 
 ties ; not a mere combination of our strength with 
 that of the stronger, to enforce the submission of the 
 weaker. 
 
 Secondly, it should be remembered that the ter- 
 ritory of Peshawur, though it had never belonged to 
 Dost Mahomed, was undoubtedly AfFghan. It was 
 one of the four AfFghan principalities ; it had ever 
 been such until the date of its acquisition by Runjeet 
 Singh, through a combination of force, fraud, and 
 good fortune, of which the reader will find an amus- 
 ing account in Mr. Masson^s third volume. The 
 u old Lion of Lahore w never eked out the strength of 
 the lion by the cunning of the fox in a manner more 
 characteristic and successful than on the occasion on 
 which (as Dost Mahomed says, in a letter written in 
 October, 1837, to his brothers at Candahar,) u Pesh- 
 awur, which is our principal abode, fell into the 
 hands of the Seikhs, on account of the foolishness 
 of Sultan Mahomed Khan, and which has always 
 been a source of great trouble and vexation to us." 
 That Dost Mahomed, the chief of the principal city 
 of Cabool, and if not the ruler, at least the acknow- 
 ledged head of the Mahometan Affghans, should be 
 anxious to recover for his people the possession of 
 Peshawur, an Affghan city, thus thrown into the 
 hands of their " natural enemies " the Seikh idola- 
 ters, was surely no strange or blamable ambition. 
 It was his interest as a ruler, and, we will add, it 
 was his duty as a patriot ; though, we doubt not, 
 that, by speaking with gravity of the patriotism of 
 an AfFghan, we incur the ridicule of all such as 
 
32 TERMS OF MEDIATION 
 
 the reviewer above quoted, who considers Dost 
 Mahomed quite inexcusable in regarding Sultan 
 Mahomed Khan as his enemy, because of his wil- 
 ling submission to the Seikhs ; because " Peshawur 
 was quite as much his, to dispose of, as Cabool was 
 Dost Mahomed's." 
 
 Quite as much — and quite as little. An Asiatic, 
 a Mahometan, and a prince, Dost Mahomed was, 
 probably, no perfect character. In his difficult posi- 
 tion, struggling through life to maintain himself 
 against enemies, foreign and domestic, he had done, 
 we doubt not, many questionable things ; he pro- 
 fessed, we dare say, no indifference to temptation, 
 no superhuman morality; but we do not find, in 
 any part of his career, any traces of his having 
 thought, as this English writer seems to think, that 
 his country was his, to dispose of. 
 
 Our mediation, however, between the Affghans 
 and Seikhs, we had a right to offer ; and we offered 
 it — but on what terms ? Let us again hear the 
 Reviewer : — 
 
 " Lord Auckland ... offered, as the price of an 
 alliance, to guarantee them in their actual possessions 
 against the Seikhs. They refused to break off their 
 negotiations with those ♦who were threatening us 
 with hostility, and inflaming the minds of our most 
 unquiet subjects, unless we consented to despoil 
 Runjeet Singh, and to make over the plunder to 
 them. More than this, Dost Mahomed, being then 
 perfectly aware of the rupture, actual or impending, 
 between Persia and England, and in direct allusion 
 
OFFERED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 33 
 
 to soliciting the aid of Persia and Russia, declared 
 that, in support of his designs upon Peshawur, he 
 would call in every foreign assistance that he could 
 command. Lord Auckland lost all hope, therefore, 
 of making use of the Affghans as a barrier, and was 
 compelled to regard them, at a crisis demanding ac- 
 tion, as the allies of our enemies; and who affords 
 them the most convenient station from whence to 
 send forth the emissaries of disaffection and rebel- 
 lion throughout our territories/ 3 
 
 The last sentence is open to criticism of more 
 than one kind; in particular, we can make nothing 
 of " and who affords" — who affords ? One really 
 cannot tell; but the nearest applicable nominative 
 is Lord Auckland, who is probably not the person 
 meant. The hypothesis of some inconceivable mis- 
 print may enable the charitable to get over the 
 grammatical difficulties; but the construction is not 
 so difficult to reconcile with grammar as the previous 
 statements with fact. In the possession of Runjeet 
 Singh, certainly Peshawur might be correctly desig- 
 nated as plunder: still it might not be our business 
 to despoil him of it for the benefit of the people 
 whom he had plundered. But if the above sentences 
 imply that Dost Mahomed was ready to accede to 
 our alliance on the terms of the\unconditional pos- 
 session of Peshawur, and no other, they imply what is 
 capable of disproof even by the papers as presented 
 to Parliament. Dost Mahomed was most willing to 
 meet the wishes of the British Government, when 
 those wishes were not incompatible with his own 
 
 c 3 
 
34 DECLINED BY DOST MAHOMED 
 
 safety. Nor was it likely that our interference on 
 his behalf would have led to any interruption of our 
 friendship with Runjeet Singh; who had certainly 
 no reason to plume himself on his success in the 
 struggle. In the early part of the year 1837, his 
 troops had been more severely handled by the 
 Affghans than they had ever been before; and it was 
 the opinion of those best qualified to judge, that the 
 Seikh ruler would gladly have had an excuse for 
 resigning on creditable terms his troublesome acqui- 
 sition of Peshawur. Such an opportunity Burnes, 
 doubtless, thought he had presented to him and the 
 Indian Government, when he induced Dost Mahomed 
 to make the offer of holding Peshawur under a 
 modified acknowledgment of the supremacy of Run- 
 jeet Singh — an offer which he considered all which 
 the Indian Government could desire, and more than 
 they could well have expected. " What say you to 
 this," is his expression, in a private letter (referring 
 to a similar plan) " after all that has been urged of 
 Dost Mahomed^s putting forth extravagant preten- 
 sions?" These overtures, however, did not meet the 
 views of the Indian Government, and they offered 
 other terms, which, with the discussion that ensued 
 upon them, will be found partly reported at pages 
 22 — 24 of the 5th No. of the Parliamentary Papers. 
 
 We offered, as the Reviewer says, to guarantee 
 Dost Mahomed in his present possessions against 
 Runjeet Singh; an offer to which he replied, natu- 
 rally and truly, "Thank you for nothing — I have 
 hitherto been able to defend myself, and expect to 
 
WITH GOOD REASON. 35 
 
 be so still." We also offered to influence Runjeet 
 Singh to replace Sultan Mahomed Khan in Pesha- 
 wur. This plan he considered as, not indifferent, 
 but deeply injurious, to him — as endangering him 
 personally, far more than the continuance of the 
 Seikhs in Peshawur; Sultan Mahomed Khan would 
 be the most efficient tool they could employ. cc Of 
 Runjeet Singles power to invade me in Cabool, I 
 have little fear. Of his power to injure me, if he 
 reinstates Sultan Mahomed Khan in the government 
 of that city, I have great apprehension, for in it I see 
 a Mahomedan ruler instead of a Seikh." — {Pari, 
 Papers, v. p. 22.) 
 
 As Dost Mahomed's rejection of our offers 
 respecting Peshawur is represented as the justifica- 
 tion of our breach with him, it is worth while to take 
 some notice of the light in which his objections to 
 the plan proposed by the British Government 
 appeared to the British envoy. This, however, our 
 readers will not find in the Blue Book: the despatch 
 of 26th January, 1838, being one of those which 
 have been submitted to a process which, according 
 to Lord J. Russell, is not garbling, but the exercise of 
 the right of prudent selection. The definition of 
 Ci garble," given by Johnson, is "to part, to sift, to 
 separate the good from the bad;" and we find that in 
 this despatch, — a record of various opinions on an 
 important subject — that which appeared to the 
 Government good, is given; while the bad, that is, 
 every part which was likely to militate against the 
 views of the Government, has been most cautiously 
 
36 DESPATCH RESPECTING PESHAWUR 
 
 excluded. It may be true that the Government is 
 not bound to publish on all occasions the opinions 
 of its officers. They may be unimportant — they 
 may be unnecessary; but in the present case there is 
 something more, there is an attempt to disguise 
 those opinions. It has been also said, that the 
 favourable disposition of Sir Alexander Burnes to- 
 wards Dost Mahomed was generally known, and did 
 not require to be stated. In the first place, it was 
 not generally known, in England at least; in the 
 second, the opinion of Captain Burnes in favour of 
 Dost Mahomed generally, is one thing; and his 
 conviction that Dost Mahomed's grounds for reject- 
 ing a particular proposal of the British Government 
 were in every respect just, is another ; and the facts 
 upon which the conviction was formed, another still: 
 and these two last are studiously withdrawn from 
 the knowledge of Parliament. 
 
 Dost Mahomed^s apprehensions from the plan 
 proposed, and the reasons by which he supported his 
 views, are given, though with very imperfect fairness. 
 In particular, a fact, and a most important one, 
 stated by him, is omitted — and why? Because no 
 one could have read the passage without the convic- 
 tion that his fears were perfectly reasonable. It 
 states his knowledge of an intrigue for his deposition, 
 which had lately transpired, to which Sultan Maho- 
 med Khan was a party, conjointly with the exiled 
 king, Shah Soojah — the plot being, of course, backed 
 by Runjeet Singh. "What security can I have 
 against a repetition of such practices?" 
 
GARBLED AND PERVERTED. 37 
 
 On Captain Burnes's part, the original despatch 
 contains several such expressions as the following, 
 called forth by a conciliatory proposal made on behalf 
 of Dost Mahomed by one of his brothers; one, 
 noted at the time for his attachment to the English, 
 and whose name has since been yet more honourably 
 distinguished for kindness, good faith and charity, 
 shown towards our countrymen and the Hindoo 
 sepoys in captivity at Cabool — the Nawab Jubbar 
 Khan: 
 
 "These observations, coming from the Nawab 
 Jubbar Khan, are the more remarkable, since he is 
 devoted to his brother, Sooltan Mahomed Khan, and 
 would rejoice to see him restored to Peshawur. 
 They consequently carried with me a conviction that 
 the Ameer's fears are not groundless" 
 
 What comes immediately before and after this 
 passage is given, but this is suppressed, as is also 
 the whole concluding portion of the despatch, begin- 
 ning with the awkward words — C£ It has appeared to 
 me that they (Dost Mahomed's views) call for much 
 deliberation. It will be seen that the chief is NOT 
 bent on possessing Peshawur . . . ," and proceeding 
 to enforce the justice of his views, the feasibility of 
 the plan proposed by the Nawab, to state the facts 
 that a Persian agent with high offers had been forced 
 to quit the country for want of encouragement; that 
 the much-talked-of Russian agent had received (( no 
 more civility than is due by the laws of hospitality 
 and nations/ 5 and to notice the possible scheme of 
 putting forward Shah Soojah, with a view to the 
 
38 CAPTAIN BURNES' VIEWS DISGUISED. 
 
 destruction of the authority of the present rulers, as 
 " one which has happily never been contemplated*. 
 Besides the very questionable nature of such a pro- 
 ceeding, it would not gain the objects of Govern- 
 ment/' All this, and much more to the same effect, 
 is suppressed; and it was surely well worth — 
 suppression. 
 
 This wholesale omission, however, is less 
 remarkable than the mutilation of particular sen- 
 tences; especially of the first two sentences in the 
 despatch. This instance was referred to by Mr. 
 Roebuck in his, if not unanswerable, certainly unan- 
 swered speech of March 1st, 1843 f. The omissions 
 were said by his opponents to be quite unimportant. 
 It is a singular defence of a perversion of the truth 
 to say that the subject-matter is unimportant. It 
 suggests the answer, "You appear to have thought 
 it not too unimportant to pervert/' A falsehood 
 worth telling is worth detecting; a forgery, though 
 to a small amount, is still a forgery. It will, how- 
 ever, be for the reader to decide what object there 
 could be for omissions, all bearing on the same point, 
 for cutting up two sentences into one, altering the 
 stops, making doubtful what was clear, — except to 
 conceal the fact that the views enforced on Dost 
 
 * This allusion to the scheme would seem to indicate, on 
 the part of Captain Burnes, some suspicion that it had been 
 already contemplated. The first suggestion of it in the Blue 
 Book occurs in a letter, dated January 1st, to Mr. Macnaghten 
 from Captain Wade, our political agent at Loodiana. 
 t Motion for inquiry into the Affghan war, March 1, 1843. 
 
THE WORST OF THE PERVERSIONS. 39 
 
 Mahomed by the British envoy were— not his, but 
 the Governor-general's — and if there could be any 
 doubt that this, in fact, was the object, that doubt 
 would have been removed by the suppression of the 
 portions of the despatch to which reference has 
 already been made. We print the passage as it 
 stands in the original despatch, with the omitted 
 part in italics, requesting the reader to observe, that 
 in the paper as presented to Parliament, the despatch 
 begins at " regarding," and that the full stop at 
 "governor" is replaced by a comma. 
 
 "Capt. A. Burnes to W. H. Macnaghten, Esq. 
 
 "Cabool, 26th January, 1838. 
 "Sir, — I have now the honour to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letters of the 25th November and 2nd 
 of December last, which reached me about the same 
 time, (and conveyed the views of the Right Honourable 
 the Governor-general,) regarding the overtures made 
 by Dost Mahomed Khan, for adjusting his differ- 
 ences with the Sikhs, and the apprehension that the 
 Maharajah would not be disposed to surrender 
 Peshawur on those terms, but be more likely to 
 restore it to Sooltan Mahomed Khan, its former 
 governor. I lost no time in making known these 
 circumstances, (as well as the sentiments of his Lord- 
 ship on them), and the policy which it would be advi- 
 sable for the ruler of Cabool to pursue." 
 
 Can it be imagined that this sentence was so 
 altered without an object ? Can any one say that 
 
40 " A VERY HONEST MAN." 
 
 Mr. Roebuck's remark on it is severer than it 
 deserves? "Did honourable gentlemen opposite 
 know what their verdict would be if they sat to try 
 such alteration as a jury ? He did" 
 
 We give one more passage as showing the manner 
 in which Dost Mahomed's declining to entertain the 
 proposal presented to him, was at the time received 
 by Captain Burnes on the part of the British Govern- 
 ment. " I said, that, if he was thoroughly sincere in 
 his belief, that the restoration of Peshawur to Sultan 
 Mahomed Khan was positively injurious to him; it 
 was proper to state most decidedly, that we had no 
 such design, and would be a party to no measures of 
 such a tendency" In the Blue Book, the last words 
 are omitted — not surely because of the space they 
 would have occupied — perhaps they seemed to 
 convey a pledge too inconsistent with the subsequent 
 conduct of the British Government to admit of their 
 being recorded. 
 
 One of the most admirable passages in Mr. 
 Borrow's most amusing book on Spain is an exqui- 
 site conversation between the author and a certain 
 ingenious "Nacional;" and the gem of that conver- 
 sation is the following. 
 
 " National. ' It appears to me that this Cabal- 
 lero Balmerson must be a very honest man/ 
 
 " Myself. e There cannot be a doubt of it.' " 
 
 Mr. Borrow's hearty assent commands acquies- 
 cence; and from echoing it we pass to the gratifying 
 but absolutely necessary inference that the (( Cabal- 
 lero" in qiiestion, (whoever he may be) neither altered 
 
DOST MAHOMED'S OVERTURES. 41 
 
 the above despatch in the manner described, nor 
 caused it to be so altered, nor consciously assented 
 to its being so altered. 
 
 This scheme thus rejected by Dost Mahomed on 
 grounds which appeared to our envoy in every 
 respect just, was, as far as we can see, the only defi- 
 nite proposition put forward by the British Govern- 
 ment respecting the occupation of Peshawur. It 
 was preceded and followed by overtures on the part 
 of the chief of Cabool, showing anything but indif- 
 ference to the good-will of the British Government, 
 anything but indisposition to listen to any arrange- 
 ment which it might recommend. But the British 
 Government continued peremptory in its unjust 
 demand, miscalled an offer of mediation; that he was 
 to give up all claim to Peshawur — all right to inter- 
 fere in the settlement of that province, and, on his 
 side, to receive exemption from the attacks of 
 Runjeet Singh, from which he had never appre- 
 hended danger. And even this he was ready to 
 concede on any terms compatible with his safety; 
 terms which, by placing in Peshawur any one whose 
 influence would not be used to his detriment, might, 
 in his own words, leave him as we found him. He 
 waived all expectations of Peshawur for himself. In 
 the despatch of March 13th will be seen how far 
 Dost Mahomed was ready to advance to meet the 
 wishes of the British Government, even when those 
 wishes included the re-establishment of Sultan 
 Mahomed Khan. But the British Government 
 showed an unwillingness to respond to his advances 
 
42 HIS " DISAFFECTION AND AMBITION/ 5 
 
 — a determined harshness — which it is difficult to 
 explain on any other hypothesis than that they were 
 bent on forcing him into a quarrel. Their animus 
 towards him may be partly estimated from the 
 following circumstance, which, it need not be 
 observed, is not found in the Blue Book. It 
 appears that Burnes was directed to require of Dost 
 Mahomed tokens of submission to Runjeet Singh, of 
 such a nature, that he declined to be the channel of 
 any such demand, assigning the reason that to do so 
 would defeat (what he then assumed to be) the object 
 of his employers. (i The difficulties had been great, 
 without adding to them. Had Dost Mahomed him- 
 self assented, the Mahomedan populace would have 
 despised him and probably prevented him." 
 
 These were the offers of either negative advan- 
 tage, or positive injury, in return for which we 
 required of Dost Mahomed to renounce his preten- 
 sions, to sacrifice every prospect of advantage held 
 out to him from other quarters, and even to incur, as 
 we shall see hereafter, their hostility without any 
 assurance of our protection; and because he did not 
 gratefully accept them, he was charged with being 
 ¥ disaffected and ambitious." Disaffected, is we 
 think, a singular phrase to apply to one who was not, 
 and never had been, a vassal of the Indian Govern- 
 ment, who was bound to it by no ties either of alle- 
 giance or alliance. If disaffection means dislike, the 
 disaffection appears to have been on the other side, 
 
 * Bombay Monthly Times, February, 1843. 
 
QUESTION OF HERAT. 43 
 
 amounting to a perverse hatred, which would rather 
 accomplish its objects in spite of Dost Mahomed, 
 than through him. And ambitious ! the world, which 
 has some common sense sometimes, will apportion 
 justly the charge of ambition between the invaders 
 and the defenders of Affghanistan. 
 
 We asked much, and offered nothing; yet it did 
 not follow that we should force a quarrel upon the 
 other party because he demurred to so unjust a bar- 
 gain. Had our mediation been more reasonable, 
 Dost Mahomed, as an independent prince, had a 
 right to reject it, and remain as he was; the penalty 
 of the rejection being the withdrawal of those " good 
 offices with Runjeet Singh ," which we rated so 
 highly. And this, in fact, appears to have been the 
 only penalty held out to him, even up to the time of 
 Burnes' departure from Cabool. Lord Auckland 
 had not then come to the conclusion, that the rejec- 
 tion of a one-sided, but professedly friendly, media- 
 tion, is an enormity to be visited by war. 
 
 But it may be said, that, although we might, 
 under other circumstances, have allowed Runjeet 
 Singh and Dost Mahomed to fight out their quarrels 
 without interfering, the case became different when 
 one of them, in promotion of his designs against the 
 other, connected himself with those whose i£ schemes 
 of conquest and aggrandizement" endangered our 
 empire; that is, with the Persians, and the shadow 
 or substance of the Russians. And this brings us to 
 the consideration of the second question; the designs 
 of Persia, the subservience, represented to be volun- 
 
44 PERSIAN SCHEMES OF CONQUEST. 
 
 tary, of the Barukyze chiefs to these designs, and 
 the ground for hostility which such subservience 
 presented. If Dost Mahomed's disposition to call 
 in foreign assistance in support of his designs on 
 Peshawur, had in fact placed us under the necessity 
 of dealing with him as an enemy, the necessity 
 would still have been created and raised by our- 
 selves alone; by our resolute indifference to his 
 claims, by our harsh refusal of any concessions. 
 But, in spite of all that we had done to produce 
 it, we were under no such necessity; the attack 
 upon him was not requisite to our security; and 
 the question of Peshawur was not, after all, that 
 upon which the success of Captain Burnes' negotia- 
 tion turned. 
 
 The Shah of Persia, as is well known, advanced 
 claims not only to the sovereignty of Herat, but to 
 the supremacy of Afghanistan generally. At the 
 time of our mission to Cabool, he was besieging 
 Herat with a view to its reduction, and was engaged 
 in intrigues having for their object to induce the 
 Barukzye chieftains to support his attempt upon 
 that city, and to acquiesce in his supremacy; acting 
 throughout, as was supposed, under the direct influ- 
 ence of Russia; the assumed object of the latter 
 being, by approaching her influence to our Indian 
 frontier, to have it in her power to undermine our 
 dominion. We need not enter into the inquiry 
 how far the fear entertained of the designs of 
 Russia against our Indian empire was in itself well 
 founded: or how far the famous and mysterious 
 

 RUSSIAN INTRIGUES. 45 
 
 Vicovitch was or was not an authorized Russian 
 agent. Probably he was, what it is quite consistent 
 with Russian policy to employ, a tool, more or 
 less encouraged to believe himself an agent, and 
 thrown aside as a tool the moment his services 
 ceased to be advantageous. Possibly too, the designs 
 of Russia were as indefinite as his commission, and 
 extended only to raising up whatever difficulties 
 they could against us, and taking what might come 
 of them. The absence of ground for such apprehen- 
 sions however, is not proved by the fact, that the 
 Russians afterwards withdrew whatever they thought 
 it convenient to withdraw, and disavowed whatever 
 act of their agents it was inconvenient to maintain. 
 All this cost them nothing but words, it could not 
 cost them a reputation for truth and honesty, which 
 they had not to lose. At the time, these fears were 
 as generally entertained as it now seems to be the 
 tendency to hold that they were exaggerated. The 
 amount of the danger may have been exaggerated, 
 but to its existence, more or less, we have strong 
 testimony. All those public servants whose especial 
 office it was to form an opinion on the politics of 
 Central Asia, Mr. McNeill, Mr. Ellis, Captain 
 Burnes, — are agreed upon this point. Mr. Mc Neill 
 writes thus in a letter, dated January, 1838: — 
 
 " The evidence of concert between Persia and 
 Russia, for purposes injurious to British interests, is 
 unequivocal, and the magnitude of the evil with 
 which we are threatened, is in my estimation im- 
 
46 ENMITY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 mense, and such as no power in alliance with Great 
 Britain can have a right to aid in producing/' 
 
 In arguing on the morality, if not on the policy, 
 of the conduct of the Indian Government, we are 
 bound in fairness to take this opinion of the Russian 
 encroachments as our point of view. If, in one 
 respect, it partly justifies Lord Auckland, in another 
 it strongly condemns him. If it be held to prove 
 that there was a necessity for doing something, on 
 the other hand, it points to something as different as 
 possible from what was actually done. Either there 
 was no danger, or such danger as did exist proceeded 
 primarily from Russia, and secondarily from the 
 combination of Russia with Persia. If the cause of 
 rupture with Persia was, that the Shah "had openly 
 connected himself with an European power for pur- 
 poses avowedly unfriendly, if not absolutely hostile, 
 to British interests;" if, as Mr. McNeill says, in the 
 despatch before referred to, "our connexion with 
 Persia has for its real and avowed original object to 
 give additional security to India, and it has been 
 maintained for the purpose of protecting us against 
 designs of the only power which threatened to dis- 
 turb us in that quarter" — that power, of course, being 
 in both cases Russia — the inference is one which it 
 hardly requires much practice in diplomacy to draw. 
 We are aware that, in the complicated relations of 
 nations, the right course is not invariably that which 
 would naturally suggest itself to a common observer 
 on a first, and perhaps superficial, view. It may be 
 
VISITED ON THE AFFGHANS. 4j 
 
 necessary to strike first at the instrument, rather 
 than the moving power — the hand rather than the 
 head; but there is something too repugnant to truth 
 in the state of things which permits the Czar of 
 Russia to continue our very good friend, while the 
 Shah of Persia, for promoting his designs, is declared 
 our enemy; and the rulers of Affghanistan, for an 
 apprehended readiness to acquiesce in the accom- 
 plishment of these designs, are treated as enemies. 
 We have no fear of the Affghans, except as far as 
 they may act in subservience to the Persians; nor of 
 the Persians, except as aiding in the accomplishment 
 of the designs of Russia. The Russians are, "for 
 purposes avowedly unfriendly, if not absolutely 
 hostile" to us, making the Persians their instru- 
 ments, and it is to be feared that the Persians may 
 be able to injure us through the Affghans. There 
 is a regular gradation in the inimical feelings of the 
 three parties, and we graduate our proceedings ac- 
 cordingly, only in the inverse ratio. We have a 
 polite and friendly, and "perfectly satisfactory" 
 explanation with the Russians; we have a tempo- 
 rary rupture, but no fighting, with the Persians — 
 and we make war on the Affghans ! 
 
 Had all our apprehensions from Affghanistan 
 been well founded, they do not appear sufficient to 
 justify the course which we pursued. On the prin- 
 ciples on which the war was undertaken, a reason 
 for war between bordering states would never be 
 wanting. If every apprehension of danger is to be 
 
48 NOT EVERY DANGER 
 
 held to make a war defensive, and therefore just, the 
 whole of Europe might be involved in a perfectly- 
 just war to-morrow. We never can be sure of the 
 future intentions of the most amicable neighbour, 
 and we are quite sure that the stronger he is, the 
 more able he will be to injure us if so disposed. 
 Our security, again, is greater in proportion to our 
 strength, and what is expedient for our advantage 
 will, unquestionably, contribute to our security; the 
 next step is to call it essential to our security, and 
 the plea of necessity is made out — the old proverbial 
 plea of tyranny. Since we cannot tell how soon we 
 may need our might to protect our right, let us at 
 once identify the two. There is no advantage of 
 which we may not deprive another state, on the 
 ground of securing ourselves against possible danger 
 hereafter. Thus, by a short and easy road, we 
 may pass from defence to aggression: from the 
 principles which armed the Athenians at Salamis to 
 those avowed by the Athenian arguer in the Melian 
 controversy, to the practical, if not the confessed, 
 definition of justice as the interest of the stronger. 
 Since vice first paid to virtue the homage of hypo- 
 crisy, the conqueror has never wanted a pretext 
 sufficient for all who chose to find it so. 
 
 These remarks will serve to illustrate the manner 
 in which a principle admitted by all may be perverted 
 into an excuse for conduct reprobated by all; and to 
 show that, as it is not every prospect of advantage, 
 so it is not every apprehension of danger, that justi- 
 fies a recourse to war. The Affghan invasion did 
 
JUSTIFIES AGGRESSION. 49 
 
 not, we can believe, appear to the minds of those who 
 planned it in the light of mere injustice and aggres- 
 sion; but it is not possible to acquit them of jealous 
 suspicion and consequent indifference to the rights 
 of others. It was one of those pieces of cruel and 
 unjust violence which are the frequent result of the 
 combination of alarm with power. The strongest 
 case that has ever been stated against the chief of 
 Cabool is this: — that, with a view to purposes of 
 his own, he was willing, — not to attack us, not to 
 join actively in any measures undertaken against us — 
 but to acquiesce in the extension of Persian influence 
 over Affghanistan. And when we say purposes of 
 his own, we mean distinctly to exclude the supposi- 
 tion that any hostile feeling towards the Indian 
 Government, any desire to injure our interests as 
 such, entered into these purposes. Whatever his 
 objects were, it stands on record, and has not, as far as 
 we are aware, been ever disputed, that he would have 
 preferred attaining them through our help, and with 
 our countenance, to attaining them by any other 
 course whatever. It was not until he had renounced 
 all hope from us that he listened to the promises of 
 Persia and of Russia; of Persia, be it observed, not 
 even then in a state of declared hostility to the 
 Indian Government, and of Russia, with whom our 
 friendly relations had never been interrupted. i£ It 
 should not be forgotten/ 5 says Sir Alexander Burnes, 
 in a letter written some time after his departure from 
 Cabool, a last attempt to appeal to the justice of the 
 
50 SIEGE OF HERAT RAISED. 
 
 Indian Government, " that we promised nothing, and 
 that Persia and Russia held out a great deal," 
 
 We will assume, however, that had the designs of 
 Persia been carried out, and had Dost Mahomed 
 cooperated with their successful prosecution, he might 
 in the course of events, have subjected himself to be 
 treated as our enemy. But let us look at the state of 
 facts. 
 
 It must be recollected that the turning point of 
 all these proceedings was the siege of Herat, and not 
 the siege merely, but the besieging Herat, with a 
 view to depriving it of independence. In the opi- 
 nion of our ambassador, the Shah of Persia had just 
 grounds of complaint against the ruler of that city. 
 At the time when Herat was hardest pressed, Mr. 
 Mc iNeill actually aided in composing the draft of a 
 treaty conceding all the demands of Persia with the 
 exception of those which went directly to compro- 
 mise the independence of Herat. We did not con- 
 sider ourselves justified in opposing the Persian 
 Government until all terms, short of the entire sub- 
 jection of Herat, had been peremptorily and perse- 
 veringly refused. Had the Persian Government 
 never made any such pretensions, had it relinquished 
 them on our original remonstrance, what would have 
 become of the assumed necessity for interference in 
 Afghanistan ? and what name could have been 
 assigned to our invasion of that country but that of 
 mere and shameless aggression ? The persistence of 
 the Shah of Persia in his claims upon Herat was our 
 

 WHAT REASON FOR INVADING AFGHANISTAN? 51 
 
 ground of quarrel with him, and, except their pre- 
 sumed readiness to acquiesce in this design, what 
 ground, what pretence of quarrel, had we with the 
 rulers of Afghanistan ? 
 
 The Shah of Persia persisted, our minister with- 
 drew from his camp, and warned him that the occu- 
 pation of Herat, should it have surrendered, would 
 be considered as a hostile demonstration against 
 England; that troops had already been landed in the 
 Persian Gulf ; and, in short, that compliance with the 
 demands of England would be refused at the price of 
 war. Before the Shah received this declaration, a 
 general assault on Herat had failed with great loss, 
 and he must also have been aware of the assembling 
 of a large force within the Indus. After remaining 
 before Herat some weeks longer, he ultimately com- 
 plied with all the demands of the British minister, 
 and abandoned his enterprise. The camp broke up 
 from before Herat on the 9th September, 1838. 
 
 And now, let us ask, what reason was there for 
 marching into Afghanistan ? Every object we had 
 professed to desire was attained — Herat was safe — 
 the Perso- Russian scheme was broken up — the 
 danger had passed over. If it was open to us to 
 resume friendly relations with the principal in the 
 affair, it could hardly be incumbent on us to punish 
 even active subordinates, had such been within our 
 reach; much less those who could scarcely be 
 charged with having more than passively favoured 
 the now terminated expedition. Dost Mahomed 
 had, as far as appears, given no assistance whatever 
 
 D 2 
 
52 AN UNJUST PROMISE 
 
 to the Shah of Persia in his attack upon Herat ; his 
 brothers of Candahar, little or none. 
 
 But, it may be said, whatever effect the retreat of 
 the Persians from Herat might have had on the 
 original question ; whatever effect it might have pro- 
 duced six months, or even weeks earlier, it could not 
 be expected to turn Lord Auckland from pursuing 
 the course marked out in his Declaration of October 
 1st., published before the intelligence of that event 
 arrived ; nor from fulfilling the tripartite treaty with 
 Runjeet Singh and Shah Soojah, entered into yet 
 earlier (June 26, 1838), and binding him to co-ope- 
 rate in the restoration of the latter. We are inclined 
 to believe that this was the real state of the case : 
 that the invasion of Affghanistan would never have 
 taken place, had the knowledge of the retreat of the 
 Persians preceded the conclusion of the treaty ; had 
 not Lord Auckland felt that he had pledged the faith 
 of the Indian Government to the restoration of the 
 exiled king. Let this argument be admitted to its 
 fullest extent, and the only inference would be that 
 the treaty itself was, and was proved by the result to 
 be, unjustifiable. The treaty was an interference 
 with the independence of the Affghan nation. Such 
 a treaty could be justified only on the grounds of 
 necessary self-defence. The assumed necessity had 
 passed away before the time for executing the treaty 
 had arrived — but the treaty was there. The precipi- 
 tance, if so it is to be regarded, of the Governor- 
 general, had brought him into the dilemma of 
 breaking his word to the parties to that treaty, or 
 
KEPT TO THE COST OF ALL. 53 
 
 invading a country with which we had no longer any 
 quarrel. For a remote interest, a possible danger, a 
 hypothetical war in which we ultimately never fired a 
 shot; we had bound ourselves by treaty to sacrifice 
 the independence of the Affghan nation. It would 
 have been better, at least for the two principal parties 
 to the contract, if we had not kept the promise so 
 rashly given. We kept our word, and perpetrated 
 the crime. 
 
 If it be said that, although the danger had passed, 
 yet the course we followed was justified by the possi- 
 bility of its recurrence, — that, the experience which 
 had shown the existing condition of Afghanistan to 
 be capable of becoming dangerous, vindicated the 
 Indian Government in resolving to alter that condi- 
 tion for its own future security, — we would ask, 
 where is the independent state which may not endan- 
 ger the well-being of its neighbours ? which they 
 might not, perhaps, devise some way of settling more 
 in accordance with their own interests ? Had Napo- 
 leon nothing to apprehend from independent Spain ? 
 and was it not probable that the empire of France 
 would derive security from the establishment of his 
 family in the Peninsula ? Has the Russian empire, 
 in case of war, nothing to fear from the occupation 
 of its mountain frontier by the yet unsubdued Cir- 
 cassians ? Yet we English are in the habit of desig- 
 nating Napoleon's invasion of Spain as an act of 
 gigantic injustice ; we should read with exultation in 
 to-morroVs Times, that the Circassians had gained 
 another exterminating victory. This is the old plea 
 
54 SELF-DEFENCE, OR EXPEDIENCY? 
 
 in a new form — an attempt to confuse the limits of 
 self-defence and advantage ; limits which it is easy to 
 distinguish, except when our own interests are con- 
 cerned. The AfFghans were not our subservient 
 allies, but they were not our enemies. We thought 
 it for our advantage that they should be the former ; 
 and we marched an army into their country to make 
 them so. And the means we selected for the attain- 
 ment of this object were such as no common hostility 
 could justify — the imposition upon the nation of a 
 sovereign whom they had dethroned. To this not 
 ordinary result of even bitter warfare, defensible only 
 where experience has shown the impossibility of 
 remaining at peace with the existing government, 
 we resorted at once, and in the first instance. In 
 announcing our intention of deposing the Barukzye 
 brothers, and restoring Shah Soojah, we took a step 
 equivalent to the assertion of an absolute right of 
 conquest. It was an interference with the internal 
 affairs of an independent people, which, even after a 
 direct attack by them, would have been questionable. 
 In all our proceedings, there is something like a care- 
 ful reversal of what justice would have dictated. As 
 we made war in preference upon the least offending 
 of three powers, so for a very slight provocation we 
 thought fit to exact an extraordinary retribution; — a 
 retribution amounting not only in theory, but, as the 
 subsequent events show, in fact, to a deprivation of 
 independence. 
 
 We dwell the more on this plea of just self-defence, 
 which, when looked at closely, resolves itself into the 
 
A FIXED IDEA 55 
 
 unjust, but expedient, because these seem to have 
 been the considerations which in fact determined the 
 course of Lord Auckland and his advisers. 
 
 The approach of danger from the side of Affghan- 
 istan suggested to them the natural idea of using the 
 AfFghan tribes and mountains as a means of keeping 
 it at a distance, — of making AfFghanistan, in the 
 words of the Edinburgh Reviewer, a barrier. Through 
 all the changes and chances of negotiation and in- 
 trigue, this haunted them, until it became a fixed 
 idea; and a fixed idea, like the conception of the 
 monomaniac, must be realized, if not in one way, 
 then in another. That the Aflfghans could have any 
 rights, except in relation to the British Government, 
 — that the mountains and their inhabitants lay, as 
 they had lain for thousands of years, between the 
 rivers of the Punjaub and Persia, for any other pur- 
 pose except to serve as a " barrier to British India," 
 — was a conception of which they had grown inca- 
 pable. To the principle that AfFghanistan must in 
 any case be made a barrier, the rest of course fol- 
 lowed. It was a minor question of expediency only 
 by what means this object should be effected. If 
 Dost Mahomed would not become our subservient 
 ally, and Shah Soojah would, so much the better for 
 the latter. So strongly had this view, to all appear- 
 ance, taken hold of the minds of the originators of 
 the war, both here and in India, that its reappear- 
 ance in Lord John RusselPs speech in the recent 
 debate, is not extraordinary. The main question for 
 Lord Auckland's decision is there stated to be, whe- 
 
56 DISREGARDS MINOR CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 ther he should have anything to do with Affghanistan 
 at all : through whose means he should interfere was, 
 it is said, a minor consideration. That is to say, 
 whether he should in the attempt to accomplish his 
 aims, respect the independence of the country, by 
 allying himself with the existing chieftains, or in vio- 
 lation of its independence, force upon it a dethroned 
 king, thirty years in exile, was a minor consideration. 
 It may perhaps be worth while to illustrate further 
 the prevalence of this view among the men whose 
 counsels were the more immediate cause of the war. 
 
 In the third volume of Mr. Masson's work, in a 
 letter to the author from a prominent actor in the 
 subsequent transactions, occurs a sentence which we 
 do not recollect to have seen hitherto noticed, 
 though it appears to us well deserving of attention. 
 It was written in May, 1838. Let it be observed 
 that, throughout Burnes's negotiation, at that time 
 only just terminated, the Indian Government had 
 been profuse of expressions of friendliness towards 
 the people of the Affghans, with whom, indeed, it 
 never professed to have any quarrel. In bringing 
 back Shah Soojah, we represented ourselves as 
 conferring upon them the greatest of benefits; the 
 settled government of a ruler whom a great part of 
 the people would gladly see restored; and, in short, 
 the Indian Government was always unwilling to con- 
 fess that it was at war with the Affghans as a people. 
 Let it be recollected too, that the Seikhs are the 
 deadly and hereditary enemies of the Affghans; so 
 much so, that at this time, according to Burnes in 
 
A POLITIC SUGGESTION, 57 
 
 one of his letters written during our occupation of 
 AfFghanistan, a Seikh could not have safely appeared 
 in the streets of Cabool in his national dress; finally, 
 that we entered on this question with the professed 
 desire of holding the balance fairly between the 
 Seikhs and the Affghans, who, as Lord Auckland 
 says in a letter to Dost Mahomed, " are a brave 
 people, much respected by the English nation;" and 
 then let us estimate, dispassionately if we can, the 
 morality of the following suggestion : — 
 
 " Would you oblige me by stating .... whether 
 you think that the Sikhs, using any (and what?) 
 instrument of Affghan agency, could establish them- 
 selves in Cabool?" 
 
 Mr. Masson states, that in his reply he depre- 
 cated this " extravagant notion," and recommended 
 the establishment of Shah Soojah * as the lesser 
 evil," which perhaps it might be. 
 
 The writer of this letter seems to have coincided 
 fully in the opinion quoted above, that the question 
 of the means to be employed in accomplishing our 
 object, of making Affghanistan a barrier, was indeed 
 entirely secondary. We hardly know where to look 
 for a parallel to the political immorality displayed 
 in this short sentence; to the self-contented calm- 
 ness, the courteous tranquillity, with which it 
 suggests the commission of an enormous wrong. 
 Would you oblige me by stating your views of the 
 means by which we may most completely and safely 
 deprive the Affghans, " a brave people, much 
 respected by the English nation," of their inde- 
 
 d 3 
 
58 BUT NOT A MORAL ONE. 
 
 pendence? Can you suggest a plan for bringing 
 them under the dominion of a nation whom they 
 detest with the fully reciprocated hatred of opposed 
 races and religions ? Name, if you can, a fitting 
 instrument to aid in this scheme for subjugating 
 his countrymen, and we are ready to adopt and 
 support his cause. Such is the scarcely disguised 
 suggestion of the prime mover in the scheme 
 adopted a few months later, of which, a few years 
 later, he became the principal and memorable vic- 
 tim. Such is the calmness with which a man of 
 eminent abilities, of moral qualities which appear 
 to have won for him the respect and affection of 
 most of those who surrounded him, can contemplate 
 the attainment, by any means, of an object he has 
 taught himself to consider necessary. This letter is 
 signed W. H. Macnaghten. Truly for once "the 
 wheel has come full circle." 
 
 Hitherto we have, generally speaking, as far as 
 the question of Herat is concerned, and of the sub- 
 servience of the Aifghan chiefs to Persian influence, 
 given the originators of the invasion the benefit of 
 their own statement of the reasons on which it was 
 undertaken; and we have attempted to show that, 
 assuming the conduct of Dost Mahomed and the 
 Affghan chiefs to have been what it was by them 
 represented, the course followed by the British 
 Government was still unjust and aggressive, — doubt- 
 ful, previous to the retirement of the Persians from 
 Herat, — after that event, unnecessary and unjust. 
 
ALLEGED ADHERENCE TO PERSIA. 59 
 
 It has appeared that the hostility attributed to the 
 Affghan chiefs amounted at most to a disposition 
 consequent on the promises of the Persian court to 
 acquiesce in the accomplishment of its schemes, and 
 the extension of its supremacy over AfFghanistan; 
 but did it in fact amount even to this? The Ba- 
 rukzye chieftains are said to have identified them- 
 selves with the aggressive policy of Persia, with a 
 view to their own aggrandizement. But what if it 
 shall appear that adherence to Persia was the result 
 of fear, not of ambition? if they were prepared to 
 acknowledge the supremacy of that power merely to 
 protect themselves from being forcibly subjugated by 
 it? An examination of the correspondence relating 
 to AfFghanistan presented to Parliament will furnish 
 an answer to these questions. It will there be seen 
 that the alternative presented to Dost Mahomed and 
 his brothers, by the advance of the Persians, was on 
 the one hand alliance with Persia, on the other, its 
 hostility, — that what they required of us on this 
 point, was to guarantee them in their independence 
 against Persia, or otherwise protect them, — that 
 during the residence of Captain Burnes at Cabool, 
 they requested from us some assurance on this point, 
 not once, nor twice, but constantly, — and that their 
 request was met by that officer, in obedience to his 
 instructions, by a direct refusal, or an evasive refer- 
 ence to the value of our sympathy as evidenced by 
 our having sent an agent to Candahar. 
 
 Captain Burnes had no choice but to speak thus. 
 In the early part of his mission at Cabool, he had, in 
 
60 PROTECTION FROM PERSU 
 
 anticipation of the reduction of Herat, and the con- 
 sequent advance of the Persian army on Candahar, 
 thought it right to offer to accompany Dost Maho- 
 med and his force to that city, and to furnish money 
 towards the expenses of its defence; an offer for 
 which it appears that he was visited with the severe 
 censure of his employers*. Henceforth, all that the 
 Affghan chiefs had to contrast with the positive and 
 advantageous terms offered them by Persia, under 
 the ostensible guarantee of Russia, were these vague 
 assurances of friendliness and sympathy, coupled 
 occasionally with an appeal to their national pride, 
 which in such a subject seems almost ludicrous, and 
 which was unquestionably adopted by our able emis- 
 sary, in the conscious absence of anything better to 
 say — "Why, surely you, the brave Affghans, the 
 Dooranees, who have before now carried your swords 
 to Ispahan and Delhi, are not afraid of the Persians \" 
 Such is the answer occasionally given to earnest 
 representations of the danger to which they were 
 exposed, and requests that England, so profuse of 
 assurances of sympathy, would promise to do some- 
 thing for them in the way of protection against a 
 dreaded enemy, then offering them the choice of 
 peace or war. Throughout the whole correspond- 
 ence, during Burnes* residence at Cabool, these two 
 points stand forth as those upon which the fortune 
 of the negotiation turns — an arrangement with Run- 
 jeet Singh respecting Peshawur, and protection from 
 
 Bombay Times, Aug. 1842. 
 
REQUESTED AND REFUSED. 61 
 
 Persia, The defenders of Lord Auckland's policy 
 are apt to omit reference to the latter, as the Edin- 
 burgh Reviewer, in the passage we have above 
 quoted, has done. 
 
 He charges the Barukzye chieftains with having 
 " refused to break off their negotiations" with the 
 Persians, unless we consented to despoil Runjeet 
 Singh, &c. It would have been nearer the truth to 
 have said that they were ready and willing to break 
 off their negotiations, but we declined pledging our- 
 selves to protect them against the consequences of 
 doing so. It is true that, on the occasion of Burnes's 
 offer, to which we have referred, the chiefs of Can- 
 dahar showed some insincerity, representing them- 
 selves as fearing more from Kamram, the prince of 
 Herat, their old enemy, than Persia; but they after- 
 wards changed their tone, and earnestly requested 
 protection against the latter. At once endangered, 
 and strongly tempted, there is nothing very strange 
 in their wavering ; they were in a situation in which 
 every allowance should have been made for them. 
 But for Dost Mahomed, in truth, none was needed. 
 He is charged with having flung himself into the 
 arms of those powers to whom, urged by the strong- 
 est impulses of hope and fear, we at length, and with 
 difficulty drove him. 
 
 In the despatch of the 25th of April, which con- 
 tains Captain Burnes's account of a conference be- 
 tween himself and Sirdar Mehir Dil Khan, of Can- 
 dahar, speaking both for himself and his brother 
 Dost Mahomed, we find that, after a pledge of pro- 
 
62 THE AFFGHANS ASK HELP, 
 
 tection from Persia has been asked and declined, and 
 the promises of that power, and their guarantee by 
 Russia brought forward, Captain Burnes asked, "if 
 they reposed confidence in these papers ? ' Most 
 certainly/ was the reply, f since they are from Euro- 
 peans, whose word is inviolable/ — ' But/ continued 
 I, c is not Russia to aid you, through means of 
 Persia ; and how does the Shah act towards you ? 
 He addresses you as his vassals, and calls your coun- 
 try a part of his own. Are Lord Auckland's letters 
 or views couched in such terms? Certainly not/ — 
 i That may be all true enough/ said the Sirdar, e but 
 a powerful enemy threatens us ; and if you will do no 
 more than use general terms, and go no further than 
 keeping Mr, Leech at Candahar, we must take mea- 
 sures to secure ourselves in the manner best suited for 
 our advantage. 3 " 
 
 At page 28 of the fifth Number of the Parlia- 
 mentary Papers, occurs an extract of about twenty- 
 two lines, the sad relics of a long, important, and 
 mutilated despatch — mutilated, did we say? evis- 
 cerated — the whole contents being torn out, and 
 little more than the beginning and end given. The 
 original* contains, among much bearing on the same 
 question, and the same side of the question, from the 
 mouth of the good Nawab Jubbar Khan, the follow- 
 ing exposition of the case of the Affghans — true in 
 every fact, unanswered, and unanswerable. 
 
 After stating that the offer of protection against 
 
 * Bombay Times, February, 1843. 
 
THE ENGLISH SINCERELY SYMPATHIZE. 63 
 
 Runjeet Singh was not of the value the British Go- 
 vernment seemed to suppose, since there had never 
 been any fear of his attacking Cabool, the Nawab 
 goes on, — 
 
 " That it appeared we valued our offers at a very- 
 high rate, since we expected in return that the AfF- 
 ghans would desist from all intercourse with Persia, 
 Russia, Turkistan, &c. Were the Afghans to make 
 all these powers hostile, and to receive no protection 
 against the enmity raised for their adhering to the 
 British ? As for Peshawur being withheld from the 
 Ameer, it might be got over " 
 
 To which Captain Burnes could only reply by an 
 assurance that we did u most sincerely sympathize 
 with his brother and all the Affghans," and by re- 
 peating that he had promised all which he had 
 authority to promise. We are not surprised that the 
 Nawab " took his leave, telling me that he hoped for 
 the best, but that he, too, was disappointed." 
 
 Again, in a conversation with Dost Mahomed 
 himself, reported in the despatch of March 25 th, 
 after Captain Burnes has stated that the British 
 Government "had no desire to guide him, and that if 
 he did not approve of its offers, he need not accept 
 them," expressions curiously contrasted with its sub- 
 sequent conduct, Dost Mahomed at once replied, — 
 i( I do not see what you are aiming at. I am either 
 kept in the dark, or misled. Never was there such 
 excitement in this land; the Persians are before 
 Herat, openly aided by Russia; that power has sent 
 an agent here, and your Government have deputed 
 
64 MORE SYMPATHY. 
 
 you. I wish no countenance but that of the English, 
 and you refuse all pledges and promises, and mean, I 
 presume, as you are people of your word, to do 
 nothing for me." To which Captain Burnes, as we 
 find, replied, by referring him "to Sinde as an in- 
 stance of the value of a British connexion;" words 
 upon which a melancholy comment is furnished by 
 the treaty of February, 1839, and the battle of Fe- 
 bruary, 1843. 
 
 This same point, of protection from Persia, is 
 urged in the last letter from Dost Mahomed to Lord 
 Auckland. * When the Shah of Persia came to take 
 Herat, which, along with the country of Candahar, is 
 the abode of the Affghans, I asked Captain Burnes 
 to point out the remedy against the Persians, since 
 the English are noted for sympathizing with the 
 Affghans." 
 
 Noted for sympathizing, indeed ! it will be long 
 before the English cease to be noted for the manner 
 in which they have shown this sympathizing — long 
 before the Affghans forget the nature of the sympathy 
 which has been shown to them. 
 
 Dost Mahomed afterwards says, " It is now eight 
 months since Captain Burnes came into this country, 
 and about five months since the Persians have be- 
 sieged Herat; the expectations of the country of 
 Peshawur being restored, or Candahar protected 
 against the Persians, which were entertained for a long 
 time, are gone now from the hearts of the Affghans. 
 
 If the restoration of Peshawur required a 
 
 longer time, there was no harm in saying so; but it 
 
WAS THE REQUEST SINCERE ? 65 
 
 was necessary that Captain Burnes should give pecu- 
 niary assistance, that we might be able to protect 
 Herat, and, if unsuccessful, certainly to save Can- 
 dahar from the Persians. Captain Burnes gave us 
 no assurance on the above-mentioned subjects; per- 
 haps he has no power to do so." 
 
 It may perhaps be said that this fear of Persia 
 was merely colourable, — a mere pretext for that 
 i( ranging themselves in subservience to a hostile 
 power, and seeking to promote views of conquest and 
 aggrandizement," which Lord Auckland's proclama- 
 tion denounces with such righteous reprehension. It 
 might be sufficient to reply that the fear is often and 
 earnestly expressed, and is in itself highly probable. 
 We may find, too, an evidence of sincerity in the 
 perfectly natural manner in which this point is urged, 
 with a varying earnestness corresponding to the com- 
 plexion of the news from Herat. 
 
 When the prospects of the besiegers are adverse, 
 it is brought forward more carelessly, and withdrawn 
 on the British envoy's referring as a sufficient answer 
 to the late intelligence; when the reduction of the 
 besieged is expected, it is dwelt upon with the ear- 
 nestness of real and pressing alarm. At the time of 
 the termination of Burnes' s mission, the news of its 
 capture was almost daily expected; and his own 
 words show that he believed the chiefs to be perfectly 
 sincere in the fear that they expressed, and that this, 
 and not the restoration of Peshawur, was the point 
 which immediately led to his departure from Cabool, 
 and to the failure of the negotiation he was instructed 
 to conduct. 
 
66 UNDOUBTEDLY SINCERE. 
 
 > The following passage, which actually appears in 
 the papers presented to Parliament, if nothing more 
 had appeared, would have been sufficient to establish 
 the utter defiance of justice shown by the Indian 
 Government in this matter. It occurs in the com- 
 mencement of the despatch of the 25 th April, already 
 referred to. " The immediate cause of such a step" 
 (that is, his quitting Cabool) " being necessary, is the 
 arrival of Sirdar Mehir Dil Khan from Candahar, and 
 the demands in consequence made by him, in which he 
 has been joined by the Ameer, for a direct promise of 
 protection, from Persia, should Herat fall, of which there 
 is no doubt now entertained by the authorities here.' 9 
 
 This is enough; but yet more direct and strong is 
 his language in a private letter written immediately 
 after his retirement from Cabool, in which, after re- 
 ferring to the failure of his mission, he hints that 
 possibly he may be now ordered to lead the ex-king 
 against the Barukzyes. "This last / will not do. 
 (would that he had kept this resolution !) The Ba- 
 rukzyes consigned themselves to us, and merely 
 asked for Persia to be warned off, and we would not do 
 it! — fear, not will, therefore, made them desert us! # " 
 
 In the letter of Dost Mahomed to Lord Auck- 
 land, to which reference has been made, as well as in 
 other parts of this correspondence, the feeling is ex- 
 pressed with a kind of affecting simplicity, that he 
 could not understand the English; that they required 
 much and promised little; that they seemed to attach 
 
 * Bombay Times ; August, 1842. 
 
A DIFFICULT CHOICE. 67 
 
 little value to his friendship, at the same time that 
 they demanded it; that they called on him to sacrifice 
 the good-will of others without the return of their 
 protection. And such, in fact, seems to have been 
 their feeling. They were willing to grant him the 
 honour of becoming their tool, if he on his part was 
 willing to become so; but they would not pledge 
 themselves that he might not be broken in the pro- 
 cess. They left him to choose between — their sym- 
 pathy coupled with a danger from which they would 
 not engage to protect him — and offers of the most 
 tempting kind presented at the sword* s point by a 
 powerful enemy. Because he chose the latter, they 
 made war upon him. Expressions of indignation 
 would be wasted upon conduct of which the mere 
 recital is so damning. 
 
 The case would be incomplete if we did not add 
 that the Indian Government, consistent with its 
 policy of mystery and insincerity — its systematic 
 attempt to bind the Affghans by pledges while 
 refusing to bind ourselves — never appears to have 
 fairly laid before Dost Mahomed the peril he might 
 incur by refusing compliance with its demands. 
 The envoy, as instructed, spoke vaguely of our 
 friendship, referring him as above to Sinde for an 
 instance of the advantage of British connexion — and 
 mysteriously of the loss of our friendship — expressed 
 his wishes as a personal friend, that Dost Mahomed 
 would see that a connexion with the British would 
 be of advantage — his hope that the Ameer might 
 never see cause to repent of the course he had pur- 
 
68 THE REAL ALTERNATIVE 
 
 sued, — but that was all. As he never definitively 
 promised, so he never definitively threatened. 
 
 He never laid — his employers had not instructed 
 him to lay — before the Affghan chief the tremendous 
 alternative of alliance or war with the greatest power 
 within his knowledge, which the rejection of his 
 proposals involved. 
 
 What the answer to such an alternative would 
 have been may be questioned. Dost Mahomed could 
 not know, what the British Government apparently 
 had not yet brought themselves to determine, that 
 this was, in fact, the alternative presented to his 
 choice. A vague fear of possible danger seems 
 occasionally to have been excited in his mind, and 
 repressed by the natural thought that he had done 
 nothing which could possibly expose him to the hos- 
 tility of the British. "The Affghans have done 
 nothing wrong, that other governments should blame 
 them ; nor have they received any injury from the 
 English." 
 
 We have seen in the despatch of the 24th of 
 March, the envoy disclaiming, on the part of the 
 Government, any intention to "guide" the Ameer. 
 A letter, addressed by him to Dost Mahomed, on 
 April 24th, immediately before his departure for 
 Cabool, after speaking of the views of the British 
 Government towards the AfFghan nation, as full of 
 friendship and disinterestedness, proceeds to refer in 
 these terms to the alternative presented to Dost 
 Mahomed : — " If the Ameer receive the good offices 
 of any power to the West, he need not complain" — 
 
NEVER HONESTLY PRESENTED. 69 
 
 of what? Of having his country invaded, his fol- 
 lowers slaughtered, himself deposed by a British 
 army? No, — "of being refused those of the Bri- 
 tish Government in his difficulties hereafter -" — and, 
 shortly after, follows this sentence: "The Ameer 
 will observe, that he has the perfect exercise of his 
 discretion ; and that if he considers the Governor- 
 generaPs views at variance with his interests, he is 
 the best judge/ 5 
 
 If these words are not, — what the character of the 
 writer, and his feelings towards Dost Mahomed for- 
 bid our considering them, — a mere piece of deceitful 
 irony, they have no other meaning than this: — We 
 have offered you a close connexion with us ; you are 
 not satisfied with the terms of our offer, and you 
 reject it; you are the best judge of your own inte- 
 rests, but you may, perhaps, hereafter regret having 
 done so, when the time comes at which our aid might 
 have been useful; having rejected our offer, you 
 cannot complain if we refuse to help you in your 
 difficulties. We are as we were before; bound to 
 each other by no relation of peculiar friendship. 
 
 On this head we cannot help referring to Lord 
 Auckland's last letter to Dost Mahomed, which the 
 reader will find at page 44 of No. V. of the Parlia- 
 mentary Papers. It conveys no threat; it says 
 nothing of possible measures which may hereafter 
 be found requisite to our security ; it utters no whis- 
 pers of war; it begins with courteous regret upon 
 the failure of attempted "mediation for the settle- 
 ment of the unhappy differences existing" between 
 
70 SOFT WORDS, 
 
 Dost Mahomed and Runjeet Singh ; and ends with 
 a deserved acknowledgment of the attention and 
 kindness shown to Captain Burnes and the other 
 British officers. Think of what followed upon this. 
 This was the last direct communication from Lord 
 Auckland to Dost Mahomed ; the next was indirect 
 — the Proclamation of Simla. Conduct for which 
 such a letter was a fitting return, was afterwards held 
 to justify the AfFghan war. We need not press this 
 further. To have denounced war as the alternative 
 of Dost Mahomed's acceptance of the terms offered, 
 would;, in our judgment, have been an act of unprin- 
 cipled violence, but still open and bold. The AfFghan 
 chief could not have accused us of misleading him ; 
 the state of the case would have been before him, 
 and (whatever his feelings towards us might have 
 been) his estimation of our power might probably 
 have induced him to accept our terms. But, stand- 
 ing as it does, we designate the act as one of per- 
 fidious violence. It reduces the British Government 
 below the comparative honesty and humanity of the 
 highwayman, who at least presents his victim with 
 the alternative of " Your money, or your life." 
 
 The letter from Dost Mahomed to Lord Auck- 
 land, before noticed, may be considered as expressing 
 the feelings with which that chief, on his part, viewed 
 the termination of the negotiations. Its style is 
 pathetic and earnest: it refers to the hopes which 
 the mission of Captain Burnes had excited, and to 
 the failure of those hopes, in a tone certainly of dis- 
 appointment, but of anything rather than hostility; 
 
AND HARD DEEDS. ?l 
 
 and its conclusion seems to point at a hope that the 
 British Government may yet see fit to befriend him. 
 Its last words are striking : " What is worthy of the 
 good name of the British Government, it, I hope, will 
 come to pass in future;' 9 words, simple in the meaning 
 with which they were used, but which now seem to 
 have been suggested to Dost Mahomed by the bitter 
 irony of fate; like the careless but fateful sayings 
 which the Greeks believed to be prompted by an 
 approaching Nemesis. What, one naturally asks, 
 must have afterwards been the half-taught, yet clear- 
 sighted and high-spirited Mahometan's opinion of 
 the men with whom he had been dealing ? of these 
 rulers of India, these Englishmen, these Christians ? 
 who approached him with proffers of advantage, 
 with professions of disinterested friendship and sym- 
 pathy! who raised large hopes by vague generali- 
 ties, which they would not fulfil in any particular; 
 who expected of him entire adhesion to their plans, 
 yet would not pledge themselves to protect him 
 against the possible consequences of such adhesion ; 
 finally, who parting with him on terms of courtesy, 
 returned with twenty thousand bayonets to set their 
 puppet in his place, and bear down the "factious 
 opposition 5 ' of the people they had so often pro- 
 fessed their wish to befriend ! 
 
 The Indian Government, however, were appa- 
 rently well satisfied with their own conduct towards 
 Dost Mahomed; they wiped their mouth, and said 
 they had done no evil. There is a curious and really 
 edifying paper addressed, in August, 1838, by Lord 
 
72 THE TRUTH HALF ADMITTED. 
 
 Auckland to the Secret Committee, announcing the 
 conclusion of the treaty with Runjeet Singh for the 
 restoration of Shah Soojah. Parts of it, indeed, read 
 like the high tone of a man attempting to persuade 
 himself out of a suspicion that he has done wrong ; 
 but there is one portion peculiarly worthy of notice. 
 After talking confidently (i of the justice of assisting 
 to his throne the lawful sovereign of Affghanistan," 
 (as if that were any concern of ours,) — after giving 
 in words, part of which were afterwards borrowed by 
 the Proclamation of Simla, the reasons which have 
 been already examined for deposing Dost Mahomed 
 and his brothers — their identifying themselves with 
 e( schemes of aggrandizement and conquest," and 
 the hostility of Dost Mahomed to our old ally, Run- 
 jeet Singh (the "unprovoked attack" of the Pro- 
 clamation,) Lord Auckland proceeds as follows: — 
 
 " Still it must be admitted, that in one respect 
 the conduct of the Barukzye chiefs is not without 
 some colour of excuse ; and, though a spirit of am- 
 bition was, unquestionably, the governing motive of 
 Dost Mahomed's conduct, yet he and his Candahar 
 brothers may not have been without apprehension of 
 the displeasure of the powers to the westward, in the 
 event of their holding back from the Persian alliance." 
 
 So there was some excuse; and Lord Auckland 
 himself admits that the fear of consequences, against 
 which he directly refused to guarantee the Affghan 
 chieftains, was really felt by them; that they were in 
 earnest, and spoke the truth, when they spoke of 
 their apprehensions from Persia. We take this 
 
CONSEQUENT GENEROSITY. 73 
 
 admission for what it is worth — that is, for a com- 
 plete unanswerable establishment of the point for 
 which we have been above contending — that we 
 would not secure them against a danger which we 
 visited them with war for not disregarding. But we 
 are yet more anxious to draw attention to the con- 
 tinuation of the paragraph: — 
 
 " It is my intention, therefore, when our prepa- 
 rations are sufficiently matured, to tender to Dost 
 Mahomed Khan an honourable asylum in the Com- 
 pany's territories." 
 
 Noble and generous enemy ! It was actually your 
 intention not to give up the head of an independent 
 state, the courteous host of English emissaries, the 
 brave man who held by the consent of his country- 
 men the highest place amongst them; who had 
 repelled, by their aid alone, the rival whom you were 
 about to restore with a foreign army, — not to give 
 him up, though subdued, to the mercies of an impla- 
 cable enemy, but to offer him, — never the enemy of 
 the British Government, till it made him so by 
 attacking him, — an honourable asylum in the British 
 dominions! We do not wish to be mistaken. Lord 
 Auckland, if wrong in every other particular of his 
 conduct, was right in this; but it was the least he 
 could do, and not as he seems to have thought, the 
 most; and it is no wonder if Dost Mahomed received 
 the offer of an asylum, coupled with the announce- 
 ment of his own deposition, without any transporting 
 gratitude. 
 
74 THE SUM OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 We may here terminate our remarks on the 
 originating causes, as far as we have been able to 
 discover them, of this unjust war. We have not 
 thought it necessary to waste argument upon the 
 talk, put forward in full consciousness of its inepti- 
 tude, with the mere view of raising a mist to obscure 
 the real nature of the transaction, respecting the 
 lawful sovereignty of Shah Soojah and the usurpation 
 of Dost Mahomed. In that sense, the Great Mogul 
 is the lawful sovereign of India, and the King of 
 Sardinia, or somebody else, we forget at present who, 
 of the British empire, — and the rule of the English 
 in India, and Queen Victoria in England, is a 
 usurped dominion. Neither is it requisite to enter 
 into a comparison of the moral character of the 
 ruler, whose friendship we had rejected, and the king 
 whose allegiance to our cause we were content to 
 purchase at so dear a cost; and, as it seems, pur- 
 chase insecurely. Whether Shah Soojah was only 
 weak, as some of his friends allowed, or, as his 
 enemies stated, weak, perfidious, and cruel; whether 
 Dost Mahomed was the brave, just, and able ruler 
 which he appeared to most of the European travellers 
 in Afghanistan, and which many even of those 
 Affghans who, on our advance into the country, 
 under apprehension of a power which they thought 
 it useless to resist, left his cause for that of Shah 
 Soojah, proclaimed him to be; all this is beside the 
 question we have had to consider. That question 
 was, whether the Affghan chiefs had merited at our 
 hands the infliction of an aggressive war. We have 
 
SUCCESS IS NOT JUSTICE. 75 
 
 also avoided mixing up the question of the necessity 
 and justice of the war, with its conduct and our sub- 
 sequent misfortunes. This view, and the consequent 
 tendency to make Lord Auckland's original policy 
 answerable for the disasters which followed upon it, 
 is not uncommon. It is earnestly argued against by 
 the Edinburgh Reviewer, from whom we have quoted 
 some passages; and we agree with him that it is 
 unjust and misleading. We may indeed measure, in 
 some uncertain degree, the oppression we exercised, 
 by the exasperated reaction it provoked; but this 
 is all, and applies perhaps more to our subsequent 
 conduct than to the justice of the original quarrel. If 
 any one into whose hands these pages may fall, 
 should be conscious of sharing the feeling noticed 
 above — of doubting the justice of our conduct only 
 when our losses began to make the policy look ques- 
 tionable — let him recollect that this is but to repudi- 
 ate iniquity when its wages fail us; that in the history 
 of the world, injustice has often been perfectly suc- 
 cessful; and that the injustice of our attack would be 
 what it is to-day, had we still our foot upon the neck 
 of our enemy. 
 
 The crime, if a crime has been committed, is one 
 of which the responsibility is shared by every Eng- 
 lishman. It is no new thing to say that a nation, 
 and especially a free nation, is generally accountable 
 for the conduct of its government. But with respect 
 to such transactions as the Affghan war, the English 
 people has a more direct and heavier responsibility. 
 Our position, as rulers of India, not only places in 
 
 E 2 
 
76 ENGLAND AND ASIA. 
 
 our hands the destinies of our hundred million sub- 
 jects, but makes us to the greater half of mankind 
 the representatives of Christendom and European 
 civilization. We may teach them to identify the 
 idea of a European with wisdom, mercy, and justice, 
 or with the fearful intelligence and strength, guided 
 by the disposition of a demon. What Asia shall be, 
 a hundred years hence, lies in our hands. 
 
 Yet this responsibility is slightly felt, is sparingly 
 acknowledged. It is confessedly difficult to excite 
 interest upon Indian or Asiatic topics, whether in 
 Parliament or elsewhere. Many a worthy friend of 
 civil liberty, who follows up with virtuous indigna- 
 tion the case of a drunken man, unjustly knocked 
 down in the next street by a policeman, cares little 
 whether it is with justice or injustice that we have 
 slain our tens of thousands in Asia. Many a sub- 
 scriber to Bible Societies, many a zealot in the cause 
 of converting the heathen, hears with coldness, and 
 -considers with indifference, the recital of actions 
 which may turn the hearts of countless millions 
 against the very name of Christianity. This indif- 
 ference is the cause, but it is in part also the conse- 
 quence, of ignorance, and of ignorance which is to a 
 great extent unavoidable. The distance, the pressure 
 of nearer and more familiar interests, the real diffi- 
 culty of understanding any particular topic, without 
 more general information on the subject than is pos- 
 sessed by most men, render its entire removal impos- 
 sible. But it is possible, and most desirable, to 
 obviate its worst effects. In proportion as the con- 
 
THE TRUST OF POWER. 77 
 
 ductors of our foreign relations, and especially the 
 mlers of our Asiatic empire, are necessarily trusted 
 with a greater amount of unlimited power, frequently 
 exercised beyond the sphere of the knowledge of 
 their countrymen, and quite removed from the daily 
 check of their opinion, it becomes more and all import- 
 ant that they should act under the fullest conviction 
 that the use or abuse of this power is not a subject to 
 which their countrymen are indifferent — that the re- 
 sponsibility transferred by the nation to them is in 
 no degree diminished by the transfer — that they are 
 trusted only as a man ignorant of law trusts his agent* 
 to a certain end, in which he is nevertheless deeply 
 interested — and that the power with which they are 
 intrusted is used in violation of the purpose of the 
 trust, if used unjustly. If the country cares little for 
 all this, its representatives abroad will share in its 
 feelings. If the country feels fully the criminality of 
 an unjust war, and is deeply and sincerely anxious 
 that its power shall be used in the furtherance of 
 good, means are not wanting to impress a similar 
 feeling on the delegates of its power; the men whose 
 words, often without its previous consent, set in 
 motion its distant armies. 
 
 That the nation felt thus, would by no means 
 interfere with that enlarged and liberal confidence 
 which, under certain limitations, it is both right and 
 expedient it should repose in its servants. It would 
 not for any idle cause, or vague rumour, question 
 the conduct of those whom it had thought right to 
 confide in. But, if on any occasion there should 
 
78 PRECEDENT AND RIGHT. 
 
 appear strong grounds for believing that injustice had 
 been perpetrated, it would not rest satisfied without 
 some certainty on such a subject; it would not ac- 
 quiesce^ as it has lately acquiesced, in a mere vague 
 suspicion. Honest Tories would not be contented 
 with believing that the late government had done 
 something more wrong than usual in Afghanistan, 
 from the consequences of which Sir Robert Peel had 
 perhaps too generously sheltered them. Honest 
 Whigs would not be quite easy under the thought, 
 that the AfFghan war was an awkward business, about 
 which the less that was said the better. In short, 
 Mr. Roebuck's motion * would have been conceded, 
 or if refused, refused on very different grounds from 
 those assigned by its opponents, and in particular by 
 the Premier. He would not on an occasion so grave 
 as a motion for inquiry whether the power of Eng- 
 land had been used cruelly and unjustly, have begun 
 by resorting to the very parliamentary, but rather 
 worn-out jest, of proving out of Hansard the incon- 
 sistency of an individual member. Neither would he 
 have rested his refusal of the motion on a long list of 
 inconvenient inquiries which might arise from grant- 
 ing this one; a precedent, as it would prove, for 
 digging up ten years of buried diplomacy. 
 'Twill be recorded for a precedent. 
 Sir Robert Peel is a brave man; but there is one 
 thing which Sir Robert Peel seems to contemplate 
 with panic terror — an inconvenient precedent. He 
 
 * March 1, 1843. 
 
INQUIRY DECLINED. 79 
 
 has less fear of a pistol than a precedent. " If this 
 inquiry is granted, we shall be called upon to grant 
 a dozen others, and shall not be able to refuse with 
 such a precedent before us. 33 
 
 Need we state the obvious answer ? If this inquiry 
 be applied for on sufficient grounds, grant it — it is 
 your duty to do so. If other inquiries be applied 
 for on equally sufficient grounds, grant them; if on 
 insufficient grounds, refuse them ; you will have esta- 
 blished no precedent against doing so ; you will only 
 have established a precedent applicable to all cases, 
 though inconvenient in some, of acting rightly and 
 justly. 
 
 Neither would he have thought it an answer to say 
 that the time for inquiry was gone by ; that the affair, 
 which might have been a very bad one, and indeed 
 of which he had uniformly disapproved, ought to 
 have been censured formerly, if at any time; but 
 that all had been ready to acquiesce in it then, and 
 made themselves parties to the transaction. "Let 
 bygones be bygones," is a good and true saying, as 
 between the wronged and the wronger, not as be- 
 tween the judge and the offender. It might, indeed 
 have been true that all were in fault, though not all 
 equally, and we have sufficiently shown our opinion 
 that all were so ; but this, whatever bearing it might 
 have upon the retribution due to individuals, streng- 
 thens, rather than diminishes, the reason for national 
 retrospect and inquiry. 
 
 To say that these reasons appear to us frivolous, 
 is to say that they are not, in our opinion, the grounds 
 
80 A statesman's reasons for silence. 
 
 upon which Sir Robert Peel really acted. The 
 actual reasons for the course which Sir Robert Peel 
 adopted maybe guessed; and they were not frivolous, 
 but strong. He knew, that to grant the inquiry 
 demanded would expose him to the charge of vindic- 
 tive partisanship ; of an ungenerous use of his power 
 as a minister to the injury and disgrace of his 
 former rivals; of having made the pretended interest 
 of the public a screen to the gratification of private 
 animosity. He knew that this charge would be made 
 by all the other side, and believed by many of his 
 own; that the large proportion of all parties to whom 
 politics are a game, would regard this as an unfair 
 move; that it would embitter against him a hundred 
 for one whom it conciliated; that it would change 
 political opponents into personal enemies. It would 
 have become a question of passionate interest; it 
 would have thrown the country into agitation; it 
 would have interfered with the progress of other and 
 important business; it would have disturbed many 
 minds sincerely intent upon discovering, if possible, a 
 remedy for the existing distress, and fixed them for 
 the time on the events of some years back, and the 
 doubtful report of a committee. All statesmen would 
 have felt the weight of these reasons, but some would 
 have placed in the opposite scale the benefit of a 
 solemn renouncement and reproval of injustice, and 
 have thought that it overweighed them all. 
 
 Inquiry, however — the inquiry which the voice of 
 the country might have compelled — has been refused, 
 and will certainly not now be granted. The public 
 
OURS FOR SPEAKING. 81 
 
 indifference, the parliamentary carelessness, about a 
 question which never yet turned an election, threw 
 away an occasion of demonstrating that England 
 required from the trustees of her power justice in 
 their dealings with weaker nations. It seems the 
 more desirable that all who have formed a decided 
 opinion on the case as it lies before them, should 
 express it ; not only for the duty of doing so, but for 
 the chance that the collective opinions of individuals 
 may ultimately produce some fraction of the effect 
 which might better have arisen from a national judg- 
 ment ; as at some place of crime, unmarked by any 
 solemn and public memorial, every passer-by contri- 
 butes to heap up an expiatory monument of abhor- 
 rence, at once a protest and a record. We have 
 added our stone to the cairn. 
 
 e 3 
 
THE AFFGHAN WAR*. 
 
 .... IloXXa b* ae\7TT(dS Kpalvovcri $eoi t 
 Kai ra 8oktj0€vt ovk ireXecrBrjj 
 T5>v d' dBoKTjreov rropop evpe 0e6s. 
 Totop §' airffirj rode npaypa. 
 
 The Gods doom many things against our hope, 
 
 Our prudent schemings miss their scope: 
 The Gods find ways to that we least intended; 
 And so this thing has ended. 
 
 Having examined the reasons upon which the 
 invasion of Afghanistan was founded, and expressed 
 the opinion to which that examination has conducted 
 us, we now proceed to offer some notice of the 
 manner in which the great and unjust scheme was 
 carried out; something like a sketch of the beginning, 
 middle, and end, of that strange and tragic drama. 
 The incidents themselves are sufficiently exciting to 
 attract the attention of those even who read merely 
 for the gratification of curiosity, or for amusement ; 
 and for all those who find any meaning in the course 
 of human events, few passages in recent history 
 contain a deeper moral. 
 
 * The works principally referred to in the following sketch 
 of the Affghan war, are those of Captain Havelock, Dr. Atkin- 
 son, Major Outram, Mr. Masson, Dr. Kennedy, Lady Sale, 
 and Lieutenant Eyre, and Dr. Buist's Outline of the Operations 
 in Affghanistan> published first in the Bombay Monthly Times. 
 
CAPTAIN HAVELOCK. 83 
 
 The interest which attaches to the late events in 
 Afghanistan has in some degree extended to the 
 earlier progress of the war, and it is probable that the 
 works on the subject have been more generally read 
 in the year 1843 than they were at the date of their 
 publication. We do not notice them with the pur- 
 pose of criticising to any great extent their literary 
 claims to attention. 
 
 To those who feel any historical interest in the 
 subject, any wish to know what really happened, and 
 how, they will all be more or less interesting ; though 
 going to a certain extent over the same ground, they 
 present the variety of incident and character which is 
 to be expected from Journals; and the general 
 impression derived from the comparison of three or 
 four will be nearer historical truth than would be that 
 arising from any one. 
 
 Captain Havelock's is, we believe, the generally 
 received military history of Lord Keane^s campaign 
 in Affghanistan. In addition to a clear and spirited 
 account of the campaign, it contains sundry inter- 
 spersed observations on its conduct, and these seem 
 to be written with honesty and freedom. Captain 
 Havelock is a decided admirer of the policy which 
 dictated the invasion of Affghanistan; and we pre- 
 sume that he includes in his estimate of the duties of 
 an aide-de-camp to the general commanding a divi- 
 sion of the invading force, a pretty thoroughgoing 
 partisanship on the side of the king whose cause we 
 embraced. He believes entirely in the dangerous 
 approach, grasping ambition, and injustice of Russia, 
 and draws from his belief curious inferences to guide 
 
84 DR. ATKINSON. 
 
 the conduct of England. Apparently, the best way 
 to encounter injustice and ambition is to imitate 
 them. He frankly asserts the propriety of subjecting 
 to our influence, that is, subduing, all states lying 
 between our Indian frontier and the Russian empire. 
 se Those who are not decidedly for us," he says, 
 u may be justly assumed to be unequivocally against 
 us," and may of course, be treated accordingly. 
 
 Dr. Atkinson carries even farther than Captain 
 Havelock the view of the case which we presume was 
 then the fashionable one among the employes of the 
 Indian Government. He is, what a writer in the 
 Bombay Times somewhere calls him, the "courtly" 
 historian of Shah Soojah ; he is indeed an enthusiast 
 in his favour, and on the occasion of taking Ghuznee, 
 becomes his self-elected poet laureate, putting into 
 the mouth of Mahomed of Ghuznee a series of 
 verses, descriptive of the coming golden age of 
 ArTghanistan, as bad as if they had proceeded from a 
 genuine Mahometan Whitehead or Pye; singularly 
 unpoetic, and, alas ! even more inauspiciously unpro- 
 phetic. We might, if we pleased, give our readers 
 some specimens, which, compared with the subse- 
 quent facts, are so curiously and literally contradictory, 
 that they are as amusing as anything ludicrous on 
 such a subject can be; but we abstain, merely recom- 
 mending Dr. Atkinson, whose beautiful lithographed 
 sketches of the scenery of the march are certainly 
 more attractive than his poetry, to express his enthu- 
 siasm hereafter by the pencil only. 
 
 It is curious, as illustrative of the careless igno- 
 rance of the feelings of the Affghan nation, which 
 
CONTRADICTORY VIEWS. 85 
 
 prevailed even after the conclusion of Lord Keane's 
 expedition, to compare the views given by these two 
 writers of the popularity of the English and Shah 
 Soojah in AfFghanistan, with each other and with the 
 event. In Captain Havelock's opinion, the AfFghans 
 disliked the Shah, but were delighted with the pro- 
 spect of living under the just and settled rule of the 
 English. In Dr. Atkinson's — but we must give in 
 his own w r ords his exhibition of the mutual feelings 
 of the English and AfFghans: — 
 
 (i The power which raised him (the Shah) to the 
 throne is the principal drawback on his popularity. 
 It is difficult for the people rightly to comprehend the 
 policy which influenced that measure. They can see 
 nothing in our advance to Cabul but a scheme of con- 
 quest. . . ." (What extraordinary dulness on their 
 part !) " The AfFghans are the most bigoted, arro- 
 gant, and intolerant people imaginable, and they 
 equally detest our interference, our customs, and our 
 creed. They look upon us at once with dread and 
 contempt ; subdued and prostrate as they are by our 
 power, they yet despise us as a race of infidels, and, 
 without one quality to warrant their being numbered 
 generally among the class of civilized beings, they 
 have, nevertheless, vanity enough to suppose that we 
 have not sufficient penetration to detect and suspect 
 their subterfuges and cunning, their doublings and 
 deceit." 
 
 Subsequent events may, perhaps, be thought to 
 have shown that this vanity, at least, was not ill- 
 founded. " Odisse quern laseris," is a proverbially 
 common feeling j and if Dr. Atkinson is to be re- 
 
86 outram's rough notes. 
 
 garded as the exponent of English feeling towards 
 the AfFghans, here is as strong an example of it as we 
 recollect to have met with. The Affghans have saved 
 us the trouble of solving the intricate knot of these 
 contradictions — by cutting it asunder. 
 
 If there are any readers to whom Captain, now 
 Colonel Outranks name has not long become familiar, 
 we can only tell them his Rough Notes contribute 
 to vindicate for him the reputation he enjoys of being 
 a judicious, active, and daring soldier; that he 
 appears throughout the campaign in AfFghanistan, to 
 have been the officer on all occasions selected for any 
 service which might seem more peculiarly to require 
 these qualities; that he has chased more refractory 
 chiefs, captured more strongholds, and in a rough 
 way, for the time, pacified a greater extent of rough 
 country than any one on record; and finally, that he 
 has the credit of having, in the character of Resident 
 at Hyderabad, done all that could be done by a 
 moderate, prudent, and humane servant of his go- 
 vernment to prevent or defer the destructive crisis of 
 conflict to which, ever since the great aggressive move 
 of Lord Auckland, things in Sinde have been con- 
 stantly tending — a reputation, if equally merited with 
 the rest of his honours, how infinitely preferable to 
 them all ! 
 
 The last on our list of works relating to the early 
 campaigns in Afifghanistan is Dr. Kennedy's, and to 
 us it is the most pleasing, partly as echoing our own 
 feelings on the policy of the war, though generally in 
 a light and satirical tone. It contains, however, the 
 following remarkable passage, which is very striking 
 
DR. KENNEDY. 87 
 
 when we consider that it appeared before any facts or 
 surmises could have been thought to justify it. But 
 there is no wonder that the spirit of indignant denun- 
 ciation of wrong should for once be one with the 
 spirit of prophecy. 
 
 " The day of reckoning is not come yet; but it 
 will come, and bring with it results at which the ear 
 of him that heareth of them shall tingle" 
 
 We are not able to refer at this moment to the 
 passage, but these are, we think, nearly the exact ex- 
 pressions. Did not the tidings of the winter of 1841 
 make the ear of every hearer throughout Europe to 
 tingle ? 
 
 For the rest, Dr. Kennedy is a pleasant and lively 
 writer, a bit of a humorist, a bit of a philosopher, 
 and as humorist and philosopher should be, a kind- 
 hearted man. He loses his baggage by thieves, in 
 the Bolan Pass, — it is very annoying; but it does not 
 make him approve of the wholesale executions by 
 which Sir J. Keane thought it right to terrify the 
 plunderers : his natural inclination is to laugh at the 
 follies of men, but he can express just and earnest 
 indignation when the crime predominates over the 
 folly. His last visit at Cabool is to the tomb of 
 Baber, his last at Ghuznee to the tomb of Mahmoud, 
 where the Superintending Surgeon to the Bombay 
 Column of the Army of the Indus meditates on the 
 transitory nature of human grandeur. " ( Vanity of 
 vanities, all is vanity/ repeated I to myself, as I 
 wondered what had become of the Sultanas chief of 
 the medical department." 
 
88 DR. BUIST. — MR. MASSON. 
 
 The "Outline of Operations/ 5 in the monthly 
 Bombay Times, is, in fact, a history of the Affghan 
 war, — a history which we should gladly see rescued 
 from the perishable (and often illegible) columns of 
 an Indian newspaper, and transformed into a more 
 permanent shape*. The number published on the 
 1st of February, 1843, contains the account of Lord 
 Keane^s campaign. The inquiry into the causes of 
 the war appears in the March number, and is illus- 
 trated by many despatches and parts of despatches 
 which were never laid before Parliament, and of some 
 of which we gratefully availed ourselves in our 
 previous remarks. That of April, 1843, carries the 
 history to the end of 1840. The writer is no friend 
 of the originators of the war, but the grounds on 
 which his view is supported are such as hardly admit 
 of misrepresentation, and lie open to the judgment of 
 every one. In the history of the war itself, his facts 
 are apparently collected with care, and generally 
 supported by the military memoir-writers of the 
 campaign; and his estimate of the characters and 
 conduct of individuals has every appearance of im- 
 partiality. 
 
 Such are the principal sources from which a 
 knowledge of the earlier progress of the war may 
 be sought. Mr. Masson^s work, to which we shall 
 hereafter refer, contains an account by an eye-witness 
 and actor in many of the scenes he describes, of the 
 
 • Dr. Buist, the author of the " Outline, &c.," has now 
 (1844) published it separately. 
 
LADY SALE AND LIEUTENANT EYRE. 89 
 
 Khelat insurrection in 1840; "an episode merely/ 5 as 
 he says, " of the great political drama enacted west of 
 the Indus/' but not the least interesting, nor the 
 least painful part of the drama. Upon works which, 
 like Lady Sale's and Lieutenant Eyre's Journals, 
 are in every one's hands, it is almost superfluous to 
 offer any general remarks. Though, of course, in- 
 debted for the avidity with which they have been 
 read, mainly to the curiosity felt in reference to their 
 subject, they are yet intrinsically entitled to much 
 praise: they are most interesting records of events 
 which no record could make quite uninteresting. 
 Written by eye-witnesses, and without affectation, 
 they have the one surpassing merit of reality; and 
 the consequence is, that they make, what seemed 
 when we first heard it the incredible story of the 
 Cabool catastrophe, not only credible but intelli- 
 gible. They coincide with each other to a degree 
 which speaks well for their mutual accuracy, the 
 main difference being, that the one is written by an 
 actor in the scenes described, the other by a deeply- 
 interested observer. There is, indeed, another not 
 uncharacteristic distinction. The honourable caution 
 of the military man, the anxious desire not to blame 
 unjustly, the not unfrequent statement of facts from 
 which the reader cannot but infer a severe censure, 
 without the direct suggestion of any, — all this con- 
 trasts strikingly with the honest unreserve, the femi- 
 nine vehemence, with which Lady Sale utters, from 
 her whole heart, her well-merited praise or blame. 
 Each book is in this respect just what it ought to be* 
 
90 PROCLAMATION OF OCTOBER, 1838. 
 
 Lieutenant Eyre's position as an officer doubtless 
 strengthens, in this respect, his manly instinct of cool 
 judgment and fairness; and the result is highly 
 honourable to him. Perhaps the most remarkable 
 feature in his book is the fair, calm, and unexagge- 
 rating tone with which he relates the long catalogue 
 of errors and misconduct. He never blames with- 
 out stating his reasons; and he gives praise or blame 
 in opposition to his confessed personal predilections. 
 Towards all on his own side — the English side — 
 Lieutenant Eyre is uniformly and scrupulously just. 
 If in his estimate of their opponents he appears 
 to us occasionally partial and inconsistent, — if he 
 deals a little too freely with words like "rebels/ 3 
 and u treason," — if he sometimes seems to attribute 
 to the whole nation the atrocities committed by a 
 part, — we can, in his circumstances, excuse such an 
 error without being misled by it. No one can read 
 the work without receiving on the whole a most 
 favourable impression of the writer. 
 
 Passing from the consideration of these works to 
 offer some remarks on the course of the war, we 
 cannot begin more appropriately, than with a quota- 
 tion from the proclamation of Simla. What actu- 
 ally has been we shall see afterwards; it was thus 
 that, in October, 1838, the Indian Government an- 
 nounced what was to be : — • 
 
 " His Majesty Shah Sooja-ool-Moolk will enter 
 AfFghanistan surrounded by his own troops, and will 
 be supported against foreign interference and factious 
 
A SINGULAR MIS-STATEMENT 91 
 
 opposition by a British army. The Governor- 
 general confidently hopes that the Shah will be 
 speedily replaced on his throne by his own subjects 
 and adherents, and when once he shall be secured in 
 power, and the independence and integrity of Aff- 
 ghanistan established, the British army will be with- 
 drawn." 
 
 We place this passage here as a text, upon which 
 any outline of the history of the next four years will 
 be found to furnish an impressive comment. Con- 
 tradicted in almost every particular by the subse- 
 quent facts, it received its first, and perhaps its most 
 emphatic, contradiction from the government who 
 proclaimed it. 
 
 "His Majesty Shah Sooja-ool-Moolk will enter 
 Afghanistan surrounded by his own troops." 
 
 What was the composition of the troops here 
 described as his Majesty's own? They were Shah 
 Soojah-ool-Moolk's own, in a sense rather less 
 strong than that in which the Eleventh Hussars is 
 " Prince Albert's Own." The Eleventh Hussars is 
 not more dependent on the Horse Guards than these 
 troops were on the Indian Government. They were 
 levies raised partially from the camp-followers of the 
 Company's regiments. They were H indostanees, 
 subjects of the Company, officered by British offi- 
 cers, paid by British gold, at the entire disposal of 
 the British authorities; "it was notorious," says 
 Colonel Dennie, who had the agreeable occupation 
 of drilling these undisciplined levies, "that there 
 was not a single Affghan among them." 
 
92 SINGULARLY EXPLAINED. 
 
 " His Majesty will enter Afghanistan surrounded 
 by his own troops. w 
 
 This statement was deliberately made; appa- 
 rently it was not true. What was it then? 
 
 Lord Palmerston's attempted defence (for this, 
 like every other step in the business, Lord Palmer- 
 ston is ready to defend,) amounts to saying that it 
 was — an erroneous conjecture; that the statement 
 was made six months before the actual advance of 
 the army; and might therefore have been intended 
 to be true, though contradicted by subsequent 
 events. It is a new thing to be told that state 
 papers are not declaratory, but rather prophetic or 
 conjectural; that the principle, 
 
 Laertiade, quicquid dicam aut erit—aut non, 
 is to guide us in interpreting the public declarations 
 of the intentions of a government. But the defence, 
 such as it is, will not stand; if the march began only 
 six months later than the declaration, the raising of 
 the levies did not — and at the time at which Lord 
 Auckland thus mistakenly prophesied that his Ma- 
 jesty would enter his dominions surrounded by his 
 own troops, the future character of the Shah's con- 
 tingent must have been fully known. Lord Palmer- 
 ston's equivocating defence is worthy of the assertion 
 which he defends. 
 
 If, however, the Indian Government failed in sur- 
 rounding Shah Soojah with Affghan troops, they 
 proceeded effectually to fulfil their promise of sup- 
 porting him with a British army. The preparations 
 made indicated an expectation of meeting with no 
 
THE LINE OF MARCH 93 
 
 inconsiderable amount of " factious opposition," and 
 a resolution that no amount should interfere with the 
 execution of their great project. Including the 
 Shah's contingent, as it was called, and a few thou- 
 sands of Seikh levies, the forces assembled in the 
 early part of 1839, along the line of the Indus, 
 amounted to more than 40,000 men. 
 
 A glance at the map will show, that from Feroze- 
 pore, the head-quarters of the Bengal division of the 
 "Army of the Indus," the nearest line of march 
 on Cabool would have been that by which our 
 troops, in 1842, evacuated the country, through the 
 Punjaub and the defiles of the Khyber. The line 
 ultimately chosen for the Bombay and Bengal divi- 
 sions — the chief strength of the army both in 
 numbers and efficiency — was the longer western 
 route, leading through the territory of the Ameers 
 of Sinde, and Eastern Beloochistan, by the Bolan 
 Pass to Quettah and Candahar. It is curious to 
 find that a principal reason for this preference was 
 — the reluctance of our "old and faithful ally," 
 Runjeet Singh, to permit those who, by a reciprocal 
 relation, must have been his "old and faithful 
 allies," to traverse his territories with so large a 
 force. For his scruples we had every respect; but, 
 apparently, it is not every ruler who is entitled by his 
 position to object to the passage of armies. The 
 scruples of the weaker Ameers of Sinde, and of the 
 Khan of Khelat, the principal chieftain of Eastern 
 Beloochistan, though not less natural, were less com- 
 placently regarded. The former, who had previously 
 
94 THROUGH SINDE. 
 
 been induced to promise supplies, assistance, and 
 carriage, were, on our arrival in their country, found 
 to regard the advance of the army with hostile feel- 
 ings, which were more than shared by the fierce 
 Beloochee tribes who acknowledged their dominion. 
 It was even said that large sums of money were dis- 
 tributed by them among their undisciplined followers, 
 assembled in thousands along the Indus, to prevent 
 their attacking the British army. For a time they 
 hesitated to subscribe the new treaty tendered for 
 their acceptance, large as it was in its demands, and 
 equivalent to a renunciation of independence. At 
 length, under immediate apprehension of an attack 
 upon their capital by 20,000 men, they agreed to 
 all that was required of them, including the payment 
 of a large sum to Shah Soojah, once their feudal 
 superior; they admitted an English force to be perma- 
 nently established in their country, and became the 
 dependent and tributary allies of the Indian Go- 
 vernment. Ten months before this time occurred 
 that conversation between Captain Burnes and Dost 
 Mahomed, in which " I referred him to Sinde as an 
 example of the advantages of British connexion f* 
 five years later that connexion reached its climax, in 
 perhaps the fiercest battle ever fought in India, re- 
 sulting in the captivity of the princes of the land, the 
 occupation of its capital, and its permanent annexa- 
 tion to our empire. 
 
 On the subject of our dealings with Sinde, in 
 .1839, we have read Captain Havelock with painful 
 astonishment. That officer, who " records, not with- 
 
MEHRAB KHAN OF KHELAT. 95 
 
 out a sentiment of national shame and humiliation/* 
 that our original demand on the Ameers was in direct 
 violation of a treaty entered into with them only a 
 few years earlier, who styles that demand " an ex- 
 pression of calm contempt on the part of the British, 
 for subsisting engagements/* yet afterwards u ven- 
 tures to think, that, after all, these deceitful rulers 
 were dealt with too leniently," and speaks of the 
 anticipated storm and plunder of Hyderabad, and the 
 " blasted hopes" of the army, in consequence of a 
 peaceful arrangement, in the spirit of a disappointed 
 Mahratta plunderer. We solemnly assure our readers 
 that the page in Captain Havelock*s work, which an- 
 ticipates the storm of Hyderabad, is headed u Golden 
 Prospects/* that the page which records how Hyder- 
 abad came not to be stormed, is headed " Prospects 
 Blighted/* that each page is like to its heading, and 
 that we have been able to discover no trace of irony. 
 Is this the natural tone of a British officer ? or is it 
 the case that injustice on the part of rulers leavens 
 the whole mass of those whom they employ with a 
 corresponding leaven of iniquity ? 
 
 After passing through Sinde, the route followed 
 by our army led them through the parts of Eastern 
 Beloochistan, subject to Mehrab Khan of Kheldt — a 
 name of deep significance to the student of the Aff- 
 ghan war. That chieftain, or his predecessors, had 
 been, like the Ameers of Sinde, feudatory to the 
 crown of Cabool, but for the last many years had 
 possessed, like them, a virtual independence. In 
 1834, Shah Soojah, flying from the consequences of 
 
96 MEHRAB KHAN AND SHAH SOOJAH. 
 
 a defeated attempt to recover his dominions, took 
 refuge in the territories of Mehrab Khan, of whom 
 he was demanded by his pursuer, one of the Baruk- 
 zye chieftains of Candahar. Mehrab Khan had the 
 generosity to refuse to give up the fugitive, and the 
 Barukzye the generosity to applaud the refusal, say- 
 ing, that "Mehrab Khan acted like a good man." 
 Shah Soojah had now an opportunity of showing his 
 gratitude to the man to whom he was perhaps in- 
 debted for liberty and life, and he did so characteris- 
 tically. On understanding that Mehrab Khan de- 
 murred to the passage of the army, he wrote to him, 
 reminding him that Shah Nawaz Khan was now in 
 his camp; this Shah Nawaz Khan being a shoot of 
 the ruling family of Khelat, and a legitimate pre- 
 tender, with pretensions about one hundred years 
 old, to the throne; whom the English afterwards 
 V actually set up on the death of Mehrab Khan, and 
 maintained for a few months. In any estimate of 
 the character of our protege, Shah Soojah, this inci- 
 dent ought not to be forgotten. 
 
 Sir Alexander Burnes, who was more than once 
 at Khelat for the purpose of conducting the negotia- 
 tion for the supply of provisions and carriage with 
 Mehrab Khan, has recorded some of his conversa- 
 tions with the chieftain. The Khan's remarks upon 
 the dangerous impolicy of our conduct, by which, 
 though we might set up Shah Soojah, "we could 
 never win over the Affghan nation," indicate far more 
 judgment and shrewdness than he receives credit for 
 from Mr. Masson, who considers him an imprudent, 
 
THE BOLAN PASS. 9/ 
 
 though by no means treacherous, character. Once 
 he is said to have used words of ominous prophecy: 
 ci You have brought an army into this country, but 
 how do you propose to take it out again ?" Ulti- 
 mately, after showing much reluctance, Mehrab, as 
 the historian of the Bombay Times says, (e promised 
 plentifully, as most Oriental and many European 
 princes, under these circumstances, would have done; 
 trusting that the chapter of accidents would enable 
 him to evade, or release him from a treaty which was 
 acceded to under fear or constraint." 
 
 As might have been expected, these promises 
 were little regarded; probably it would not have been 
 in Mehrab Khan's power to perform them, what- 
 ever had been his intention. But the distress of the 
 army, in consequence of their non-performance, seems 
 to have been fearful; even before the main division 
 of Bengal, estimated, with the camp followers, at 
 little short of 100,000 men, entered the tremendous 
 pass of the Bolan, the non-combatants were reduced 
 to half-rations. A vivid idea of the nature of the 
 march may be gained from Dr. Atkinson's sketches 
 of the scenery of this pass; the deep and narrow 
 split in the hills, where the precipitous cliffs, inclin- 
 ing towards each other as they run up, and nearly 
 meeting at top, 
 
 Forehead to forehead hold their monstrous horns. 
 
 Half-way up, a wild group of Beloochees are 
 perched in a cleft, peering and pointing their match- 
 locks over the ledge at the invading column; some 
 adventurous sepoys are scrambling up the rocks to 
 
 F 
 
98 MARCH THROUGH THE BOLAN. 
 
 some "coin of vantage" from which to assail the 
 plunderers; while the long line of march, men, 
 horses, and laden camels, is toiling on painfully be- 
 low. During the advance of seventy miles along that 
 terrible chasm, their losses in baggage and provisions 
 were great, owing to the difficulties of the route even 
 more than to such predatory attacks; and the Bom- 
 bay column, when following some weeks later, found 
 the track marked by the dead bodies of horses, 
 camels, and marauding Beloochees, who were inva- 
 riably dealt with according to the order that "no 
 prisoners were to be taken." Yet they were never 
 attacked in force. 
 
 An intercepted letter to a hill chief, written, 
 whether by Mehrab Khan, or as Mr. Masson thinks, 
 by his treacherous minister without his knowledge, 
 contains the following expressions: — "What is the 
 use of your treaties and your arrangements ? all 
 child's play. There is no relief but in death : no cure 
 but in the destruction of the English. Their heads, 
 goods, and bodies must be sacrificed. Strengthen 
 the Pass. Call on all the tribes to harass and de- 
 stroy * Had this fierce but not unwise counsel been 
 heartily followed; had Mehrab Khan combined with 
 the chiefs of Candahar for the purpose of resolutely 
 opposing the advance of the English, there seems no 
 slight probability that the invasion of Afghanistan 
 might have terminated short of the frontier of that 
 country. But the retribution which perhaps but 
 for the disunion of our enemies, might have sig- 
 nalized the Pass of the Bolan, was deferred until it 
 
THE SHAH AT CANDAHAR. 99 
 
 should be better merited; 
 
 Until a day more dark and drear, 
 And a more memorable year 
 
 should give to Khoord Cabool and Tezeen the fame 
 of the slaughter of an English army. 
 
 Between Gtuettah and Candahar, shortly before 
 entering the Kojuk Pass, the danger — not from the 
 sword, but from starvation — was great. The camp 
 followers were in a state bordering on famine; the 
 men were dispirited, and desponding; speculations 
 upon the necessity of a retreat were prevalent in the 
 camp ; but were put an end to by the spirited and 
 judicious order of the Commander-in-chief, directing 
 an immediate advance. Still beset by attacks rather 
 on their baggage and stores than themselves, losing 
 very few men by the sword, but many by sickness 
 and exhaustion, having had many horses shot to pre- 
 serve them from dying by starvation, and almost all 
 the rest unfit for duty, the harassed, half-famished, 
 and diminished column struggled on to Candahar, 
 The Barukzye chiefs of Candahar, deterred from 
 resistance by the treacherous desertion of one of their 
 most influential adherents, fled at the approach of 
 the British army, and Shah Soojah entered unop- 
 posed into the second city of his dominions, where 
 he was apparently well received- — flowers and loaves 
 of bread being strewed before him by his loving 
 subjects; the latter of which demonstrations of 
 respect would have been more to the purpose in the 
 course of the march through the passes. He pro- 
 ceeded to constitute a court, hold levees, and perform 
 
 f 2 
 
100 THE SHAH AND HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 other similarly important functions of sovereignty. 
 For all such formalities he seems to have had a 
 strong taste, diametrically opposed to the prejudices 
 and principles of his Affghan subjects, accustomed to 
 feel pride in the rude freedom and social equality 
 which existed under the half-patriarchal, half-feudal, 
 government of their chieftains. On the plain outside 
 the city, surrounded by English officers, amid the roar 
 of English cannon, he was solemnly recognised as 
 sovereign of AfFghanistan. The whole ceremony was 
 conducted according to theatric programme, assigning 
 to every one his place ; and, among others, a place to 
 the u populace," whose exuberant loyalty was to be 
 " restrained w by the Shah's troops. The perform- 
 ance went off well; but the part of Hamlet was 
 omitted — the people were not there. 
 
 Advancing, after two months' delay^ from Canda- 
 har, and still exposed to similar privations, the army 
 arrived at length before the fortified city of Ghuznee 
 in a state in which failure would have been most 
 dangerous, and success was almost necessary. Such 
 situations are not unfrequent in war ; and as the die 
 falls, there is blame for the imprudence which risked 
 and lost — or all praise for the courage which risked 
 and won. e< I know/' said Napoleon, after hearing 
 and answering the objections of some of his generals 
 to his proposed scheme for the world-dividing cam- 
 paign of 1813, (i I know, after all, I shall be judged 
 by the event." But the swift decision to try, and 
 the resolution to win, which have never a small 
 share in determining the event, determined that of 
 
THE STORMING- C* GHUSNEE. 101 
 
 the Ghuznee campaign of 1839. The battering train 
 had been left at Candahar ; the defences of the town 
 were strong ; but one gate, out of twenty-four, had 
 not been walled up ; and the scheme suggested by an 
 engineer officer was instantly adopted by the general 
 ■—to blow in this gate with powder, and carry the 
 town by storm. All was done as it was arranged. 
 On the 21st of July the garrison of Ghuznee first 
 saw from their walls the colours of an English regi- 
 ment ; by five o'clock a.m. on the 23rd, those colours 
 were floating from the citadel. 
 
 Nothing can be more picturesque, nothing, as an 
 exhibition of determined valour, apart from all con- 
 siderations of the cause in which it was shown, more 
 brilliant than that assault, as told in the official des- 
 patches, and the accounts of those who were present. 
 The stormy night, the violent gusts of wind prevent- 
 ing the garrison from hearing the approach of our 
 columns ; the enemy, seen through the chinks of the 
 gate, quietly smoking, immediately before the explo- 
 sion in which they were buried ; the storming party, 
 under Colonel Dennie, struggling through the half- 
 ruined gateway, at once feeling and fighting their way 
 forward through the covered passage in the dark, 
 until their leader saw the blue sky and stars above 
 the heads of their retiring opponents ; — all these cir- 
 cumstances belong to the romance of war. Accord- 
 ing to the account of Colonel Dennie, confirmed 
 from other quarters, an unavoidable mistake pre- 
 vented the storming party from being immediately 
 followed by the supporting column, of which the 
 
102 THE SHAH AND HIS REBELS. 
 
 advance was delayed for some minutes ; and Dennie 
 and his small band forced their way into the town, 
 and held their position there on the ramparts within, 
 for some time, unsupported and alone. 
 
 "Alone I did it." He was the Coriolanus of 
 Ghuznee. 
 
 This exploit, in fact, decided the struggle, and 
 Shah Soojah might now consider himself, by the 
 grace of the English, king of AfFghanistan. We find 
 him H every inch a king," taking, and which is much 
 stranger, receiving in Lord Keane's despatch, osten- 
 tatious credit for sparing the life of the " rebel" 
 governor of Ghuznee, Prince Hyder Khan, son of 
 Dost Mahomed ; * as if," says Dr. Kennedy, with 
 just indignation, "the bare possibility of the con- 
 trary could have been contemplated." The day pre- 
 vious he had begun to exercise in a yet more decided 
 manner the rights of sovereignty. Fifty or sixty 
 AfFghan prisoners (prisoners of war) had been taken 
 and brought before him. His Majesty, who appears 
 to have been fond of using strong language, began to 
 storm at the rebels. One of them, a chief, irritated 
 by the language addressed to him by the Shah, 
 rushed towards him, and wounded an attendant with 
 his dagger. The king, in the rage it would seem of a 
 coward, instantly ordered the execution of the whole; 
 and, in a few minutes, these fifty or sixty prisoners — 
 again we say, prisoners of war — were massacred to a 
 man. 
 
 This butchery was said at the time to have been 
 perpetrated in the presence of the British Envoy, 
 
THE SHAH AND HIS QUESTIONER. 103 
 
 and by authority of the British Commander-in-Chief. 
 We are sincerely glad to find that this was not the 
 case *; but that Shah Soojah was at once warned by 
 the Commander-in-Chief that, while within the limits 
 of a British camp, he must measure out his mercy 
 and justice, even towards his rebellious subjects, in a 
 different proportion. One can conceive the unmiti- 
 gated disgust and scorn with which every English 
 gentleman — every English man in the camp, must 
 have heard of the performance of this, the first Bed 
 of Justice, held by the imbecile old man whom they 
 were supporting in leading-strings over the bodies of 
 his subjects to a throne. This was the first occasion 
 on which he acted for himself, and it appears fair to 
 presume that it was in character. 
 
 While the army staid at Ghuznee, the Nawab 
 Jubbar Khan, brother to Dost Mahomed (mentioned 
 at page 62), appeared once more in the character of a 
 peace-maker, asking for himself, nothing ; for . Dost 
 Mahomed, his hereditary office of Grand Vizier, as 
 the condition of submitting to the Shah. This, of 
 course, could not be granted. When presented to 
 the Shah, his deportment was not uncourteous, but 
 his courtesy did not prevent him from addressing to 
 the king a rather awkward question. u If you are to 
 be king, of what use is the British army here ? If 
 the English are to rule over the country, of what use 
 are you here ?" By the ancient laws of Menu, a 
 severe penalty is attached to the offence of over- 
 
 * History in the Bombay Monthly Times. 
 
104 ENTRY INTO CABOOL. 
 
 coming a Brahmin in argument; we do not know 
 whether Affghan law attaches any penalty to bringing 
 a king into an inextricable dilemma; but, if there is 
 any such, we think it is pretty clear that the good 
 Nawab had incurred it. He was offered mainte- 
 nance in his property and honours, which he de- 
 clined, and departed to share his brothers fortune ; 
 having first solemnly laid the responsibility of the 
 blood which would be shed upon the King and the 
 Envoy, At this, " one could not but smile." (Have- 
 lock.) One smiles at the time, at many things 
 which, at the distance of three years, have a very un- 
 smiling aspect. We will answer for it that, if Cap- 
 tain Havelock now recalls this conversation, the 
 recollection does not make him smile. 
 
 A week after the capture of Ghuznee, the army 
 advanced on Cabool, carrying with it the prestige 
 and terror of victory. Dost Mahomed, who had 
 shortly before 13,000 men around him, was deserted, 
 and forced to fly with 600 horsemen to the moun- 
 tains ; and Shah Soojah entered Cabool, like Canda- 
 har, unopposed, and was received by the people in a 
 manner which, we think, did them honour, — without 
 insolence, without exultation; but with cold and 
 grave respect. 
 
 Dost Mahomed was pursued by some sepoys and 
 British officers under Captain Outram, and a body of 
 Affghans under Hadji Khan of Kakur: the traitor 
 who, having lately betrayed the Barukzye cause at 
 Candahar, was expected to show the zeal of a con- 
 vertite. This man, whose general course through life 
 
PURSUIT OF DOST MAHOMED. 105 
 
 seems to have been that of a thorough scoundrel, 
 may yet probably have felt some reluctance to be the 
 instrument of putting his old master into the hands 
 of his enemies. He took every excuse for hanging 
 back; and his efforts in this line were more than 
 seconded by his followers. To Captain Outranks 
 forward energy they opposed an unconquerable vis 
 inertia ; and their leader repeatedly assured him that 
 not one of them would strike against Dost Mahomed, 
 should they overtake him. Once Captain Outram 
 overheard the chiefs remonstrating with the Hadji on 
 his conduct, — "Why should he/ who had never 
 received injury from Dost Mahomed, aid in putting 
 him into the hands of the Feringees )" To which, 
 as might be expected, the Hadji had nothing to say. 
 On another occasion we find him, in answer to Cap- 
 tain Outranks reproaches of his backwardness, pro- 
 testing that he had incurred the hatred of the whole 
 nation by his attachment to the English. u I am, 
 next to the king, the most unpopular man in the coun- 
 try P Next to the king, whose universal popularity 
 had been so incontestably proved to Lord Auckland ! 
 The result of the pursuit was such as might have 
 been expected. After crossing the Hindoo Koosh at 
 15,000 feet above the sea, — after starving for days on 
 handful s of meal, — after coming to a unanimous and 
 we doubt not, very just conclusion, that in case any- 
 thing went wrong, all the Affghans on both sides 
 would at once turn against them, — and passing, in 
 full conclave of thirteen English officers, a resolution 
 which recalls to us the wars of Cortez with the 
 
 f3 
 
106 HIS ESCAPE, 
 
 Mexicans, to direct their united attacks, should they 
 come into conflict with the enemy, upon Dost Ma- 
 homed singly, whose fall would probably disperse his 
 followers, — Captain Outram and his companions 
 found themselves obliged to retrace their steps to 
 Cabool ; where, of course, the immediate consequence 
 of their return was the disgrace and punishment of 
 the "traitor," Hadji Khan. He had lately won 
 riches and honour by betraying the Barukzye cause, 
 and now, for favouring the escape of his old master, 
 he was disgraced and punished. It was probably the 
 only deed prompted by good feelings he had ever 
 done in his life, and he did not find it answer. 
 Doubtless, in the seclusion of his imprisonment at 
 Loodianah, he resolved in his heart not to offend 
 similarly again. Treason was no new game to him ; 
 but this time he had been traitor on the wrong side. 
 It is an instructive lesson to scoundrels, to be careful, 
 like Snake, to preserve their character, and not to 
 disappoint their employers' estimate of their scoun- 
 drelism. 
 
 We shall not attempt to follow in detail the sub- 
 sequent fortunes of Dost Mahomed. It will be suf- 
 ficient to say that he strove to maintain the war 
 against us with an honourable pertinacity; that in 
 the course of his endeavours to obtain assistance he 
 was imprisoned, savagely treated, and his life endan- 
 gered by the ruler of Bokhara, — the same wretched 
 tyrant who has since become infamous by the murder 
 of our two countrymen, Colonel Stoddart and Cap- 
 tain Conolly ; and that, escaping thence, he returned 
 
AND SUBSEQUENT SURRENDER. 107 
 
 to Afghanistan, and became once more a rallying 
 point of the ei disaffected and rebellious/' and at one 
 time a source of most serious alarm : an insurrection, 
 even in Cabool itself, being daily apprehended; that, 
 after sustaining a ruinous defeat at Bamean, from 
 Colonel Dennie, in an action which, in a military 
 point of view, was perhaps the most brilliant fought 
 in AiFghanistan, — a defeat which a slight advantage 
 gained at Purwan Durrah seems only to have con- 
 vinced him it was impossible to repair, — he rode 
 with one attendant straight from the last-mentioned 
 field of battle to Cabool, met Sir William Mac- 
 naghten returning with his escort from his evening 
 ride, and claimed, with a confidence honourably 
 given, and honourably repaid, the protection of the 
 representative of England. The Envoy merits praise 
 for bestowing generously and readily the kindness 
 which it would have been disgraceful to refuse ; but 
 one regrets to find that, true to his dislike to Dost 
 Mahomed, he continued afterwards to attribute the 
 favourable impression which he made on all who 
 came in contact with him, to the singular misleading 
 powers of this " accomplished dissembler." With 
 this chivalric incident, which occurred in November, 
 1840, exactly a year before the great insurrection in 
 Cabool, closed for the time the public career of one 
 whose name, otherwise little known beyond the 
 limits of his own country, has now been made fa- 
 mous through the world ; and carries with it, wher- 
 ever it is spoken, a reproach to the impolicy and 
 injustice of England. 
 
108 CAPTURE OF KHELAT. 
 
 Let us return to the course of earlier events; 
 that is, to the autumn of 1839. Though Dost 
 Mahomed had escaped for the time, the Indian Go- 
 vernment had kept its word, and placed Shah Soojah 
 on the throne of his ancestors, and a large part of 
 the troops were at once withdrawn to India. The 
 returning march of the Bombay army was signalized 
 by one of the most important events of the year 
 1839, the capture of Khelat. We have already 
 alluded to the causes of quarrel with the chieftain of 
 that country. He was accused, not only of having 
 failed in his engagements to furnish provisions, but 
 of having incited the hill tribes to attack us in the 
 Bolan Pass, of having waylaid the bearers of the 
 treaty he had signed, and of other hostile proceed- 
 ings. Had all that he was charged with been entirely 
 established, we cannot but regard the resolution to 
 depose him as a harsh, high-handed, and arbitrary 
 proceeding. He was false, if false at all, to a com- 
 pulsory agreement,— an agreement entered into, not 
 in furtherance of his own interests, but of ours ; and 
 to whatever extent the original demand upon him 
 may be held to be vindicated by apparent necessity, 
 the same cause cannot be given for visiting the vio- 
 lation of his engagement with the very extreme of 
 retribution, after the expedition had been perfectly 
 successful. It would, we think, have been more 
 consistent with policy and justice, as well as with 
 humanity, to have accepted the excuses with which 
 he was ready to propitiate the conquerors of Affghan- 
 istan, and to establish by future kindness some right 
 
DEATH OF MEHRAB KHAN. 109 
 
 to those services which hitherto we had attempted to 
 exact by terror. These considerations either did not 
 occur to our politicians, or were disregarded by 
 them. They had already tasted the pleasure of being 
 (i proud setters-up and pullers-down of kings," and 
 the Commander of the Bombay column was charged 
 in his return to effect the deposition of Mehrab 
 Khan. 
 
 That chieftain, whatever his conduct towards us 
 had been, seems not to have expected such a pro- 
 ceeding. He attempted to delay the advance of the 
 British by professions of attachment and allegiance, 
 coupled with the declaration that if attacked he would 
 defend himself to the last. Professions and threats 
 were alike unnoticed, and the British force appeared 
 before Khelat on the 13th November. All the writers 
 on the Affghan war bear testimony to the dashing 
 gallantry of the assault which followed, and the de- 
 termined resistance of the besieged. 
 
 The English general performed skilfully and 
 bravely the service entrusted to him, and Mehrab 
 Khan kept his word. Fighting to the last for the 
 independence of his country, and for his own here- 
 ditary dominion, he died like a brave man in what 
 was, in the main, a good cause, and the reverence of 
 his people has not unworthily bestowed upon him 
 and the chiefs who fell with him before the Feringee 
 invaders, the blood-earned honour of martyrdom. 
 
 Mr. Masson, who arrived at Khelat a few months 
 after these events, and who gives a painful picture of 
 the depression prevailing among the inhabitants, and 
 
110 WAS HIS FATE DESERVED? 
 
 the resignation with which it was borne, states that 
 he found there but one opinion respecting the con- 
 duct of Mehrab Khan, — that he had not been guilty 
 of the offences imputed to him against the British 
 Government. We cannot go at length into the 
 arguments by which Mr. Masson maintains that 
 Mehrab Khan had not, as he was accused of doing, 
 excited the mountain tribes against us; that this 
 was done by others, who betrayed his confidence. 
 That he was in the hands of traitors there can be no 
 doubt. It is certain, that his principal agent in our 
 camp threw every obstacle in the way of an amicable 
 arrangement; that he was at one and the same time 
 doing all he could by letter to excite in the Khan's 
 mind fear and hatred against the English, and repre- 
 senting to us in the strongest light the hostile and 
 faithless disposition of his employer. The first half 
 of this treason, which was not discovered till after 
 the death of his unfortunate master, deprived him 
 of the reward which he had earned in the character 
 of our partisan by the second. This man is said by 
 Masson to have forged, without Mehrab Khan's 
 knowledge, the intercepted letters to the tribes: 
 and there can be no doubt that he was quite ca- 
 pable of doing so. His object evidently was to 
 ensure the Khan's destruction, by leading him to 
 commit himself with the English, and perhaps by 
 their all-powerful assistance to procure the succes- 
 sion for himself. It is difficult, without fuller in- 
 formation, to form a positive opinion upon the ques- 
 tion of Mehrab Khan's conduct. The fullest es- 
 
INSURRECTION AT KHELAT. Ill 
 
 tablishment of his guilt would be, we think, an 
 inadequate defence for the precipitate and vindictive 
 course of the British authorities; but if he was, in 
 every sense, unjustly attacked, then no deed more 
 truly lamentable than this "brilliant exploit" has 
 ever stained the annals of England. 
 
 We must give a short summary of the rest of this 
 Khelat episode. 
 
 The territory of the slain chief was partitioned, 
 our pet and protege, Shah Soojah, coming in for a 
 large share. The son of Mehrab Khan, a boy of 
 fourteen, became a fugitive and wanderer, and Nawaz 
 Khan, the relation to whom we have before alluded, 
 was set up in Khelat to govern the diminished do- 
 minions, as the tributary of Shah Soojah, and under 
 the control of an English political agent. Of the 
 individual who filled this station at his arrival, Mr. 
 Masson has given an account, of which if one quar- 
 ter be true, it is frightful to think of the amount of 
 unchecked power over hundreds of thousands thus 
 placed in hands which were unfit to exercise subor- 
 dinate authority over a single company of soldiers, 
 — over a single form of schoolboys. 
 
 To a dreadful incident, or rather accident, related 
 at page 118 of his work, Mr. Masson in some degree 
 attributes the insurrection which followed, in the 
 summer of 1840, and which terminated in the de- 
 position of our puppet, the imprisonment of the 
 agent, Lieutenant Loveday, and the reinstatement 
 of the son of the late chief, Nusseer Khan. A su- 
 perior British force was speedily directed upon Khe- 
 
112 mehrab's son restored. 
 
 lat, and Nusseer Khan again became a fugitive. In 
 the course of his flight the British agent was mur- 
 dered, but not by his orders. But the British 
 authorities apparently began to feel the injustice of 
 their former conduct, and, as far as it was now pos- 
 sible, wished to repair it. They made kind offers to 
 the young Khan; but it was not easy to bring him to 
 trust in the Feringees. With no unkindly intention, 
 he was hunted like a partridge on the mountains. 
 We recollect that the Indian newspapers of the day 
 used to tell how, on the entrance of the English 
 force into a valley, the young Khan and his followers 
 would be seen escaping over the ridge of the hills, 
 his mountain pony following him close, like a dog, 
 and clambering over the rocks after him. At length, 
 Colonel Stacy, the officer to whom the settlement of 
 the country was entrusted, having ventured unat- 
 tended into the fugitive camp of Nusseer Khan, con- 
 fidence was won by confidence, and the young chief 
 consented to be replaced by the English in the seat 
 of his father. This took place in October, 1841. 
 The portion of his dominions taken from him has 
 since been restored by Lord Ellenborough. 
 
 It is worth observing that to this single act of 
 justice, — the restoration of Nusseer Khan, — we may 
 attribute the subsequent tranquillity of that country, 
 and therefore, in all probability, a great diminution 
 of the danger to which, a short time after Nusseer 
 Khan's restoration, the general insurrection in Aff- 
 ghanistan exposed our troops at Candahar. We are 
 glad to find one spot upon which the eye can dwell 
 
THE MURREES OF KAHUN. 113 
 
 with pleasure, in the dark history of our four years' 
 supremacy beyond the Indus. 
 
 The Brahoes of Khelat were not the only moun- 
 taineers with whom we were discreditably and use- 
 lessly embroiled. The greater part of the year of 
 1840 is filled up with our dealings with other hill 
 tribes, especially those bordering on Upper Sinde, to 
 the east of the Bolan Pass ; with captures of places 
 by mistake ; with seizure and release of chiefs ; with 
 unmeaning negotiations alternating with scrambling 
 but occasionally desperate warfare. Over all these 
 people we thought proper to assert a claim (on the 
 Shah Soojah's behalf) to allegiance, and especially to 
 tribute, which they, having it would appear, never paid 
 any before, and regarding themselves as practically 
 independent, thought proper to dispute. To follow 
 all the details of such events would be as useless as 
 uninteresting ; a sufficiently true conception of them 
 may be obtained from that which we give as a speci- 
 men ; the series of events known as the occupation, 
 defence, and ultimate capitulation of Kahun, far- 
 famed, at least in India. The least of all our "little 
 wars," this was also certainly the least successful, and 
 perhaps the least creditable. 
 
 Kahun is the capital of the Murrees, a mountain 
 tribe to the eastward of the Bolan Pass, and described 
 by the Bombay Times' Historian as a fierce and war- 
 like but chivalrous clan. Like most of these tribes 
 they are included in the general term of Beloochees 
 and deserve it by their valour: perhaps, also, by 
 
114 DODAH MURREE. 
 
 their share in the common failing of the race,--covet- 
 ousness of camels. During the year which connects 
 them not dishonourably, through English with univer- 
 sal history, their chief was an old man, known by the 
 name of Dodah Murree. That he was aware of the 
 besetting failing of his people appears from his 
 recorded ejaculation to them, on the occasion of their 
 making what appeared to him an imprudent attack 
 on an English detachment. (e There you go, selling 
 your country for five hundred camels." But if they 
 loved camels more than their country, they yet loved 
 their country well, and better than their lives. 
 
 In December, 1839, we entered in arms the 
 country of these people, and of their neighbours, the 
 Bhoogties, a kindred tribe, with objects somewhat 
 indefinite, but centering in this ; — to exact tribute not 
 shown to be due, and to establish a supremacy never 
 definitely acknowledged; probably also to punish some 
 alleged depredations. The natural results followed ; 
 the leading chiefs were friendly in their professions, 
 but the warriors left the towns and gathered in the 
 mountains ; the British commander thought it right 
 to guard against treachery by seizing the chief of the 
 Bhoogties, whose town, Deyrah, we then occupied ; 
 and then followed some desultory warfare, terminated 
 chiefly by the terror of our artillery. The chief was 
 sent captive to Sukkur, effectually guarded by the 
 threat that he would be shot on the first attempt at 
 rescue; and the detachment marched from Deyrah 
 to Kahun, which it found deserted; and thence to the 
 plains, by a road made with immense labour through 
 
OCCUPATION OF KAHUN. 115 
 
 the tremendous pass of Nufoosk; a course taken 
 expressly with the view of showing the Murrees that 
 their mountains were no defence against our skill and 
 energy. They learnt the lesson differently. 
 
 This expedition had terminated in a successful 
 forage for plunder, but not in securing allegiance or 
 tribute ; it left among the Murrees a determined 
 spirit of resistance, and a scornful distrust of our 
 professions. It is painful to find that these people 
 perpetually charged us with treachery and disregard 
 of our plighted word. It is certain from subsequent 
 events, that they at least well knew the difference 
 between falsehood and truth. Such, however, as its 
 results were, they did not deter the political authority 
 in Upper Sinde from sending in the following April 
 (1840), a force under Captain Brown, to occupy 
 Kahun. He had from 300 to 400 troops, a consi- 
 derable force for such a country, supplies for four 
 months, a most tempting convoy of camels, and — a 
 native tax-gatherer, who found, in the sequel, little 
 opportunity for exercising his vocation. They were 
 sent to seek wool from a wolf; and, though their 
 shears were sharp, the shearers verified the proverb. 
 Never did seekers of a golden fleece come home more 
 closely shorn. 
 
 After an almost unopposed, but most toilsome 
 and painful march, in which the u wind came down 
 the gorges like the breath of a furnace," the detach- 
 ment surmounted the pass of Nufoosk and entered 
 Kahun, about four or five miles further, which they 
 found again deserted. It was hastily put in a state 
 
116 DETACHMENT CUT OFF 
 
 of defence ; the camels were unloaded, and on the 
 16th of May, more than half the force, in charge of a 
 convoy of 500 camels, left Kahun to return to the 
 plains. Lieutenant Clarke, an officer of distinguished 
 spirit and talent, was in command. Having crossed 
 the first hill from Kahun, and apparently apprehend- 
 ing little opposition, he directed eighty men to return 
 to the fort. This party was, on its way back, at- 
 tacked, and entirely destroyed, one man only escaping 
 back to Kahun. Lieutenant Clarke had marched 
 some miles further unmolested, when he saw himself 
 followed by a strong body of Murrees. He had two 
 miles of camels to guard over forty miles of difficult 
 ground ; and he judged it best to turn on his follow- 
 ers. An unlucky accident deprived his party of 
 ammunition ; the Murrees observed their fire slacken, 
 rushed in upon them, sword in hand, and the infantry 
 were cut to pieces after a desperate resistance. The 
 horsemen alone escaped to the plains; the whole 
 convoy fell into the hands of the tribes ; 500 camels 
 at once. This little war with wild mountaineers had 
 already cost a single native regiment 148 men in one 
 day. 
 
 Thus was an English force, now reduced to 140 
 soldiers, established at Kahun, or rather imprisoned 
 there. We are not told what became of the tax- 
 gatherer; but he must have felt that his occupation 
 was hopelessly gone. It was much if they could 
 maintain themselves with 900 yards of wall to guard 
 against an active and swarming enemy ; who, though 
 generally kept at some distance by the fear of the 
 
PAINFUL SUSPENSE 117 
 
 shells, were perpetually on the watch to cut off 
 stragglers j and prevent the entrance of supplies. 
 The place was strengthened, the rations reduced as 
 low as possible, forays, occasionally successful, made 
 on the neighbouring flocks, the camp-followers drilled 
 and armed — with sticks, when nothing better t^ould 
 be obtained. But months went on and over, pre- 
 visions became scarcer and scarcer, sickness made 
 its appearance in the garrison; and the situation 
 of Captain Brown, whose skill and resolution had 
 excited throughout India great interest in his 
 behalf, was justly regarded as in the last degree 
 critical. 
 
 In August, the garrison heard that a strong force 
 was to be sent to their relief, and that the Murrees 
 were assembling w T ith the vowed resolution of op- 
 posing it to the last. On the 30th, they saw the 
 hills commanding the Pass of Nufoosk alive with 
 men, and later, with signal fires. At sunrise, on the 
 31st, they heard from the other side of the pass a 
 single gun, the concerted signal to announce the 
 approach of the convoy. No wonder that the day 
 should have been, as Captain Brown's Journal tells 
 us, one of the most intense and painful excitement 
 for the garrison. Unable, without certain destruc- 
 tion, to leave the walls of the fort, they heard heavy 
 firing ; they saw the Murrees hurrying in alL direc- 
 tions to the scene of action; they saw the shells 
 flying over the ridge, and bursting among them; 
 they expected, hour after hour, to see the top of the 
 pass crowned with the glitter of bayonets. But the 
 
118 PAINFULLY ENDED. 
 
 firing ceased, was renewed, and finally ceased again ; 
 before the night came on, all was quiet, and still they 
 had seen nothing and received no intelligence of the 
 convoy. For many days after they could only con- 
 jecture their fate. They saw, indeed, many camels 
 crossing the plain; they saw the Murrees erecting 
 tents, which they tried to persuade themselves 
 belonged to the party formerly cut off; they thought 
 it possible that the convoy, finding the Pass of 
 Nufoosk too strong, had been obliged to go round 
 by a longer and easier route ; they anticipated disas- 
 ter, but not such disaster as had in truth befallen. 
 At length, eight days after the fight, Captain Brown 
 discovered with his glass, close to the Murree camp, 
 and pointed towards the fort, (i the three guns belong- 
 ing to the convoy, staring us in the face ! n Luckily 
 they were not likely to be very harmful; for as Cap- 
 tain Brown says, after some other good reasons, 
 "lastly, they know not how to load or fire them. 
 All the Beloochees are assembled round the guns, 
 and peeping into their muzzles ; quite playthings to 
 them," "What can have become of Major Clibborn 
 and his convoy ? Many officers and men must have 
 lost their lives before they gave up the guns \" The 
 brave soldier judged rightly. 
 
 Major Clibborn led from Sukkur to the Pass of 
 Nufoosk a force of 850 men and 3 guns: one-third 
 of the numbers which were requisite to win, against 
 22,000 of the bravest of Asiatics, the terrible battle 
 of Meeanee; a considerable force therefore against 
 tribes which could muster only a few thousand war- 
 
ACTION OF NUFOOSK. 119 
 
 riors. They found the heights strongly occupied by 
 the enemy, and the road broken up; the advance 
 however, struggled over these obstacles, and was, 
 through a heavy fire, and showers of stone from the 
 precipices, nearing the top of the gorge. H One sepoy 
 reached the gap, and was seen to fire through it," 
 when the mountaineers rushed on them, sword in 
 hand, "shouting and yelling like fiends." No dis- 
 cipline could resist the fury of their attack : all the 
 officers and half the men fell on the spot, and the 
 advance, fighting desperately all the way, mixed hand 
 to hand with the enemy, was driven by main force to 
 the bottom of the hill, and back on the main body. 
 The troops were scarcely rallied, when the Murrees 
 made repeated and desperate charges on them, rush- 
 ing up to the very muzzles of the guns; but were at 
 last repelled by showers of grape-shot. 
 
 The severe loss and exhaustion of the detachment 
 would probably have made another attempt on the 
 pass of doubtful result ; the want of water, of which 
 none could be discovered in the neighbourhood, ren- 
 dered it impossible. They retreated that night, and 
 reached the plains utterly exhausted, with the loss 
 of nearly one-third of their force, having left in the 
 hands of the Murrees, baggage, ammunition, camels 
 without end, and those guns which became the 
 heralds of their fate to Captain Brown. 
 
 The victory, for such it was, of Nufoosk, was deci- 
 sive; and that officer was now desired to make such 
 terms as he could for himself. He sent to old Dodah 
 the following epistle: a model, barring the flourish 
 
3 20 MURREE FAITH. 
 
 about the provisions, of straight-forward diplomacy: 
 c: Dodah Murree, I'll give you back your fort on con- 
 ditions, viz., that you give me personal security for 
 my safe arrival in the plains : if not, I will remain here 
 two months longer, having provisions for that time :" — 
 terms which the Murree chief had offered before, to 
 be marked in Captain Brown's journal with a scorn- 
 ful note of admiration, but which he frankly and at 
 once accepted now, and adhered to with perfect 
 fidelity. The garrison, weak with disease and short 
 rations, left the fort where they had been shut up for 
 five months, and arrived exhausted but safely at the 
 plains. In the course of this march one of the sick 
 having been left behind for want of carriage, their 
 Murree guide went back for him, mounted him on 
 his own horse, and brought him safe into camp, 
 himself walking at his side. 
 
 We had now had enough of the Murrees ; per- 
 haps their generous and honest behaviour may have 
 had its share in awakening our authorities to a sense 
 of their wickedness and folly. We released the 
 chiefs we had captured, treacherously as they said, 
 and made peace with the hill men, on the simple 
 terms of henceforth mutually letting each other alone; 
 of tribute, we need hardly say, no more was heard. 
 And so the war between England and the Murrees 
 being over, the latter disappear from history; where 
 they have, however, played a part not unlike that 
 which made the early glory of Greece and of Swit- 
 zerland. In some mosque among their hills stand 
 the guns taken in fair battle from an English com- 
 
A GRAVE FOLLY. 121 
 
 mander, — trophies which are not to be seen in every 
 European capital. 
 
 Our share from the transaction between us, is, 
 the reproach of unprovoked aggression : theirs the 
 sympathy which all men feel for simple and generous 
 manhood. A braver people never maintained their 
 freedom with the sword. 
 
 To return to the affairs of Cabool. One of Shah 
 Soojalr's first steps on his restoration, was to institute 
 what was called the i( Order of the Douraunee Em- 
 pire;" and if our readers wish for a laugh, in the 
 midst of serious matters, they may read Dr. Ken- 
 nedy's account of the institution of that burlesque 
 upon chivalry, the most amazing absurdity, one 
 should think, ever perpetrated under the sun; — how 
 their decorations were successively inflicted upon the 
 chief military and political authorities, Colonel Pot- 
 tinger alone escaping — an escape, in the Doctor's 
 opinion, only to be explained " by the unparalleled 
 good fortune which has attended that gentleman 
 through life;" — and how Sir John Keane, on receiving 
 his " Grand Cross" from the hands of a Mahomedan 
 sovereign, made a long speech " about hurling a 
 usurper from the throne." Well, allowance must be 
 made for the infirmity of human nature, when a 
 speech is expected of it; and Sir John Keane, in 
 1839, had done something. But we have felt sur- 
 prise, and something more than surprise, to see it 
 
 solemnly announced in 1843, that has 
 
 applied for, and received, gracious permission to wear 
 
 G 
 
CO 
 
 122 THE DOURAUNEE EMPIRE. 
 
 the insignia of some class or other of the Order of the 
 Douraunee Empire. Flebile ludibrium! The Order 
 of the Douraunee Empire ! Where is the Dourau- 
 nee Empire ? Buried in the bloody defiles of Khoord 
 Cabool and Jugdulluk! Like a straw on the top of 
 a flood which has swept away bridges and buildings, 
 this miserable Order comes floating by. Let us cease, 
 in common sense, to exhibit with pride a memorial 
 of miserable and unparalleled disasters, which could 
 only be worn rationally as a mark of penance. 
 
 The memoir-writers of the campaign give us but 
 little from which to judge of the general state and 
 government of the country during the two years, 
 from the autumn of 1839 to November 1841, of 
 Shah Sooj air's precarious dominion. The real ruler 
 of the country, of course, was Sir W. Macnaghten 
 — the "lord sahib," as the insurgents at Khelat 
 styled him, refusing with contempt, to hold any 
 communication with the puppet set up by the Ferin- 
 gees, but willing to write to the "lord sahib/ 5 We 
 should be glad to believe that his government was, 
 in any material respect, wise or beneficial to the 
 country. In the Asiatic Journal, for October and 
 November, 1842, we find a letter, written by Sir 
 Alexander Burnes, in August, 1840, descriptive of 
 the then state of the country, with remarks upon it 
 by Sir William Macnaghten. The following appears 
 to us a very singular instance of unwisdom. Sir 
 Alexander Burnes has represented, among many 
 other sources of danger, the unpopularity arising 
 from the presence of "A body of Seikhs, in the 
 
THE SEIKH GUARD. 123 
 
 costume of their country, as the king's guard in this 
 Mahometan capital. A few evenings ago, I was 
 saluted by several of them with the Seikh war-cry, in 
 the very streets of Cabool. I assert, without fear of 
 contradiction, that no Seikh ever durst, in the time 
 of the Affghan monarch, appear thus in the city; 
 and further assert, that their presence here is odious 
 to the people, and to the last degree injurious." 
 
 Could there be a doubt of it ? A guard of Prus- 
 sians, or English, in the year succeeding Waterloo, 
 would have added something, we think, to the 
 French hatred of the Bourbons; something to the 
 difficulties of their difficult position. Conceive Tal- 
 leyrand meeting a representation of the danger which 
 might arise from such a circumstance, with a truism 
 to the effect that u surely it was not desirable to per- 
 petuate this exclusive spirit!" Such, however, is 
 the remark of Sir W. Macnaghten upon the state- 
 ment of Sir Alexander Burnes. 
 
 That a statesman, sitting in Cabool, a city of 
 60,000 inhabitants, every house of which might, on 
 provocation, turn out an armed warrior, — with the hot 
 ashes of insurrection smouldering beneath his very 
 feet, and in different parts of the country the unex- 
 tinguished fire still burning, — holding by such a 
 tenure the security of the empire he had only just 
 begun to organize, the lives of thousands and his 
 own, — should receive a representation of the danger 
 of offending, in the tenderest point, the prejudices of 
 a fierce and exasperated people, and put it aside 
 with a clap-trap of the platform! 
 
 G 2 
 
124 A GRATUITOUS OFFENCE. 
 
 A conqueror, who renounces the harmlessness of 
 the dove, should at least try to have a little more of 
 the wisdom of the serpent. " Surely it is time that 
 this exclusive spirit should cease" — not a doubt of it. 
 It was time — it is always time that any evil should 
 cease, if it can. Was it, therefore, wise to hold up 
 before the eyes of the Affghans a perpetual memorial 
 of their conquest? to take pains to make them con- 
 nect us, and our king, with a people whom they 
 hated? The encouraged presence of Seikh soldiers in 
 Cabool, felt, as it would be, as an insult, may per- 
 haps have been a heavy item in the long account 
 between the people of Cabool and the Envoy. 
 
 "The great error of Sir William Macnaghten," 
 says the Edinburgh Reviewer, from whom we have 
 already quoted, "appears to us to have been the 
 attempt to bestow too soon, and without sufficient 
 means of coercing those who had hitherto lived at 
 the expense of their weaker neighbours, the unap- 
 preciated blessings of an organized and powerful 
 government upon the people of Affghanistan." 
 
 It might have been so. We know how much 
 injustice, how much tyranny has been perpetrated, 
 under the pretence — sometimes with the sincere 
 hope — of improvement, even when the improvers 
 were countrymen of those whose institutions they 
 undertook to reform. It might perhaps have been, 
 in the opinions of some, a good deed to bring the 
 AfTghans to exchange for the tranquillity of des- 
 potism, their fierce, struggling, ill-regulated freedom. 
 It is doubtful whether the Affghans would have 
 
MISGOVERNMENT. 125 
 
 received with gratitude even good government at our 
 hands; but it is still more doubtful whether good 
 government was offered them. We find; in this 
 same letter of Sir Alexander Burnes, the Shah's 
 chief minister dragging the peasantry from their 
 homes in hundreds, at seed-time, to labour without 
 pay; unpaid troops demanding their arrears of this 
 same minister, with the threat of cutting off his 
 nose! and receiving it accordingly; — the population 
 of districts driven to the hills by the demand of ob- 
 solete taxes — a chief employed in the collection of 
 tribute, living at free quarters in the country, for five 
 months, with 1800 men. Sir William Macnaghten, 
 denying none of the charges, replies that these 
 things were old abuses, and could not be altered at 
 once; he does not notice Sir Alexander Burnes^s 
 remark, that we, backing this infinite misgovernment 
 with resistless power, enabled Shah Soojah to do 
 these things to any extent with impunity. 
 
 In one respect, our conduct seems to have been 
 marked with singular and obvious impolicy; we mean 
 the encouragement which we appear to have given to 
 Shah Soojah^s childish passion for form and cere- 
 mony. Courteous, though formal and strict in his 
 adherence to etiquette, towards English officers, to 
 his own subjects he was difficult of access, haughty, 
 and cold. His sense of his own unapproachable 
 dignity, his contempt for all meaner men, appears to 
 have been rooted in him like a principle. During 
 his march into Affghanistan, with his kingdom yet 
 to win, he received every adherent who presented 
 
126 -UNWISE AND FORMAL ROYALTY. 
 
 himself with a manner cold and repulsive even to 
 rudeness. His actual possession of power did not 
 increase his condescension. His friends left his 
 presence with chilled affection: his enemies, fresh 
 from the compulsory oath of allegiance, swore a 
 sincerer oath to devote their lives and fortunes to his 
 destruction*. In the course of the last struggle at 
 Cabool, with his throne and life at stake, he clung 
 with the tenacity of insanity to his royal state; when 
 the chiefs offered him their allegiance on two con- 
 ditions, that of intermarrying his daughters with 
 them, and of relinquishing the practice of keeping 
 them waiting at his gate for hours before his levees, 
 (" The AfFghans," says Lieutenant Eyre, K hate cere- 
 mony,") he gave a most reluctant consent, which he 
 afterwards withdrew. 
 
 It is evident that the king was upheld in this 
 tone by the profound and almost ludicrously affected 
 respect shown to him by the English. In the works 
 of the writers already noticed, and still more in the 
 despatches of Sir John Keane and the Envoy, "his 
 Majesty Shah Soojah-ool-Moolkh" is introduced with 
 a pompous flourish of reverence, " his gracious com- 
 mands" are received with a solemn and deferential 
 gravity, obviously acted and over-acted. In all pro- 
 bability, the fiction was seen through by the AfF- 
 ghans, though not by the unhappy king himself; 
 but at any rate it is clear that this course, adopted as 
 a profound piece of state-craft, was the very madness 
 of impolicy. It was, in fact, doing our best to pro- 
 
 * Atkinson, p. 343. 
 
127 
 
 voke, where sufficient provocation was quite certain 
 to be given at any rate. Such conduct would have 
 made any king unpopular; but what must it have 
 been in a king, who could hardly be popular at any 
 rate — a king restored and supported by foreigners? 
 The Affghans hated us; but for the golden image 
 whom we had set up for them to worship, him they 
 hated and despised. 
 
 "The surrender of Dost Mahomed/* said Sir 
 Alexander Burnes, f* has made the country as quiet as 
 Vesuvius after an eruption: how long it will continue 
 so, God only knows.'* One thing was certain, that 
 it could not continue so for ever. The country 
 hardly ever was quite pacified. As in a volcanic 
 country, new craters were perpetually forming — till at 
 length, at Cabool, came the great outbreak of the 
 central volcano. 
 
 We agree with Lieutenant Eyre's editor, in oppo- 
 sition to the Edinburgh Reviewer, that that outbreak 
 was, to a certain extent, prepared and organized. 
 There is no other way of explaining the simultaneous 
 occurrence of insurrection in different parts of the 
 country, and the warnings we received; nor can we 
 see the difficulty which, in the opinion of the 
 Reviewer, attaches to the formation of such a conspi- 
 racy. It needs no very refined organization to com- 
 bine men who are already united by the freemasonry 
 of a common hatred. Those who plotted the out- 
 break on a particular day may have been few in num- 
 ber; they knew that, on the first glimpse of success, 
 thousands were ready to follow their lead. 
 
123 REBELS AND PATRIOTS. 
 
 Leaders were not wanting, who had never acknow- 
 ledged the existing government — such as the chiefs of 
 Nijrow in Kohistan. " Since our first occupation of 
 Cabcol," says Lieutenant Eyre, ie Nijrow had become 
 a resort for all such restless and discontented charac- 
 ters, as had rendered themselves obnoxious to the 
 existing government." These men, it seems, were 
 guilty of " hatching against the state treasonable de- 
 signs." Among them were such as " Meer Musjee- 
 dee, a contumacious rebel against the Shalr's authority, 
 who, obstinately refusing to make his submission even 
 upon the most favourable terms, openly put himself 
 at the head of a powerful and well-organized party, 
 with the avowed intention of expelling the Feringees 
 and overturning the existing government." 
 
 Contumacious rebellion . . . treasonable designs 
 . . . No, no, Lieutenant Eyre. To call these men 
 rebels, and their designs treasonable, was excusable 
 in November, 1841; it was then your " metier d'etre 
 royaliste" on behalf of the king whom you were 
 sent there to protect. But it is not so that English- 
 men generally will speak of them, even in 1843. 
 The chiefs of Nijrow are in respectable company. 
 What want these outlaws, patriots should have? 
 
 There was once a contumacious rebel called Wal- 
 lace, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for his 
 treasonable designs. There was once a contumacious 
 rebel called Kosciusko, whose treasonable designs, 
 though unsuccessful, were only visited with life-long 
 exile. There were, between thirty and forty years 
 since, a great number of contumacious rebels in 
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 129 
 
 Spain, whose treason prospered, and so became no 
 treason. As history judges the Scotchmen of the 
 14th century, the Poles of the 18th, the Spaniards of 
 1808, so will she judge the Affghan chiefs, who never 
 acknowledged, and ultimately overthrew, the king set 
 up by the Feringees. 
 
 The first three pages of Lady Sale's journal, dated 
 September, 1841, are most significant of the then state 
 of things. It seems that "a chief, contemptuously 
 designated as a robber 5 ' — that is, we presume, an 
 outlaw in arms against the existing government, — 
 appeared in a town where he had no right to appear: 
 that, consequently, a force was sent to apprehend him, 
 who were # fired upon from six forts," whether with 
 any result is not stated. Hereupon, a larger force is 
 sent, who reach a pass where (in September) there 
 was snow, and bitter cold. Beyond this pass the 
 people of the country had fled, abandoning their pro- 
 perty, and a their suffering must be severe in the 
 approaching winter." The chiefs are all submission; 
 but the orders were " peremptory to destroy the 
 forts which had fired upon the Shah's troops." 
 Akram Khan — we presume the chief above men- 
 tioned — is caught, and then we find "the Shah has 
 ordered Akram Khan's execution." Meanwhile, the 
 usual payment to certain chiefs has been discontinued, /* 
 an act not only impolitic, but bordering upon direct 
 dishonesty: and so, at last, there is a "pretty general 
 insurrection" in Kohistan, Cabool itself is discon- 
 tented, and "all the country about Tezeen and 
 
 G 3 
 
130 THE OUTBREAK AT LAST. 
 
 Bhoodkak in a state of revolt. It is only wonderful 
 that this did not take place sooner." So think we. 
 
 The desperate opposition through which, from 
 this time (October, 1841,) General Sale had to fight 
 his way from Cabool to Jellalabad — the assistance 
 given to his assailants, the Eastern Ghilzies, by 
 bodies of men from Cabool itself — the insults and 
 attacks upon individual officers in and near the city, 
 — all these circumstances, detailed as we find them in 
 Lady Sale's or Lieutenant Eyre's works, force us, 
 judging it is true after the event, but with every 
 allowance we can make, to regard the supineness of 
 the political authorities at Cabool as something per- 
 fectly wonderful. As Mirabeau said of the St. 
 Domingo planters, they were sleeping on the edge of 
 the volcano, and its first jets were not enough to wake 
 them. At length, in Lady Sale's Journal we come to — 
 
 "Nov. 2. This morning early, all was commotion 
 in Cabul — the shops were plundered, and the people 
 were all fighting." 
 
 An announcement, striking for its simplicity, evi- 
 dently the real entry of the event, as it then looked, 
 in the journal of the morning. On this " commo- 
 tion" turned the fate of an army and a kingdom. 
 
 It is generally agreed, that active means at first 
 might have repressed the insurrection: but those who 
 had been slow to believe the existence were slow to 
 admit the extent of the danger; nor was it from 
 the beginning so slight as has been represented. The 
 ball, of course, grew by rolling; but it grew with 
 tremendous rapidity. If, on the first day, the insur- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT ERROR. 131 
 
 gents were only a few hundreds, by the next they 
 were truly formidable. Whatever the defects of the 
 position of our force, whatever the blunders of its 
 leaders, — and they appear to have made all that it 
 was possible, and some that it would previously have 
 been impossible, to anticipate — the outbreak, by 
 which an army of 6000 disciplined troops were so 
 immediately induced to take up a defensive position, 
 can never have been contemptible. Every one has 
 felt the justice of Lieutenant Eyre's remarks on the 
 imbecility which first led to the loss, and then pre- 
 vented the recapture, of the commissariat fort: and it 
 is clear that the means which alone could enable the 
 force to maintain its position, ought, at any risk, to 
 have been defended or recovered; still the attempts 
 in furtherance of these objects, ill-directed as they 
 were, must have succeeded, had they not been met 
 by a most active resistance, causing a very severe 
 loss to the detachments employed. It is clear that 
 vigorous and well-directed exertions might have re- 
 sulted in safety and triumph. But it is out of our 
 power to understand, how any one can, after reading 
 Lieutenant Eyre's account of the first three weeks of 
 the siege, feel justified in calling the Aftghans a con- 
 temptible enemies." They may seem so to an Edin- 
 burgh Reviewer, calmly considering the numerous 
 deficiencies of spirit and sense on our part, which 
 were necessary to counterbalance the superiority of 
 disciplined troops over bands of irregular warriors. 
 Yet no Asiatic nation has successfully resisted us with 
 forces so nearly equal. They did not seem contempt- 
 
132 COURAGE OF THE AFFGHANS. 
 
 ible to the men, on whom, on the occasion of the 
 storm of the Rikabashee fort, (one of the few successful 
 operations undertaken during the siege,) they in- 
 flicted a severer loss than that sustained by the con- 
 querors of Ghuznee or Khelat. They did not seem so 
 to Lady Sale, when she noticed how they stood against 
 our guns, without having any of their own; when she 
 saw their cavalry, after receiving within a few yards 
 the fire of our advancing columns, rush down the hill 
 upon them — but we must give her own words: — 
 
 " My very heart leapt to my teeth as I saw the 
 Affghans ride right through them. The onset was 
 fearful. They looked like a great cluster of bees, but 
 we beat them and drove them up again." 
 
 (That u great cluster of bees," — the close, dark, 
 irregular mass, hanging on the side of the hill, is a 
 true touch of word-painting.) The terrible and dis- 
 astrous defeat of Beymaroo, on the 23rd of November, 
 brought about as it was by an unexampled combina- 
 tion of errors, — a determination it would seem to 
 run all the risk possible, to improve and secure no 
 temporary advantage, — marked, as it was, by dis- 
 graceful cowardice on the part of some of our troops, 
 — gave rise to exhibitions of daring courage on the 
 part of the Affghans. What are we to say of the 
 Ghazees *, estimated by Lady Sale at no more than 
 150 in number, who, creeping gradually up the side 
 
 * The Ghazees are a sect of Mussulman fanatics; the Ghilzies 
 a mountain tribe. The war against us had many of the features 
 of a religious war. We read of Mollahs going into all the vil- 
 lages to swear the people to fight to the last, as in a sacred 
 cause, against the infidels. 
 
DISASTER ON DISASTER. 133 
 
 of the hill, charged, sword in hand, upon our square 
 of infantry, broke it, and drove it before them ? On 
 our own side, the few AfFghan "juzailchees" in our 
 service, who stood by us to the end with a noble and 
 extraordinary fidelity, were about the most efficient 
 part of our army. The truth is, that the Affghans, 
 in these conflicts for the freedom of their land, fully 
 maintained the character which they have long pos- 
 sessed, and which their Rohilla descendants in India, 
 whether as princes or mercenaries, have never for- 
 feited, of being the bravest among the Asiatic nations. 
 And this is not a little to say in their praise. A 
 thoroughly brave man may, it is true, be a thoroughly 
 wicked one; still for nations, even more than indivi- 
 duals, the foundation of all excellence is bravery. 
 
 It is needless to go into any detailed account of 
 the events of the struggle. From the 2nd to the 
 13th November, the British forces were struggling to 
 resume a position of superiority ; from that date they 
 met with nothing but disaster. On the 15th Novem- 
 ber Major Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton, the 
 former slightly, the latter desperately wounded, 
 came into their camp with a single sepoy, the sole 
 escaped relics of our force at Charekar, announcing 
 by their arrival the complete success of the insur- 
 gents in the district of Kohistan. On the 22nd 
 November, Mahomed Akbar came to aid the revolt. 
 On the 23rd occurred the disastrous conflict of Bey- 
 maroo, in which our troops were driven into canton- 
 ments in utter rout, and saved, in Lieutenant Eyre's 
 judgment, from complete destruction only by the 
 
134 NEARER AND NEARER. 
 
 forbearance of their enemies ; and, from that point to 
 the evacuation of the cantonments, the picture is one 
 of unvaried and increasing sadness ; the hope of vic- 
 tory renounced, the hope of safety growing fainter, 
 provisions becoming scarce, reinforcements impos- 
 sible ; lingering negotiations, alternating with des- 
 pairing and unsuccessful attempts ; within the camp, 
 vacillation, famine, disease, and growing dismay; 
 without, an enemy increasing in strength and confi- 
 dence, and the w r orst enemy of all, the terrible winter, 
 gradually creeping on. 
 
 In the whole painful and miserable story, as it 
 lies before us, the most painful feature is the constant 
 recurrence of chances of safety passively neglected, of 
 wasted opportunities, of feats of useless valour. 
 Never did the leaders of a victorious force display 
 more devoted gallantry than was shown by many of 
 the English officers at Cabool. Never in war was 
 made so manifest the all-importance of the one 
 directing mind. Even discipline, for once, was inju- 
 rious. A body of men, less used to be commanded 
 according to the strict rules of the service, might 
 perhaps have been saved, and certainly could hardly 
 have met with so utter a destruction. Had the con- 
 stitution of an English force permitted it, who can 
 doubt that the officers of the English and Indian 
 regiments might, from among them, have furnished a 
 Xenophon ? 
 
 But it is impossible, on a contemplation of the 
 whole series of events, not to echo the remark with 
 which Lieutenant Eyre sums up his account of the 
 
OPPOSITES WORK TO ONE END. 1.3a 
 
 miserable and disastrous day of battle at Beymaroo, 
 into which were crowded specimens of every one of 
 the errors which, throughout, proved so fatal to us : 
 " It seemed as if we were under the ban of Heaven." 
 No Greek tragedy that ever was constructed bore 
 more strongly the impress of an ever-advancing irre- 
 sistible fatality — a fatality, however, working to its 
 end, as is the case in all similar events, less through 
 outward circumstances than through the characters 
 of men. In the respective positions, characters, and 
 views of the two English generals, there appears to 
 have been a singular but unfortunate adaptation. 
 Whatever incompleteness existed in the unfitness of 
 the one, was filled up by the deficiencies of the other. 
 General Elphinstone's position was, indeed, an un- 
 fortunate one for a man, to say the least, of no 
 remarkable vigour of character. Disabled, not only 
 by health, but by an accident on the very first day of 
 the insurrection, from taking an active part in the 
 duties of the defence, or from personally seeing that 
 his orders were obeyed, General Elphinstone was still 
 in command, still the person to whom every proposal 
 must be referred. Dependent on others for the neces- 
 sary information, it was most natural, though lament- 
 able in its results, that he should distrust his own judg- 
 ment, and exhibit much consequent indecision. He 
 could not decide upon his own knowledge ; and, as 
 the statements of others varied, so did the General's 
 opinion. It has been said that a council of war never 
 fights ; General Elphinstone's house, during the siege 
 of the cantonments, was a perpetual council of war. 
 
136 THE GENERALS 
 
 On the other side, General Shelton, the acting, 
 though not the sole responsible, commander, allowed 
 himself to be overcome by the difficulty of a position, 
 half supreme, half subordinate. Equal in courage to 
 any one in the army, it is clear that he shrank from 
 an uncertain share of a divided responsibility. If 
 Lady Sale may be trusted, he frequently declined 
 giving any opinion on the measures proposed. One 
 decided opinion he uniformly expressed, and that, 
 whether right or wrong, was by a singular fatality 
 on the only point on which the expression of such an 
 opinion could do nothing but harm. 
 
 From the beginning, he, the officer in immediate 
 command of the troops, expressed his opinion that 
 they could not hold out for the winter, and advo- 
 cated a retreat to Jellalabad. The Envoy, — the 
 supreme political authority, — protested in the strong- 
 est manner against such a measure ; and the General, 
 responsible on the one hand for the sacrifice of the 
 objects of his Government, on the other, for the 
 safety of the army, remained wavering between them. 
 The Envoy, in his position, and in the circumstances, 
 was, as far as we can judge, perfectly right ; still the 
 opinion of Shelton, had it been at once acted upon, — 
 that is, had it been that of a general in sole com- 
 mand, — would at least have saved the army. As 
 things were, it had, and could have, only one effect 
 — that of depressing yet farther the spirits of the 
 soldiers. It is difficult to say which had the worst 
 effect — the GeneraPs universal indecision, or Shel- 
 ton's single opinion. We do not blame the latter 
 
AND THE ENVOY. 137 
 
 for holding it; we merely point out the singular 
 combination of circumstances working together for 
 the evil of the devoted army. Any one of these 
 authorities, acting independently of the others, 
 would, probably, have saved the troops. 
 
 Having elsewhere freely expressed our opinion of 
 the conduct of the chief planner of the Affghan war, 
 we are the more anxious to do justice to his de- 
 meanour through the greater part of the struggle in 
 which he perished. Lieutenant Eyre^s account 
 shows him to us in a most respectable light; the 
 spring of every exertion made by the force ; the sug- 
 gester of every plan ; the brave adopter of a respon- 
 sibility from which the military leaders shrank, and 
 with his foresight uniformly vindicated by the favour- 
 able results of his suggestions. 
 
 He consented to treat only when forced to it ; he 
 rejected the offer of unworthy terms with becoming 
 spirit; and his conduct throughout would have en- 
 titled him to no mean place among that order of men 
 whose high qualities rise higher against adversity, but 
 for one lamentable and final exception. 
 
 Our readers will generally know to what we 
 allude. During the actual existence of a treaty be- 
 tween our force and the insurgents, Mahomed Akbar 
 proposed to Sir W. Macnaghten a scheme, at once 
 a test of his sincerity and a trap to catch him, com- * ^ 4 
 prising among other points, the seizure of certain 
 other chiefs, parties to the actually existing treaty. 
 The Envoy fell into the snare, and went forth to a 
 conference prepared to seize men who were at peace 
 
138 TREACHERY AND MURDER. 
 
 in reliance on his word. Treachery was met by- 
 treachery; the countermine exploded under the feet 
 of the miner. He was himself seized, and resisting 
 strongly, was shot by Mahomed Akbar, not, as it 
 would seem, of previous purpose, but in the fierce 
 passion excited by a violent personal struggle. 
 
 In Lady Sale's opinion, the Envoy's readiness to 
 accede to the plot suggested to him by Mahomed 
 Akbar against the other chiefs, was justified by the 
 neglect on their part to fulfil the conditions pre- 
 scribed by that treaty. In questions of strict mo- 
 rality, not less than in questions of speculative truth, 
 a lady's judgment is apt to be biassed by her feelings. 
 With every respect for the feelings which, in this 
 case, misled Lady Sale, we must protest against her 
 opinion. The alleged non-fulfilment of the terms of 
 the treaty could have been honourably met in one 
 way only — by openly declaring that it was no longer 
 binding. To acquiesce in its continuance, and plot 
 the seizure of men who were relying on its faith, 
 under pretext of peaceful conference, was an act of 
 detestable treachery, which, up to that time, at least, 
 the Affghans had done nothing to parallel. 
 
 The arguments by which Lady Sale would justify 
 the conduct of Sir W. Macnaghten, more than justify 
 the counterplot against one already under his own 
 hand convicted of treacherous intentions. The Aff- 
 ghans, in accordance with human nature, slurred over 
 their own part of the transaction, which was bad 
 enough, to dwell upon ours, which was worse, fiercely 
 protesting that they had tried us, and found that we 
 
THE TREATY RESUMED. 139 
 
 were not to be trusted : and who can tell what share 
 this miserable transaction, with the distrust which it 
 produced among them, may have had in occasioning 
 the subsequent faithless destruction of our army ? 
 
 That either party should trust the other after 
 what had passed was impossible, and to resume the 
 treaty was madness. Yet the treaty — which bound 
 us, in short, to evacuate the country, the Affghans to 
 permit and assist us to evacuate it in safety — was 
 resumed: resumed, too, in accordance with the all 
 but unanimous decision of a council of war. One 
 man only dissented — the officer who had before saved 
 Herat from the Persians, and whose counsel gave 
 now the only chance of saving the English army at 
 Cabool from the Affghans. He pointed out the risk 
 incurred by the treaty, the impropriety of binding the 
 hands of the Indian Government, and declared that 
 the true choice for the army lay between holding out 
 at Cabool to the last, and at once fighting their way 
 to Jellalabad. 
 
 It is clear, after the result, that Major Pottinger 
 was right. The first course might still, perhaps, 
 have been successful, — by the second, a remnant, at 
 least, of the army might have reached Jellalabad. 
 Allowance must be made for the errors of men 
 placed in a situation of almost unparalleled diffi- 
 culty ; still it does seem inexplicable that they should 
 have adopted the one course calculated to insure 
 destruction. Lady Sale states, that many Affghans 
 warned the English officers once and again, that 
 their destruction was resolved upon, and attempted 
 
140 THE MARCH FROM CABOOL. 
 
 to induce their friends to leave the camp, and remain 
 in safety under their protection. The power of the 
 chiefs to restrain the tribes between Cabool and Jel- 
 lalabad, was at least doubtful, whatever their inten- 
 tions. But the retreat was resolved upon. In Lady 
 Sale's Journal of the melancholy desponding days at 
 the close of December, 1841, we observe, with sad 
 interest, the frequent and ominous entry of "snow 
 all day." 
 
 On the 6th day of January, 1842, the force, 
 amounting after all its losses to 4500 fighting men, 
 with 12,000 camp-followers, moved out of the can- 
 tonments, the whole country being covered with deep 
 snow. The march could hardly have failed to be 
 disastrous, with whatever skill it had been con- 
 ducted; but from the beginning all appears to have 
 been mismanagement and confusion. Systematic 
 plan for providing the troops with shelter from the 
 bitter cold there was none; The camp-followers 
 from the very first "mixed themselves with, and de- 
 layed the march of the column. The tents, and 
 most of the baggage, were early sacrificed; yet their 
 progress was miserably slow. Everything depended 
 upon a rapid advance ; yet in two days the army had 
 advanced only ten miles. The third morning found 
 them at the mouth of the Khoord Cabool Pass, a 
 disorganized multitude of from fourteen to sixteen 
 thousand human beings, having as yet suffered com- 
 paratively little loss from the direct attacks of the 
 enemy. But the two dreadful nights of frost had 
 already paralyzed them. (i Only a few hundred ser- 
 

 THE DESTRUCTION BEGINS. 141 
 
 viceable fighting men remained." At this point 
 they were assailed in force by the savage Ghilzies. 
 Losing men by their fire at each step, the column 
 pressed on through the terrible defile. At the top 
 of the pass they halted, leaving in it, according to 
 Lieutenant Eyre, 3000 men, having in three days 
 completed fifteen miles, and ascended to a still 
 colder climate than they had left behind. On this 
 occasion it was that Lady Sale was wounded. She 
 bears testimony to the fact, that the chiefs who 
 escorted the European ladies through the pass, 
 apparently exerted themselves to keep down the fire, 
 which certainly endangered their lives as much as 
 those who were under their protection. " But," she 
 says, " I verily believe many of these persons would, 
 individually, sacrifice themselves to rid their country 
 of us/ 5 The implied doubt of their sincerity in 
 attempting to stop the fire, is a terrible testimony 
 to the strength of hatred with which we were re- 
 garded. 
 
 The next day, the fourth since leaving Cabool, 
 was spent on the top of the Khoord Cabool, in 
 negotiation and delay. Under the circumstances, 
 this seems to have been sheer madness. One march 
 more might have carried them clear of the snow. 
 Mahomed Akbar had shown himself already either 
 weak or unwilling to protect the force; and, in either 
 case, whatever measure had been most prudent in 
 itself, would have added to his ability, or increased 
 his readiness. During this day it was that the ladies 
 and officers (their husbands,) were made over to his 
 
142 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 protection. The delay, therefore, may be held to 
 have led to their safety; but it sealed the fate of the 
 army, who must with the followers even now have 
 amounted to more than 10,000 men, but most of 
 them helpless, hopeless, and disabled; utterly with- 
 out shelter, food, or fire ; remaining day and night 
 on the snow. The unfortunate natives of Hindos- 
 tan suffered, of course, more than the English : 
 hundreds of them were seen sitting on the snow, not 
 sunk in the apathy of despair, but howling with pain. 
 " More than one half of the force/ 5 writes Lady Sale, 
 under the head of this day, "is now frost-bitten or 
 wounded; and most of the men can scarcely put a 
 foot to the ground/ 5 
 
 The fifth, sixth, and seventh days of the march 
 were one long and dreadful struggle; death from 
 exhaustion, death from the cold, death from the mer- 
 ciless enemy. The way was lined with those who 
 fell; every pass was a scene of fighting and slaugh- 
 ter; at every halting-place numbers were left dead 
 or dying. The whole of the native infantry was 
 destroyed or scattered on the fifth day, at the end 
 of which Lieutenant Eyre computes that, since the 
 departure from Cabool, 12,000 had perished. The 
 frequent negotiations with Akbar and the Ghilzie 
 chieftains for protection, had no effect, except to 
 diminish the chance of preservation by creating delay. 
 It was on the evening of the sixth day that Shelton 
 and Elphinstone fell into his hands. It is impos- 
 sible to refuse our tribute of admiration and praise 
 to the resolute and noble spirit with which the 
 
THE DESTRUCTION COMPLETED. 14,3 
 
 remnant of officers and men struggled forward, 
 through the attacks of an enemy as pitiless and 
 untiring as a pack of wolves, forcing all obstacles, 
 melting away at each step like a snow-ball in water, 
 yet still keeping together, never to the last yielding 
 to the weakness of despair. When the disasters 
 of the siege are attributed to the misconduct of 
 the men of the 44th regiment, and the mistakes of 
 their commander, let not the steady yet desperate 
 heroism shown by many of the former, and uni- 
 formly by the latter, through these dreadful days, be 
 forgotten. 
 
 We read with sad interest that much delay was 
 occasioned by the anxiety of the men to bring on 
 their wounded comrades, in the very last crisis o? 
 their fate, on the night of the seventh and morning 
 of the eighth day. The miserable remnant had by 
 this time cleared the Passes, and reached the ope 1 
 country, but by this time, too, their effective force 
 was reduced to twenty muskets. Driven from the 
 road, and forced to take up their position on a hill 
 at Gundamuck, this fragment of an army defended 
 themselves to the last, and were, all but three or 
 four, destroyed there. 
 
 On the 9th of January, we believe, Sir Robert 
 Sale received the order to evacuate Jellalabad. A 
 few days after, a report ran through the garrison 
 than the Cabool force was in full retreat upon them, 
 and was being cut to pieces by the Ghilzies. On 
 the 13th a single officer, wounded and hunted for 
 his life almost to the very walls, rode in on a horse 
 
\J 
 
 144 THE END OF ALL. 
 
 that fell dead within the gates, and told the all but 
 incredible tale of what he had seen, half incoherent 
 from fatigue and horror. Every effort was instantly 
 made; the country was scoured in every direction 
 by parties of horse, and, for several nights, beacons 
 were kept constantly burning, to guide any strag- 
 glers who might have escaped, to the friendly town. 
 "But none came. They were all dead. The army 
 was annihilated*." 
 
 So fell the curtain upon one of the most terrible 
 tragedies recorded in war. Greater numbers have 
 perished in less time; but no similar force of civi- 
 lized men was ever so utterly overwhelmed; nor 
 can a great multitude of human beings have ever 
 suffered more dreadful misery than was endured by 
 those whose lingering destruction we have, following 
 Lieutenant Eyre, faintly sketched, between the 6th 
 and 13th of January, 1842. From the tumult in 
 the city on the 2nd of November, to the marvellous 
 escape of the single man out of 1 7^000, the whole is 
 one of those transactions of which the beginning 
 and end are miracles, when looked at separately from 
 the connecting events, of which every step is most 
 natural; — a series of transactions all tending to one 
 end, truer to nature than fiction ever can be, yet 
 surpassing every effort of fiction in strangeness and 
 horror. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell much on the transac- 
 
 * Letter in an Indian newspaper. 
 
JELLALABAD AND DENNIE. 145 
 
 tions of the rest of AfFghanistan during this winter. 
 At Candahar our supremacy was maintained, not 
 unassailed, but unshaken. Ghuznee was taken after 
 a stout resistance, and most of its garrison after- 
 wards, in violation of the capitulation, massacred. 
 The fort of Kelat-i-Ghilzie, between Candahar and 
 Ghuznee, was attacked and defended with valour as 
 obstinate as any minstrel has celebrated. It was on 
 their final repulse that the Affghans left in the pos- 
 session of the English a standard which, in their 
 desperate attempt to gain a footing inside the for- 
 tification, they had three times planted in the em- 
 brasure of one of our cannon. All the world knows 
 how Jellalabad was defended, and how it was at 
 length restored to security by a victory which, though 
 brilliant, cost much,— costing the life of Dennie. 
 Many complaints of the treatment received by this 
 officer from some of his superiors have been made, 
 and have not, as far as we are aware, received 
 answer, or attempt at answer, from those most in- 
 terested in refuting them. We therefore hold them 
 convicted of grievous injustice. Judging from his 
 letters, he was, like many remarkable men, not the 
 most tractable of subordinates. His temper was 
 -evidently quick, and impatient of injustice; his es- 
 timate of his own deserts, high; his tendency to 
 speak out, inconvenient. But he appears to have 
 been a man of a generous, self-devoting, and heroic 
 tone of mind; of great energy and decision, — of 
 daring and caution rightly combined, — of singular 
 conduct and capacity in war. Those who are inte- 
 
 H 
 
/ 
 
 146 FORCING THE KHYBER. 
 
 rested in defending the present system of promotion 
 in the British army, can perhaps explain how such 
 a man, after forty years* service, in the last two of 
 which only he had the opportunity of proving what 
 he was, died a Lieutenant-Colonel. 
 
 All the world too knows or ought to know, how 
 General Pollock found, at Peshawur, in February, a 
 sick and demoralized army, dispirited from repulse 
 and losses already sustained in the attempt to relieve 
 Jellalabad, shrinking with terror from the idea of the 
 Affghan passes; and how in April those same troops, 
 forcing, in spite of strong opposition, the passage 
 which successive conquerors, down to Nadir, had 
 been content to purchase, earned a name among men 
 as the first army which ever carried hostile banners 
 through the defiles of the Khyber. The army of 
 Pollock, and the garrison they came to relieve, united 
 on the 16th of April before Jellalabad, where they 
 remained encamped some months. It was not until 
 August that General Pollock advanced from Jellala- 
 bad, and General Nott from Candahar. 
 
 The occasional notices in the journals of the cap- 
 tives of affairs at Cabool, during this period, present 
 a most vividly confused picture of bewildering and 
 intricate anarchy. In the course of March or April r 
 the unhappy king, who had made some kind of ar- 
 rangement with the chiefs after our departure, was 
 murdered in cold blood: the first, it appears, of the 
 Suddozye race who had so died. 
 
 (( Even in the wildest of their civil dissensions/* 
 says the Edinburgh Reviewer, "no member of that 
 
nOAYKOIPANIH. 
 
 147 
 
 family had ever been put to death in cold blood. It 
 was regarded as sacred, as well as royal." 
 
 Our interference, then, had excited a hatred 
 stronger than even this sacred reverence. From the 
 time of his death, the confusion, before not inconsi- 
 derable, became worse confounded; and there is a 
 clashing and intertwining of interests, perfectly inex- 
 plicable; every man standing up for himself — fighting 
 for his own hand, and Chaos sitting umpire. In 
 Lady Sale's Journal, written within hearing of the 
 cannon at Cabool, we find such not unamusing pas- 
 sages as the following: — 
 
 "Parties run high at Cabool: Zeman Shah Khan 
 says he will be king, Akbar ditto, Jubhar Khan the 
 same, and Amenoollah has a similar fancy, as also 
 Mahomed Shah Khan, and Futteh Jung the Shah- 
 zada. The troops go out daily to fight; Amenool- 
 lah's to Ben-i-shehr, and Zeman Shah Khan's to 
 Siah Sung; they fight a little, and then retreat to 
 their former positions. Zeman Shah Khan has been 
 driven out of his house, and Amenoollah out of his, 
 but have part of the town in their favour." 
 
 So things went on. There are constant notices, 
 such as " sharp firing all day." cc A grand battle is 
 to come off on Sunday." One day we find that 
 Zeman Shah and Akbar are allied against the rest; a 
 few days after "we heard that Mahomed Shah was 
 at war with Zeman Khan;" and the next day that 
 Akbar, having taken Zeman Khan and his two sons 
 prisoners, and taken from them their guns and trea- 
 sure, — had released them again. Indeed, there is little 
 
 h 2 
 
148 RESOLUTION TO EVACUATE THE COUNTRY. 
 
 appearance of bitter animosity in these contests. As 
 Lady Sale says, "they fight a little" nearly every 
 day; but it seems to be rather with the object of 
 trying their strength than of doing each other any 
 great injury; it was their inconvenient and inar- 
 tificial method of popular election, by universal suf- 
 frage — a shaking together of the lots against each 
 other in the helmet, to see which would spring out. 
 The most destructive incident recorded, is the explo- 
 sion of a mine, by which Akbar blew up a great 
 number of his own men; but, in spite of his blunder- 
 ing engineering, the most marked feature in the 
 whole is the manner in which he, amid all this con- 
 fusion, asserts an increasing and ultimately complete 
 ascendancy. But the civil war of these i( barbarians" 
 was soon to sink into stillness before the approach 
 -of civilized invasion. 
 
 One thing is now clear; that the evacuation of 
 Afghanistan was resolved upon by both Governments 
 of India, Lord Auckland's as well as Lord Ellen- 
 borough's. One statesman was hardy enough to 
 -protest against the measure. One statesman only: 
 shall we call him Justum et tenacem propositi virum? 
 No, — injustice like justice is often tenacious of its 
 purpose: like that, 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse. 
 
 There are men who, when the thunderbolt has 
 shattered it over their heads, will set to work with a 
 conscientious perseverance to rebuild the fallen fabric 
 
REASONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN OF 1842. 149 
 
 of evil. When the time shall come for summing up 
 that statesman's services to his country, it should not 
 be forgotten that Lord Palmerston earnestly, warn- 
 ingly protested against the withdrawal of our army 
 from our conquest of Afghanistan. 
 
 But if Afghanistan was to be evacuated, we have 
 to answer the question, for what purpose was the 
 campaign of 1842 undertaken? For the recover^ of 
 the prisoners? for the politic object of re-establishing 
 the shaken opinion of our military strength? or for 
 revenge ? 
 
 If necessarily undertaken for the former purpose, 
 it was a duty — a duty which, had our original inva- 
 sion been more iniquitous than it was, we were still, 
 before God and man, bound to fulfil, — a duty, the 
 neglect of which would have been a worse crime than 
 the most unjust invasion. The Indian Government 
 would have been guilty of cowardly treason, had it 
 abandoned those whose position was the result of 
 their faithful obedience to its orders, so long as it 
 had a soldier to send to battle against the Affghans, a 
 rupee in its treasury. We should have thought it 
 would have been unnecessary to say this, had there 
 not appeared in some quarters the attempt to in- 
 sinuate a counter opinion, — that, if the original war 
 was unjust, to continue it, even for the recovery of 
 our countrymen and countrywomen, was unjust also; 
 but it is, at any rate, unnecessary to do more than 
 say it. We cannot stop to argue a point so evident. 
 
 But was the campaign of 1842 necessary for the 
 recovery of the prisoners ? On this point there have 
 
150 RUPTURE OF NEGOCIATIONS 
 
 been many contradictory statements, as well as 
 diverse opinions. 
 
 It is well known that, during the first part of the 
 summer of 1842, negotiations for a mutual exchange 
 of prisoners were constantly occurring. It is now 
 positively stated* that arrangements to that effect 
 had actually been made, Akbar Khan engaging not 
 only to restore the prisoners in his immediate charge, 
 but to collect the sepoys scattered over the country, 
 and escort them through the passes; the condition 
 being, that the Affghan prisoners in India should be 
 released, and the English withdraw altogether from 
 the country; and that, on the reception of direct 
 orders from the Government, these arrangements 
 were broken off and hostilities recommenced; upon 
 hearing which, Mahomed Akbar exclaimed, in fierce 
 anger, that i( every Affghan chief had been taught to 
 lie and break faith by the Feringees !" 
 
 On this subject, we would direct attention to a 
 letter from General Pollock, to the Secretary of the 
 Governor-general, quoted from the Parliamentary 
 Papers at page 394 in the Appendix to Lieutenant 
 Eyre's Journal. It seems to prove that General 
 Pollock's breaking off the negotiations arose, not 
 from any orders he might have received, but from 
 distrust of the sincerity of Mahomed Akbar. A 
 positive engagement to withdraw would, he thought, 
 lead to delay on Akbar's part in the restoration of 
 the prisoners; and our advance be likely to accelerate 
 
 * Bombay Times, April, 1840. 
 
FOR THE RELEASE OF THE PRISONERS. 151 
 
 it. It is clear that the British general treated, as a 
 man treats with another in whom he does not con- 
 fide, anxious to avoid giving his opponent an advan- 
 tage by binding himself to anything. General Pol- 
 lock, therefore, appears to have considered the ad- 
 vance on Cabool desirable, if not necessary, for the 
 sake of the prisoners. 
 
 The second object, that of re-attaching to our 
 arms the reputation of invincible strength, by a vic- 
 torious march over the scene of our late disasters, 
 was one which the Indian Government had, natu- 
 rally, much at heart; and until a more generous or 
 more exact morality regulates the transactions of 
 nations, it may perhaps be held that the bloody, 
 though not unprovoked, perfidy of the Affghans left 
 us free to take the course recommended by consi- 
 deration for the future peace and general interests of 
 our Indian empire. 
 
 On the other hand, Mahomed Akbar, fully con- 
 scious of the hold on the British Government which 
 he derived from the possession of the prisoners, was 
 not in any way blamable for the refusal to restore 
 them till assured of the conditions. It appears, 
 however, from much concurrent testimony, that he 
 entered into the negotiation honestly, with a sincere 
 readiness to restore them on such assurance; that 
 the sudden rupture of the negotiations not unnatu- 
 rally impressed him with the belief that he had been 
 merely played with; and that the advance of our 
 army, under such circumstances, exposed the pri- 
 soners to great peril. Though no actual engagement 
 
152 RISK TO THE PRISONERS. 
 
 had been broken, Akbar had been at least delibe- 
 rately led to form expectations which it was never 
 (as he at least must have thought) intended to fulfil; 
 and had he been the fiend, which many in and out of 
 India thought him, the most terrible results might 
 have followed. 
 
 Lieutenant Eyre remarks, that 
 
 u This negotiation * * * * seemed now, by the 
 sudden turn that had taken place, likely to plunge us 
 into a dangerous dilemma; Mahomed Akbar being 
 notorious for stopping at no atrocity, when his angry 
 passions were once aroused, as we knew they soon 
 would be, when he should hear of the advance of 
 both generals, with their overwhelming forces." 
 
 His angry passions were roused, and not without 
 reason — yet he perpetrated no atrocity. He with- 
 drew the prisoners from the neighbourhood of Cabool, 
 and headed the resistance to the invaders. 
 
 From the south and from the east, from Can- 
 dahar and from Jellalabad, the English armies moved 
 simultaneously on Cabool, scattering before them an 
 energetic but uncombined opposition. 
 
 The army of Candahar having twice overthrown 
 in the neighbourhood of Ghuznee an enemy who 
 " advanced to meet them in the most bold and 
 gallant manner*;" occupied that fortress without 
 further resistance; destroyed its citadel, the scene of 
 treacherous cruelty in the preceding winter, and 
 carried off the well-known gates and mace, trophies 
 
 * General Nott's Dispatch. 
 
. THE MARCH ON CABOOL. 153 
 
 of conquest from the tomb of one who in his day was 
 a conqueror too. 
 
 General Pollock's army advanced through a suc- 
 cession of fierce but desultory attacks, treading a 
 road strewed with the unburied slain of January, 
 many of them yet recognisable by their comrades, by 
 the hill of Gundamuck, where the vultures had not 
 ceased to feed, by the gorge of Jugdulluk " choked 
 with dead bodies/' by its barricade " literally covered 
 with skeletons;" till at Tezeen they met and utterly 
 defeated the resistance, described in the dispatches 
 as most obstinate, of the main force assembled under 
 Mahomed Akbar; and marched thenceforward un- 
 opposed through the savage Khoord Cabool, the 
 strongest of all the passes, the thickest piled with 
 slain; where Mahomed Akbar, till overruled by 
 less prudent counsel, had planned and prepared to 
 make his final stand. The victorious armies met at 
 Cabool on the 17th September: the English flag 
 waved once again on the Bala Hissar ; and under its 
 shadow a son of Shah Soojah's seated himself on the 
 vacant throne, identifying the Suddozyes to the last 
 with the invaders of A Afghanistan, that he might 
 enjoy the name of royalty so long as the pressure of 
 foreign invasion lasted, and no longer. 
 
 While the armies lay before Cabool, a strong 
 detachment was sent into the Kohistan, with the 
 objects of overtaking if possible Mahomed Akbar, 
 and of inflicting such retribution as might be in their 
 power, upon that district, the head-quarters of suc- 
 cessful rebellion. Mahomed Akbar escaped, but the 
 
 h 3 
 
154 RECOVERY OF THE PRISONERS. 
 
 other u objects contemplated by superior authority in 
 the Kohistan" were effectually accomplished at Cha- 
 rekar, I staling and elsewhere; and the detachment 
 returned in ten or twelve days from a victorious 
 and destructive campaign. 
 
 Meanwhile the prisoners, secluded among the 
 precipitous valleys of the Hindoo Koosh, knew 
 not whether to hope or fear most from the doubtful 
 reports that reached them of the progress of our 
 victorious army. At length, in the very crisis of 
 their fate, the adherent to whom Akbar had confided 
 them was bought over, and the prisoners, headed 
 by their jailer, occupied the fort to which they had 
 been sent for custody, in open revolt against the 
 power which had sent them there. It was a curious 
 position in human affairs, and not without its peril; 
 but their proceedings were conducted with spirit and 
 prudence, and all went well with them, until they 
 found themselves once more in an English camp, 
 restored to safety and freedom. The principal imme- 
 diate agent in their recovery was, appropriately, the 
 same English officer whose name was previously 
 known as connected with a service to humanity more 
 free from alloy, more purely gratifying, than it can 
 have often fallen to the lot of a military man to effect 
 — the rescue and safe conduct to St. Petersburg of the 
 prisoners detained at Khiva. Sir Richmond Shake- 
 speare, to whose lot two such services have fallen, is 
 indeed a man to be envied. 
 
 This was the bright spot in the campaign of 1842. 
 There were others of a darker character. Whatever 
 
155 
 
 was the original object of the campaign^ some acts 
 were done which broadly stamped it with the cha- 
 racter of revenge. To the punishment inflicted in the 
 Kohistan^ the burning of Charekar, the plunder and 
 burning of I staling was added the plunder and burning 
 of a great part of Cabool. The name of IstalifF, for a 
 time the symbol of all atrocity, has by subsequent in- 
 formation lost a great part of its original stain*; the 
 
 * The Indian Government has redeemed itself from the 
 charge of indifference, by instituting an inquiry ; and at the 
 end of the Annual Register for 1842, will be found several 
 papers on the subject, and especially one from General 
 M'Caskill, containing that officer's statement respecting what 
 occurred at IstalifF, where he commanded. It is a complete 
 vindication of General M'Caskill himself from the charge of 
 inhumanity — but it does not make perfectly clear the question 
 of the conduct of the army. 
 
 General M'Caskill indeed first states his "firm persuasion" 
 that no such case occurred as the killing of an AfFghan in cold 
 blood; next, says "that it is probable that while the first 
 excitement of the attack continued" " ten or twelve unarmed 
 AfFghans may have fallen a sacrifice." But it also appears 
 from his account that the brigade which took the town was 
 dispersed in it plundering for nearly the whole of that day ; 
 and it does not appear whether he was himself in the town. 
 Is it impossible to reconcile in some degree his statement with 
 that of the denouncers of the cruelties of IstalifF? 
 
 General M'Caskill lays stress, like all others who wrote on 
 his side, on the undoubted fact that women and children were 
 protected : and so far it is well. But IstalifF when attacked 
 was crowded with warriors; after it was taken, "in two or 
 three places," says General M'Caskill, " the troops on their 
 way through the town found small parties of the male inhabi- 
 tants, who begged for quarter, and received it." Were the 
 rest all slain, resisting '? 
 
 Fully believing that as far as his knowledge could reach 
 General M'CaskilFs statements are entitled to the fullest credit 
 — we must yet recollect that there are other and opposite 
 
156 ISTALIFF AND 
 
 worst recollection perhaps now attached to it is the 
 slight degree of feeling awakened in this country by the 
 
 accounts. It is true that these accounts are anonymous — but 
 of the many officers who would turn with abhorrence from the 
 commission of cruelties few would set their names to a state- 
 ment so obnoxious to their comrades. 
 
 That the spirit of the army was not altogether such as a 
 man of humanity could approve, may be inferred from the first 
 words of an order issued by General M'Caskill himself, two 
 days before the attack on Istaliff. "The Major- General feels 
 himself called upon to notice, in terms of the most marked 
 reprobation, the acts of outrage committed by some of the 
 troops of this force during the last two marches." 
 
 But we have unfortunately other testimony to the same 
 point. Wishing for information on the subject of Istaliff, I 
 referred to Lieutenant Greenwood's Narrative oftlie Campaign 
 o/*1842, just published. On this point it contained nothing 
 beyond the old statement — "prodigious slaughter," and great 
 stress laid on the protection of the women and children. But 
 it contains not a few passages indicative of the general feelings 
 of the army during the campaign of 1842. " I would bayonet," 
 said one of the Sepoys to Lieutenant Greenwood, in the Khyber 
 Pass, " a Khyberee of a month old at his mother's breast ;" a 
 sentiment which Lieutenant Greenwood tells us was not sur- 
 prising to him ; and which, it may be heartily wished he had 
 told us, was discouraged by him. Those who doubt the exis- 
 tence of a savage spirit in the army, are requested to look at a 
 page in Lieutenant Greenwood's narrative headed " A Preco- 
 cious Savage." It contains an anecdote introduced with the 
 remark u There is a ferocity about the Affghans which they 
 seem to imbibe with their mother's milk." A little wild 
 Khyberee boy, about six years old, was seen by a soldier 
 trying, as he had doubtless been taught to do, to hack off the 
 head of a dead enemy; a savage habit, which the sepoys 
 throughout the campaign seem perpetually to have practised. 
 The soldier,— not a sepoy, but an English soldier ! — " coolly 
 took him up on his bayonet and threw him over the cliff." 
 Coolly as this hellish deed was done, so coolly is it told— with- 
 out one word of remark or censure. The savage is the child I 
 

 THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GATES. 157 
 
 original statement of the Indian papers, that Istaliff 
 was given over to fire and sword: that no mercy- 
 whatever was shown; that the men were hunted 
 down like wild beasts; an exaggerated statement, 
 doubtless, which long remained without effectual 
 contradiction. A little questioning, a little explana- 
 tion, to the effect that as Affghan houses were all 
 built and occupied like fortresses, it was impossible 
 that fighting could cease on the entrance of the 
 troops into the town, satisfied the House of Com- 
 mons and the public generally. It was not so, either 
 in or out of the House of Commons, when an 
 unwise, incautious, and unpopular proclamation of 
 the present Governor-general gave a popular handle 
 for a party attack upon the existing government; and 
 the contrast is a disgrace to the nation in which it 
 occurred. The self-styled religious world, which, at 
 the Somnauth proclamation, screamed and yelled out 
 like a man whose gouty foot is trod on, received the 
 news of the slaughter of Istaliff with the calmness of 
 the same man putting the sound leg into water rather 
 too hot; it flinched a little and that was all. Both 
 were characteristic; yet, were it not for the unfeigned 
 indifference, we might have made more allowance for 
 the hypocritical and canting clamour. The heathen 
 and unscrupulous Athenians, it is said, once received 
 a general who came to them fresh from the perform- 
 ance of brilliant services, but accused of a great crime 
 against Grecian morality, not with thanks, but a trial, 
 in the course of which, hopeless of a favourable 
 result, he slew himself in the assembly. When we 
 
158 THE WAR ENDED — ITS GAINS. 
 
 first read this story, we thought — but that was a 
 youthful error — that the time had come at which a 
 nation calling itself civilized and Christian would not 
 be indifferent to an accusation of savage cruelty, even 
 against its victorious armies. 
 
 Finally, having proved their power to march 
 through the country of the Affghans, if not to 
 subdue it ; having furnished the Affghans with suffi- 
 cient memorials of the event in their history which 
 they are least likely to forget, the great Anglo-Indian 
 invasion; holding, but not without fierce dispute to 
 the last, at least so much of Afghanistan as their line 
 of march occupied from day to day; the English 
 forces withdrew through the famous and fatal passes, 
 and the Affghan war was over. They brought with 
 them various recollections, some disgraceful, some 
 glorious, none that are not mournful ; they brought, 
 too, certain guns from the Bala Hissar, and the gates 
 and mace of Mahmoud, the only tangible gain of the 
 historic scene which thus closed. They left behind 
 them a country, in which their presence had, for four 
 years, been the cause of every possible evil that can 
 afflict a nation: — war, misgovernment, then war again, 
 foreign and domestic; terminating in utter anarchy, 
 an anarchy which impartial history, when she speaks 
 of the Affghans,' will not denominate the " conse- 
 quence of their crimes." Doubtless, the Affghans, 
 like every other nation that ever was engaged in a 
 similar contest, committed crimes in the struggle for 
 their independence. But in taking away their inde- 
 pendence without cause, the English inflicted on 
 
WHICH MOST TO BLAME? 159 
 
 them the greatest wrong which nation can inflict on 
 nation. Of all the mutual misery, of their savage 
 and treacherous hatred, of our cruel revenge, our 
 injustice was the origin. Evil would not be so evil, 
 if the very nature of wrong were not to provoke to 
 wrong; — if the Affghans are now a worse people than 
 they were five years since, is the fault theirs, or ours ? 
 "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out 
 water f is that a new saying? Is it a recent dis- 
 covery, that war will necessarily lead to atrocities and 
 crimes ? and is it not for this very cause that an 
 unjust war is most criminal? Nations in different 
 stages of civilization must be expected to carry on 
 war upon different principles, and to temper its 
 conduct with different degrees of humanity. But, if 
 we were to enter on the inquiry, which, in the mere 
 conduct of the war, had offended most against their 
 own standard of right and wrong, is it so certain that 
 the answer would be favourable to the English? 
 
 We do not think that any candid reader of Lieu- 
 tenant Eyre^s work will lay it down with an impres- 
 sion altogether hostile to the Affghans. If, in the 
 conflict for their independence, they committed many 
 fierce and treacherous actions, they yet on many 
 occasions entitled themselves to the praise of truth 
 and mercy. When Lieutenant Eyre refers gratefully 
 to the hand of Providence, as clearly discernible in 
 e< restraining the wrath of savage men whose intense 
 hatred of us was only equalled by their unscrupulous 
 cruelty," he conveys, in general terms, a censure 
 which the facts related by him show to be far from 
 
.160 AFFGHAN INSURGENTS. 
 
 universally applicable. An insurrection in any coun- 
 try, and especially such a country as Affghanistan, is 
 no orderly, disciplined, well-conducted thing; the 
 leaders in such a struggle have to make the fiercest 
 passions of their countrymen the instruments of their 
 deliverance: their influence is mainly directed to 
 excite, and not to calm, the hatred which they share; 
 and the history of every popular rising can furnish 
 examples of their want of power to restrain it, when 
 they have the will. Yet, in several instances, we 
 find the chiefs exerting themselves to the utmost, 
 and risking their own lives to preserve the lives of 
 Europeans from their followers. An English officer 
 orders his men to take charge of, and protect a 
 prisoner, and he is obeyed: — an Affghan — 
 
 "Takes off his turban, the last appeal a Mussul- 
 man can make, and implores the savage Ghazees, for 
 God's sake, to respect the life of his friend." 
 
 " My conductor and Meerza Baordeen Khan were 
 obliged to press me up against the wall, covering me 
 with their own bodies, and protesting that no blow 
 should reach me but through their persons." 
 
 Afterwards — ec these drew their swords in my 
 defence, the chief himself throwing his arm round my 
 neck, and receiving on his shoulder a cut aimed by 
 Moollah Momin at my head *." 
 
 Look, too, at the conduct of the Nawab Zeman 
 Khan, an old chieftain, some time king of the insur- 
 gent city of Cabool; in whose custody we left the 
 
 * Captain Mackenzie's Account of the Envoy's Murder. 
 
MOSLEM GOOD FAITH AND CHARITY. 161 
 
 hostages given before our army left the cantonments. 
 After protecting them for months against the con- 
 stant efforts of the Ghazee fanatics to slay them, he 
 at last consigned them to the care of the Meer 
 Wyze, the high priest of Cabool, in whose vene- 
 rated protection he believed they would be more 
 secure. 
 
 * Before sending them to the Meer Wyze, which 
 was done at night, he took the precaution to line the 
 streets with his own followers, with strict orders to 
 fire upon every one who should so much as poke his 
 head out of a window; and he not only accompanied 
 them himself, but sent his own family on a-head." 
 
 It is impossible not to smile at the very decided 
 character of the precaution; but when good faith and 
 plighted protection are at stake, we will not quarrel 
 with strong measures. Noble old Zeman Khan! 
 We read again that "hundreds of Hindostanees 
 crowded the streets of Cabool, begging for bread, 
 which was daily served out to them by Nawab Jubbar 
 Khan and Zeman Khan/ 5 
 
 These Hindostanees were the survivors of art 
 invading and conquering army. We have seen the 
 survivors of a legion, sent out under authority of the 
 English Government, reduced to destitution by the 
 non-fulfilment of the promises under which they were 
 enrolled, meet with less kindness in the streets of 
 London. But Mahomedanism is a charitable reli- 
 gion, and its professors frequently act up to its 
 precepts. 
 
 These facts would we think be sufficient to redeem 
 
162 MAHOMED AKBAR KHAN. 
 
 the Affghans from the sweeping charge of treachery 
 and inhumanity, which has been so frequently made 
 against them. But there is one Affghan, whose 
 name, generally regarded as the symbol of every 
 atrocity, is too closely connected with the darkest of 
 our calamities for us to pass the subject without 
 some reference to him in particular — Mahomed Akbar 
 Khan. 
 
 This man, the second and favourite son of Dost 
 Mahomed, and the only one of the family who never 
 submitted to our power, was, in his own words, 
 £( when an English army entered his country, com- 
 pelled to become our enemy, and was for three years a 
 wanderer, and returned at the end of the confusion." 
 Not yet (if Dost Mahomed may be believed,) twenty- 
 two years of age, he had seen his father driven from 
 power, to make way for a king set up by, and on 
 behalf of, a set of foreign conquerors. To him it 
 must all have seemed the most utter injustice, and so 
 he "returned at the end of the confusion" our fierce 
 and unscrupulous enemy, with one object at heart, 
 — to rid the country of the English. In Captain 
 Mackenzie's account of the death of the Envoy we 
 find that, after " laying about him manfully " to save 
 Captain Mackenzie from the Ghazees, Akbar Khan 
 turned to the English officer clinging to his stirrup, 
 " and repeatedly said, in a tone of triumphant deri- 
 sion, ' You'll seize my country, will you? 3 " An unge- 
 nerous departure, certainly, from the tone of courtesy 
 which his outward demeanour towards the English 
 prisoners usually exhibited, but noticeable as illustra- 
 
THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD. 163 
 
 tive of the feelings under which he acted, then and 
 afterwards. 
 
 Even without Lieutenant Eyre^s concluding ex- 
 pression of regret over the high gifts and endowments 
 which Mahomed Akbar has sullied with indelible 
 stains, we should have been disposed to attribute to 
 him some eminent qualities. Unscrupulous as to 
 means, possessed with a great object, capable of 
 generous actions, — capable also of great crimes, — 
 wily, yet of frank, open, attractive demeanour, — such 
 men have often been the instruments in great changes, 
 and as their history is written by the one side or 
 the other, they descend to posterity as heroic delive- 
 rers, or fiend-like destroyers. To those who heard 
 of his deeds at the distance of half the world, Akbar 
 appeared the latter. It is curious to observe the 
 different and natural tone generally used by the cap- 
 tives when speaking of their captors. The monsters 
 and miscreants become men, like other men, when 
 seen close at hand, by those whom their deeds has 
 caused so much immediate suffering and danger. 
 While the relatives of the prisoners and the slain, 
 were shuddering at the name of Akbar Khan with a 
 mixture of fear and horror for which there was but 
 too much reason; the prisoners themselves ate, 
 drank, and talked with the terrible chieftain at their 
 ease, and on terms of convivial equality. The evil 
 genius of the English army, the murderer — for such 
 he was — of the representative of England, sat down 
 playfully on the floor among the children of those 
 whose lives and liberties depended on his orders, 
 
164 MASSACRE OF THE ARMY, 
 
 " dipped into the dish as merrily as any of them/* 
 and was a great favourite with them. Lady Sale, 
 though she professes to desire his death, speaks of 
 him without hatred and passion, and Lieutenant 
 Eyre with some degree of positive regard. 
 
 Of the murder of the Envoy, he is clearly guilty; 
 and, towards a man who trusted him, though plot- 
 ting against others, it was an atrocious deed. Still, 
 it appears to have been committed in sudden exas- 
 peration, without any previous design; looking at the 
 circumstances of the case, the wrongs his country 
 and family had endured, the fierce passions, the lax 
 morality of the East, we do not think, with Mr. 
 Eyre, that it places him u beyond the pale of even 
 Christian forgiveness/* which we recollect somewhere 
 to have read, forgiveth all things. 
 
 Lieutenant Eyre often speaks of this, the one 
 deed but for which Akbar would be worthier than 
 most of those he acted with; but, in our judgment, 
 the deliberate massacre of the army was, if he was 
 guilty of it, a far worse deed than the murder of the 
 Envoy. The doubt, which for a time hung over this 
 transaction, is now, we think, dispelled by a com- 
 parison of the previous warnings with his subsequent 
 half avowal. He might, possibly, think that the 
 English would not perform that part of the treaty 
 which bound them to evacuate Jellalabad and the 
 other garrisons; that the safe arrival of so large a 
 force at Jellalabad would only enable them to re- 
 conquer the country in spring. The savage and 
 uncontrolled tribes of the Passes afforded the easy 
 
AND KINDNESS TO THE PRISONERS. 165 
 
 means of destroying the retreating force, and lie deli- 
 berately roused or permitted them to do so. It 
 was a crime not to be defended on any pretence of 
 patriotism. Yet the massacre of Jaffa, for which 
 there was less excuse, has not destroyed the French 
 adoration for Napoleon. Blacker treachery for the 
 same purpose has not prevented the Germans from 
 making a national hero of Arminius. Among thos3 
 who have founded, or extended, empires in the East, 
 there are few whose lives are free from similar or 
 worse stains. The Mahratta hero, Sevajee, would 
 have done it; Aurungzebe would have done it; or, to 
 come to those with whom we have ourselves been 
 connected, Tippoo, or Hyder, would have done it. 
 
 Strong contrasts of good and evil may be ex- 
 pected in the characters of half-civilized men; and 
 there are few contrasts more striking than those 
 presented by the pages of Lieutenant Eyre^s book. 
 The man who could plot the treacherous slaughter of 
 an army, whilst that very slaughter is going on re- 
 ceives the individuals who are thrown into his hands 
 with hospitable and apparently unaffected kindness. 
 Lieutenant Melville is brought in wounded, and 
 Mahomed Akbar " dressed his wounds with his own 
 hands, applying burnt rags, and paid him every 
 attention." The captives and their guards have to 
 swim a river, and Akbar cc manifested the greatest 
 anxiety until all had crossed in safety." His conduct 
 to them throughout, excepting occasional bursts of 
 passion, appears to have been of the same character. 
 Among civilized states very few prisoners of war are, 
 
166 EVIL NOT UNBALANCED. 
 
 with reference to the means of their captors, treated 
 nearly as well as the English prisoners under the 
 care of Akbar Khan. Compare this again, with the 
 conduct of other Oriental sovereigns; with the hor- 
 rible cruelty shown towards their European captives 
 by Hyder or Tippoo. 
 
 All this, it may be said, sprang from a politic 
 intention to secure some title to our consideration; 
 and it cannot be doubted, that policy had its share 
 in the kind treatment of his captives by Mahomed 
 Akbar. There is, however, every appearance that 
 his judgment was seconded by his natural inclination. 
 Nor in the spectacle of the same man deliberately 
 devoting many thousands to slaughter for a great 
 object, and receiving the survivors with real kind- 
 ness, is there any unexampled or inexplicable incon- 
 sistency. Take away his evil deeds, and Mahomed 
 Akbar would have been entitled to high praise for 
 his good ones. He is, then, at least, entitled to the 
 benefit of them as a set-off; and, comparing the one 
 with the other, we cannot but rejoice that he did not, 
 by falling into the hands of the English, place them 
 in the position of passing upon him a judgment 
 which could hardly have been a just one. 
 
 Partly for mere justice, partly to show one-sided 
 observers that even these matters have two sides, we 
 have thought it worth while to bestow thus much 
 attention upon the conduct of a remarkable man. 
 We return to a ground more important, and less open 
 to controversy, in returning, for a few words of retro- 
 spect, to the relation of England to Affghanistan. 
 
THE PLAN AND THE EVENT. 167 
 
 Towards the beginning of these observations, we 
 quoted the declaration of its own intentions, made in 
 1838; by the Government of India. The subsequent 
 facts are, as we then said, the most striking comment 
 on this declaration, presenting as they do so curious 
 and singular a contrast between the end and the 
 beginning. Such as we have described it, was the 
 scheme, and such as we have described it, the ulti- 
 mate fulfilment. Thus were carried out the u confi- 
 dent hopes" of the Governor-general, and thus, but 
 not on the terms which he anticipated, was the 
 "British army finally withdrawn." The contradic- 
 tion between design and accomplishment is the very 
 common-place of history; but it has seldom been 
 more strikingly shown than in the series of events 
 we have followed. 
 
 On the defeat, still more on the destruction, of 
 English forces, employed in whatever cause, we can- 
 not look with any other feeling than mere pain; and 
 if there are any whose patriotism is more cosmopo- 
 litan, we are not sure that we envy them this libera- 
 lity. But separating as far as we can, our judgment 
 from our feeling, and looking impartially at this four 
 years* war, from beginning to end, we cannot but 
 see simply this — a great injustice deliberately plan 
 ned, backed by great power, for a time triumphant 
 and then, by the natural and direct consequences of 
 injustice, violently overthrown. Let those who can, 
 exult in the consideration that much as we have suf- 
 fered, it is probable we have inflicted yet more; we 
 can derive no consolation from such a thought. Let 
 
 i 
 
168 SHALL WE LEARN? 
 
 us honour, as we ought, those who have bravely 
 served their country — but, as a nation, God knows, 
 we have no ground for triumph. 
 
 We have received a severe lesson, which we may 
 make a useful one; if we choose to learn from it, 
 well — if not, we shall perpetrate injustice again and 
 again ; till, perhaps, another and another before 
 ei unparalleled calamity," carrying horror and misery 
 into hundreds of English families, shall, at length, 
 awaken the nation to a right sense of its responsi- 
 bility, a right sense of the guilt incurred by the 
 careless crimes whereby statesmen bid for majorities, 
 a right sense of a truth, old even in the days we call 
 most ancient, but not worn out now — nor now, nor 
 ever perfectly learned, 
 
 APA2ANTI nAGEIN, 
 
 rpiyeptov fxvOos rdde (pa>ve7. 
 
Lcndon : Jiihn.PV 'Pm-ker, Wtst Slrand. 
 
169 
 
 SINDE IN 1838 AND 1839. 
 
 You must know, 
 
 Till the injurious Romans did extort 
 This tribute from us, we were free. 
 
 I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. 
 
 "There shall be eternal friendship between the 
 British Government and that of Sinde." Such* 
 under the head of Treaty with the Ameers of Sinde, 
 in 1809^ are the first words of the " Correspondence" 
 presented to Parliament in 1843. In the next page, 
 at the later date of 3 832, "the two Contracting 
 Powers bind themselves never to look with covetous- 
 ness on the possessions of each other." 
 
 The last entry but one in the Correspondence, is 
 "a Notification" by the Governor-general of India, 
 containing these words : — " Thus has victory placed 
 at the disposal of the British Government, the coun- 
 try on both banks of the Indus, from Sukkur to the 
 sea, with the exception of such portions thereof as 
 may belong to Meer AH Moorad of Khyrpore, and 
 to any other of the Ameers who may have remained 
 faithful to his engagements." 
 
 The friendship which w T as to be eternal has ended 
 in the fiercest conflict — the mutual disclaimer of 
 covetousness in "victory," which has placed almost 
 the entire possessions of the weaker at the disposal 
 of the stronger. The two announcements are sepa- 
 
 i 
 
170 
 
 rated by two inches of Blue Book, filled with docu- 
 ments referring almost exclusively to the history of 
 the five years from 1838 to 1843 ; to which has since 
 been added, in 1844, a smaller volume of Supple- 
 mentary Correspondence, filling up the deficiencies 
 of our information respecting the later occurrences. 
 In these papers is to be sought the justification, if 
 the case admits of one, — if not, at least the history, of 
 the stages of this rapid transition. 
 
 The subject naturally divides itself into two main 
 parts; the first, the course of events which, under 
 Lord Auckland, led to the establishment of our entire 
 political and military supremacy in Sinde: the 
 second, those which, under Lord Ellenborough, 
 reduced it from a dependency to a province of our 
 own empire. The first step, effected without actual 
 conflict, passed almost unnoticed in England, in the 
 crowd of events and the excitement of the Affghan 
 campaign ; the second startled every one to attention 
 by the sound of a great battle breaking in upon the 
 stillness of the peace so lately proclaimed throughout 
 India. But the first and noiseless step was, perhaps, 
 the wider; and if these papers represent the case 
 truly, of a far more unequivocal character. Viewed 
 in connection with the first, as we are bound in jus- 
 tice to view it, the second will be seen to have been, 
 at the worst, the consistent consummation of the 
 career on which the first entered; at the best, its 
 grievous but necessary consequence. There will 
 always be some difficulty in estimating the real cha- 
 racter of a step thus lying between two extremes, and 
 
SINDE AND ITS RULERS. 171 
 
 perhaps partaking of the nature of both. But if any 
 are perplexed with the difficulty of judging fairly the 
 separate parts of a connected transaction, let them be 
 content with looking at the whole, and they will feel 
 no doubt at all. 
 
 Before passing to the consideration of the events, 
 which in 1839 brought the previously independent 
 Government of Sinde under British (e protection," it 
 is proper to say a few words about these Ameers of 
 whom we have heard so much, and about the people 
 and the country which are theirs no longer. 
 
 A stripe of land bordering the river on each side, 
 and fertilized by its inundations, bounded to the west 
 by the mountains of Beloochistan and Gundava, to 
 the east by the great Indian desert, extending north- 
 wards to a point a little below the meeting of the 
 most eastern with the most western of the five rivers 
 of the Punjaub, and southwards, to the Delta of the 
 Indus and the sea ; this is Sinde. As Egypt is the 
 land of the Nile, so Sinde is the land of the Indus. 
 
 On the west of the river, the dominions of the 
 Ameers met those of Runjeet Singh ; on the east, a 
 portion of the country of Bhawulpore interposes itself 
 between Sinde and the Punjaub. 
 
 The Ameers of Sinde were the heads of the Tal- 
 poors, a Beloochee tribe or family, who, towards the 
 end of the last century, drove out the existing rulers 
 of Sinde, known in history by the name of Caloras. 
 
 The Beloochee chieftains held their lands under 
 them by the tenure of military service ; and the Be- 
 loochee tribes were, and bore themselves towards the 
 
 i 2 
 
 
1/2 THE BELOOCHEE CONQUERORS. 
 
 rest of the inhabitants, as a conquering and governing 
 people. It does not certainly. appear what propor- 
 tion of the whole nation they constituted, but they 
 showed themselves able to bring something like 
 60,000 men into the field, which would give them at 
 least a quarter of a population estimated at about one 
 million ; and it appears from a recent despatch of Sir 
 C. Napier's, that up to the time of our conquest, 
 between the Beloochee chiefs and their followers, 
 nearly every other man through the country bore arms. 
 
 Their aristocracy then, may have been tyrannical, 
 but it rested upon no narrow basis, — they were the 
 soldiery, the strength of the nation ; and they stood 
 towards the rest of it in the same relation, and possi- 
 bly in the same numerical proportion as that in which 
 the Magyars of Hungary — at once the people and the 
 nobles of Hungary — at this day stand towards the 
 u misera plebs contribuens." 
 
 The date of the Talpoor conquest was, in the 
 opinion of some writers, so very recent as to consti- 
 tute of itself a sufficient answer to the complaints of 
 these new come usurpers against their dispossession 
 by the English ; — the English, who have themselves, 
 within the same period, conquered far more than half 
 of India. The founder appears to have established 
 himself in Hyderabad in 1786 ; his dominions passed 
 to his children; and in 1838, the third generation was 
 reigning in the two divisions of Sinde. A confede- 
 racy of princes, all nearly related, but distinguished 
 as Ameers of Upper and of Lower Sinde; each 
 division acknowledging a right of headship with 
 
GOVERNMENT OF THE TALPOORS. 173 
 
 rather indefinite powers attached to it, in some one 
 of their number. Four of them, and those the most 
 powerful, were established at Hyderabad, the capital 
 of Lower Sinde; four at Khyrpore, the capital of 
 Upper Sinde. The head of the Hyderabad Ameers 
 was, in 1838, Meer Noor Mahomed Khan; of the 
 Khyrpore Ameers, Meer Roostum Khan. There 
 was also Meer Shere Mahomed, head of the small 
 state of Meerpore, east of Hyderabad ; a chieftain of 
 far inferior power to the rest. 
 
 Their rule was weak and tyrannical, perhaps 
 rather worse than that of average Asiatic rulers ; the 
 lowest classes feared and hated them, the Beloochee 
 chieftains obeyed while they despised them, uphold- 
 ing them as the heads of their race, and serving 
 them in the field with feudal fidelity. 
 
 It is also necessary to add that the Ameers of 
 Sinde had been formerly, since the expulsion of the 
 Caloras, tributary to the Kings of Cabool: that is, 
 they had withheld tribute when they could, and paid 
 it when they could not help it ; but none had been 
 paid since the expulsion of the Suddozye dynasty 
 and the establishment of the Barukzyes in AfFghan- 
 istan. So that in 1838 the Ameers had been for 
 between twenty and thirty years practically indepen- 
 dent of Cabool. In fact they had, it would seem, 
 been exempt from tribute to Cabool for as long a 
 series of years as they had paid it. 
 
 On the occasion of Captain Burnes* mission in 
 1831 to Lahore, the Ameers showed considerable 
 jealousy respecting his passage through the country 
 
174 COMMERCIAL TREATY OF 1832. 
 
 and up the Indus: "Alas, Sinde is now gone, since 
 the English have seen the river," were the prophetic 
 words of one of their Syuds, as he gazed on the 
 passing boat of the stranger. The river had been 
 seen, its capabilities of commerce keenly observed, 
 and in 1832 a commercial treaty was concluded with 
 the Ameers, (p. 4, Correspondence,) in which, after 
 professions of equal and eternal friendship, and 
 strong references to the tenth commandment, it 
 appears that the British Government has "requested" 
 a passage for the merchants and merchandize of 
 Hindoostan by the river and roads of Sinde, — a 
 request which the Government of Sinde grants on 
 three distinct conditions : 
 
 " 1 . That no person shall bring any description 
 of military stores by the above river or roads. 
 
 " 2. That no armed vessels or boats shall come 
 by the said river. 
 
 "3. That no English merchants shall be allowed 
 to settle in Sinde, but shall come as occasion re- 
 quires, and having stopped to transact their business, 
 shall return to India." 
 
 Conditions, of which the object was as unmis- 
 takeable as their language was distinct. But the 
 "uncontrollable principle" was not to be so con- 
 trolled. 
 
 In 1836, the Ameers of Sinde, being threat- 
 ened with invasion by Runjeet Singh, applied for 
 and received our mediation on their behalf. We 
 interfered effectually for their protection, and on 
 this interference was founded a request for the future 
 
THE TRIPARTITE TREATY. 175 
 
 establishment of a British Resident at their court ; a 
 right which they conceded with a degree of suspicion 
 which was considered very preposterous as well as 
 ungrateful. Were they so wrong in their suspicion ? 
 The treaty which introduced the British Resident is 
 dated April 20, 1838 ; in less than ten months from 
 that time, that same British Resident declared that 
 "the British supremacy was finally and fully esta- 
 blished in Sinde. 5 ' 
 
 In the summer of 1838 the Indian Government 
 having resolved on the deposition of Dost Mahomed 
 and the reinstatement of Shah Soojah in Cabool, 
 the triple alliance between Runjeet Singh, Shah 
 Soojah, and the British Government, was concluded 
 on the 26th June ; and preparations were set on foot 
 for the invasion of AfFghanistan. 
 
 The inquiry into the wisdom and justice of that 
 measure need not here be repeated; if it was un- 
 just, the steps which it alone made necessary cannot 
 be defended merely because they were its legitimate 
 consequences. But our conduct towards the Ameers 
 of Sinde deserves consideration on its own peculiar 
 merits. 
 
 There were two main routes possible for the 
 " Army of the Indus * into Affghanistan ; one of 
 them led across the Punjaub into the defiles of the 
 Khyber to Jellalabad, and thence to Cabool ; the 
 other and longer route, led through the territory of 
 Upper Sinde, by Shikarpore, to Quettah, Candahar, 
 and Ghuznee. Among other reasons for selecting 
 for the main strength of the army the route by 
 
176 runjeet's prudent friendship. 
 
 Upper Sinde, the principal was the following: — 
 Runjeet Singh, though the "old and faithful" ally 
 of the British Government, felt an inexplicable dis- 
 trust of his " old and faithful," but yet more power- 
 ful, confederates. He was of course ready to join in 
 a treaty, which promised him, among other advan- 
 tages, fifteen lacs of rupees. But he knew human 
 nature well, and he knew that it is often better for it 
 to shun than to resist temptation; he trembled for 
 the results of the trial to which the British virtue 
 might be exposed, by the presence of their armies in 
 the heart of his country; and he, most politely no 
 doubt, but positively, declined to permit their main 
 force to proceed that way. It was necessary, there- 
 fore, to seek a passage through Sinde, and negotiations 
 were opened with this object in both Upper and 
 Lower Sinde ; that at Hyderabad was conducted by 
 Colonel Pottinger, that at Khyrpore by Sir Alex- 
 ander Burnes. The latter it will be sufficient to 
 notice shortly hereafter; the first was far the most 
 important and critical; the papers relative to it 
 occupy a far greater space in the Blue Book, and to 
 it most of the following remarks will be directed. 
 
 In August, 1838, Colonel Pottinger, the British 
 Resident in Sinde, received from Mr. Macnaghten, 
 then Secretary with the Governor-general, instruc- 
 tions to announce to the Ameers the various demands 
 upon them which formed a part of the arrangements 
 just concluded. One of these, of course, was to per- 
 mit and facilitate the passage of the army destined 
 for the invasion of Affghanistan ; another was, — 
 
HARD DEMANDS ON THE AMEERS 177 
 
 but let Mr. Macnaghten here speak for himself, 
 (page 9, 10, Correspondence): "While the present 
 exigency lasts, you may apprize the Ameers that the 
 article of the treaty with them, prohibitory of using 
 the Indus for the conveyance of military stores, must 
 necessarily be suspended'' 
 
 Now let it be assumed that these demands were 
 necessary — necessary, that is, to the successful pro- 
 secution of the Affghan expedition ; at any rate they 
 must have been most unacceptable, such as the 
 Ameers must have been expected to resist, if pos- 
 sible, and to yield most grudgingly. Both were in 
 the teeth of the treaty of 1832. The second especi- 
 ally, was, as Mr. Macnaghten's own words show, one 
 of those barefaced violations of a distinct agreement 
 which are possible only for the stronger party; and 
 the only " necessity" for conceding it which the 
 Ameers could be expected to see, must have been the 
 necessity of their position as the weaker. 
 
 But something surely was done to obviate objec- 
 tions so natural? some attempt made to render less 
 unpalatable a hateful and suspicious demand? to lead 
 these jealous princes to connect our entrance into 
 their country with something else than the (i suspend- 
 ing" of treaties? something, if it were but a money- 
 payment, — some compensation, if not an equivalent, 
 was thrown into the opposite scale of this one-sided 
 bargain ? 
 
 Something ivas thrown in, but not into the oppo- 
 site scale; something so absurdly and curiously un- 
 just, that it is at first sight difficult to divine the mo* 
 
 i 3 
 
178 NEEDLESSLY MADE HARDER. 
 
 tives which caused its addition. By Article XVI. of 
 the Tripartite Treaty it was agreed that Sinde was to 
 pay a large sum to Shah Soojah, (of which he was at 
 once to make over the largest part to Runjeet Singh,) 
 as price of the acknowledgment of its future inde- 
 pendence. — Sinde, no party to the agreement ; Sinde, 
 practically independent of Cabool for as many years 
 as it had been tributary to Cabool; Sinde, with 
 which the English had dealt as an independent 
 power; Sinde, upon whose rulers the English Go- 
 vernment were already making on their own behalf 
 such demands as would have tried the closest friend- 
 ship to the uttermost, — was called upon to pay to 
 Shah Soojah, partly as a means of enabling him to 
 make an otherwise hopeless payment to Runjeet 
 Singh, this price of the renunciation of an obsolete 
 claim: a price, unfixed as yet, the ultimate amount 
 to be fixed, in the words of the treaty, ei under the 
 mediation of the British Government." 
 
 "The Governor-general," says the Secretary, 
 "has not yet determined the amount which the 
 Ameers may be fairly called upon to pay, and it 
 should not therefore immediately be named, but the 
 minimum may certainly be taken at twenty lacs of 
 rupees. His Lordship will endeavour to prevail 
 upon Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk, to reduce the claim 
 which he has on the Ameers, to a reasonable amount." 
 Endeavour to prevail, on a man whom they found a 
 beggar, and were about to make a king! 
 
 The only assignable motives for this arrangement 
 appear to be the wish to provoke resistance as a 
 
THE PRETEXT, AND THE REASON. 1?9 
 
 pretext for further demands, a motive purely wicked; 
 or the convenience of the money, a motive purely 
 base. Against this last it has been urged, that we 
 derived no profit from the transaction; and it has 
 even been maintained in the recent debate, that a 
 great boon was held out to Sinde in the offer of 
 securing thus cheaply their independence. Was not 
 Sinde already practically independent? Was there 
 a bare possibility that Shah Soojah, unaided by the 
 English, would ever be in a position to enforce 
 tribute from the Ameers? What strength, what 
 soldiers, what money had Shah Soojah to establish 
 his claim on Sinde, or on Cabool either, except what 
 the English gave him? What right had they to 
 make a nation which, without their interference, was 
 independent of Cabool, pay a price for the independ- 
 ence which their interference alone could endanger? 
 If they wished the independence of Sinde and that 
 only, a word to their creature, Shah Soojah, would 
 have made it independent. If, from considerations of 
 justice or policy, they were careful to establish Shah 
 Soojah' s rights, why sell them for money? 
 
 The real truth is transparent: the designs of the 
 Indian Government on behalf of Shah Soojah could 
 not be carried into effect without a large expenditure; 
 of himself, he was powerless and penniless; the ex- 
 penditure, whether it passed through their hands or 
 his, was ultimately sure to fall upon them; he was 
 certain to cost them much ; and they resolved that he 
 should cost them as little as possible. The services 
 too or the claims of Runjeet Singh, on the Shah, were 
 
180 THE POINT OF THE LETTER. 
 
 to be paid off — the Shah could not pay him, and the 
 English would not. They looked about for a party 
 whom they might rob with ease, with plausibility, 
 and with profit, and they found one in the Ameers 
 of Sinde. 
 
 The plausibility which recommended them as the 
 subject of the operation was such as we have seen; 
 the profit — this was as yet uncertain in amount, and 
 Colonel Pottinger's opinion was requested as to the 
 monied ability of the victims, " on the understanding 
 that it is his Lordship's desire to fix the sum with 
 an indulgent disposition towards the Ameers, though 
 without losing sight of the value which the boon in 
 question should be to them. His Lordship will only 
 add as a suggestion to aid your opinion on the sub- 
 ject, that the Ameers may fairly be supposed to be 
 wealthy . . . " for such and such reasons. 
 
 A quiet hint, most appropriately relegated, not 
 indeed, to the postscript, but to the last sentence of 
 the letter of which it is the cream. Indignation 
 would be out of place here. This suggestion occurs 
 in a state paper, and it is therefore dignified diplo- 
 macy. But it is impossible not to picture to oneself 
 the lively effect which a similar passage would pro- 
 duce in a court of justice when read from a private 
 letter in evidence against parties on their trial for a 
 " conspiracy to extort money" 
 
 Let us try to see how the rest of the case would 
 look, if translated into a parallel in private life. 
 
 A country gentleman grants to a wealthy com- 
 pany the right of making into a canal and navigating 
 
THE STORY IN ENGLISH. 1S1 
 
 a river passing through his grounds. He has a great 
 horror of railroads through his property, and the 
 Company, in part purchase of his assent to the canal, 
 bind themselves never to apply to Parliament for a 
 railroad. A few years after, however, they do apply. 
 — Fabulists have a large privilege, and Parliaments 
 are proverbially omnipotent, especially in the way of 
 occasionally granting to powerful parties indemnity 
 from legal penalties; let no one therefore be startled 
 at the supposition which follows. The Company 
 have influence enough not only to get their bill 
 passed, but to get themselves relieved from the 
 penalty in which they were bound never to make 
 such an application. The half-despairing squire 
 turns to the bill in hope of some compensation; he 
 finds no mention of any; but he finds instead a rider 
 attached, by which he is actually saddled with part of 
 the expenses of the detestable railroad. Conceive the 
 horror of the country gentleman. Conceive the vitu- 
 perations of the newspapers. Yet the newspapers 
 have been all but silent, and the country gentlemen 
 have sate quietly assenting to this very thing. 
 
 " Nonsense," you say, ie this could never be done 
 in England." No — but in Asia it can. The river is 
 the Indus, the march of the British force on AfFghan- 
 istan is the railroad, the Ameers are the country- 
 gentleman, the Company is — The Company, and Par- 
 liament is Parliament. 
 
 But the natural question occurs, What had the 
 Ameers done to provoke such demands ? Nothing, at 
 any rate, that could be urged against them, if we are 
 
182 THE RESIDENT SUGGESTS SOME GROUNDLESS 
 
 to judge from the Secretary's letter, which directs the 
 British Resident Ci to apprise the Ameers that the dis- 
 position of the British Government towards them is 
 extremely favourable, and that nothing would distress 
 the Governor-general more than an interruption of 
 the good understanding which has hitherto prevailed:" 
 * * * and requires from them as "sincere friends and 
 near neighbours/' these concessions, already named, 
 which are therefore the minimum. If they or any of 
 them should already have exhibited any unfriendly 
 disposition by connecting themselves with Persia, 
 Colonel Pottinger was intrusted with almost unlimited 
 powers, including the summoning from Bombay a 
 sufficient force to take immediate u . possession of the 
 capital of Sinde." 
 
 On the receipt of these instructions Colonel 
 Pottinger seems to have felt, as who would not? 
 that it would be a difficult task to bring the Ameers 
 to look upon them as acceptable, or even tolerable; 
 and the proposal respecting the payment in particular 
 seemed to him beset with difficulties. His opinions 
 may be found hinted pretty clearly, though with the 
 proper reserve of a servant of the Government, in his 
 dispatch of August 2J, (p. 14.) Colonel Pottinger 
 therein suggests that some of the Ameers may " even 
 go so far as to declare that the demand is a breach of 
 the late agreement, on the principle that, without our 
 assistance, Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk had no means of 
 exacting one rea from them; consequently that the 
 demand may be considered our own. I do not, by 
 pointing out this argument, mean for an instant to 
 

 BUT POSSIBLE MISCONSTRUCTIONS. 183 
 
 uphold its correctness;" (of course not J "but it is 
 one just suited to the capacity and feelings of the 
 individuals with whom I have to negotiate." But 
 for the above disavowal, we might almost have sus- 
 pected that the objection so contemptuously noticed 
 was not unsuited to the capacity and feelings of the 
 distinguished Resident himself; for in the next para- 
 graph but one he repeats the same untenable argu- 
 ment, in a tone of almost covert satire. " Had our 
 present connexion existed some years, and our Resi- 
 dent thereby had time, by constant kindly intercourse 
 with the chiefs and people, to have removed the 
 strong and universal impression that exists throughout 
 Sinde as to our grasping policy, the case might have 
 been widely different; but I enter on my new duties 
 without anything to offer, and with a 'proposal that 
 will not only strengthen the above impressions (for 
 many besides the Sindees will believe at the outset 
 that we are making a mere use of Shah SoojaJis 
 name), but revive a claim to tribute which has been 
 long considered obsolete." 
 
 And then follows in most logical sequence a 
 request for the preparation of a strong military force 
 to be held in readiness on the frontier; by the "moral 
 effect n whereof the desired consent may be obtained. 
 
 In the mean time, and before this dispatch was 
 written, a copy of a letter, addressed by the prin- 
 cipal Ameer, Noor Mahomed, to the Shah of Persia, 
 then besieging Herat, had fallen into Colonel Pot- 
 tinger's hands; a letter of some importance, with 
 reference to much that followed. It had the effect of 
 
184 LETTER TO THE SHAH OF PERSIA, 
 
 placing Noor Mahomed in connexion with the great 
 political bugbear of the day — the Russo-Persian 
 advance towards the frontier of India. As it appears 
 in the Blue Book, this letter reads like little more 
 than a string of Oriental civilities; and Colonel Pot- 
 tinger, though satisfied by other circumstances that 
 the feelings of Noor Mahomed were jealous and un- 
 friendly, expresses doubts (almost amounting to cer- 
 tainty) whether the letter itself is to be regarded as 
 having any political object at all, or as a mere expres- 
 sion, on the part t 'of a bigotted Sheeite, of attachment 
 to the Shah of Persia as head of that sect of Maho- 
 metanism. 
 
 The bearer of the letter however might, as the 
 Resident hints, be charged with secret messages of a 
 different import j and from information subsequently 
 received, little doubt can be felt of Noor Mahomed's 
 having in fact attempted to open communications 
 with the Shah of Persia in opposition to our 
 schemes (page 49). Were the Indian Government's 
 demands, preceding as they did the knowledge of 
 these facts, calculated to induce him to change his 
 course? All such attempts, however, seem to have 
 been dropped on the retirement of the Persians from 
 Herat. By the Indian Government, however, Noor 
 Mahomed's letter was accepted at once as a proof 
 of treacherous hostility; and the pretext which it 
 held out for an advance in aggression on the rulers of 
 Sinde was seized with eager determination. 
 
 In the dispatch of September 6th we find that 
 Colonel Pottinger was empowered to act upon this 
 
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 185 
 
 evidence of a hostile disposition in whatever manner 
 he thought expedient, whether by the immediate 
 deposition of the unfriendly chief or chiefs, (a step 
 for which, though leaving Colonel Pottinger un- 
 shackled, the Government intimated their prefer- 
 ence,) by a treaty for the permanent maintenance of 
 a subsidiary force, or by otherwise inflicting penalties 
 such as he might judge desirable. Of these courses 
 the second was the one ultimately chosen. The idea 
 of deposition Colonel Pottinger does not seem to 
 have encouraged. His suggestion of "moral force" 
 was not only accepted, but improved upon ; the sub- 
 sequent dispatch of September 20th announces the 
 intention of the Governor-general to act upon it, 
 not by merely assembling troops on the frontier, but 
 by the actual occupation, whenever he thought it 
 expedient, of the territory of Shikarpore. This was 
 not, however, immediately done; nor was the ultimate 
 intention of establishing a subsidiary force in Sinde 
 as yet brought forward by Colonel Pottinger; both 
 for the same reason — the troops were not yet ready. 
 
 To this point matters had been brought in a 
 short time; but the months which were necessary for 
 the assembling and moving on its different lines of 
 march the army of the Indus, were spent at Hyder- 
 abad in long and weary negotiations, of which the 
 tenor may be shortly stated. 
 
 The Ameers then, received our professions of 
 friendly intentions with a natural suspicion, and our 
 demands with a natural mixture of indignation and 
 alarm. The plan of the campaign seems at first to 
 
186 THE WEAK AND DOUBLE-FACED 
 
 have involved only the passage of the Bengal army 
 through Upper Sinde; but to this had been speedily 
 added the advance of a force from Bombay, to pro- 
 ceed along the Indus northward from its mouth, 
 through the heart of the Hyderabad territory : both 
 divisions moving on the common point of Shikar- 
 pore, and traversing between them the whole terri- 
 tory of Sinde from north to south. They could not 
 but see that the passage of these armies would at 
 least place it in our power to do with them as we 
 pleased, and they had no faith in our using our 
 power with justice and moderation. They knew 
 that in bringing troops into their country, and in the 
 conveyance of stores up the Indus, we were acting 
 in direct violation of a treaty; and they deeply 
 resented the unjust and insolent pecuniary demand; 
 a demand which, as we shall soon see, they had 
 stronger grounds for resisting than even those which 
 have been as yet brought forward. 
 
 It was clear, as Colonel Pottinger frequently says, 
 that we could look to them for nothing like cordial 
 co-operation, and must depend upon their fears 
 alone. Their conduct is shown in the long and full 
 dispatches to have been exactly what might be ex- 
 pected from weak and ignorant princes actuated by 
 these feelings: natural, but not right; such as we 
 cannot honour with sympathy, but must regard with 
 deep compassion. They resisted with ever-returning 
 pertinacity, not with dignified resolve; made, with- 
 drew, and remade objections; they professed friend- 
 ship, yet hinted enmity; they tried to coax the 
 
RESISTANCE OF WEAKNESS. 18? 
 
 Envoy, they tried to intimidate him; in both cases 
 with such success as might have been expected; they 
 talked of their devotion to the Governor-general; 
 they talked of calling out their army: vacillating 
 between the hateful Yes, and the passion-suggested 
 but perilous No, they shuffled, they evaded, they 
 lied; they acted as contemptibly, perhaps, as Charles 
 or Ferdinand of Bourbon acted, while wriggling in 
 the iron grasp of Napoleon. 
 
 Their weakness was increased by their utter want 
 of mutual trust and union. Some were more friendly 
 to the English than the rest; perhaps it would be 
 more correct to say, appreciated the power of the 
 English more justly. Meer Sobdar was the chief of 
 these, and his prudence or attachment was afterwards 
 rewarded with exemption from the tribute imposed 
 on the rest. Noor Mahomed seems not to have 
 shrunk from the duty which, as chief among his 
 brethren he might feel imposed upon him by present 
 circumstances, of telling whatever falsehood came 
 uppermost, and of bearing with philosophic hardi- 
 hood the demonstration of his perpetual self-contra- 
 dictions. Colonel Pottinger^s letters at this time are 
 full of complaints of his u unblushing dishonesty ." 
 But from which side did the offence come? 
 
 All this, it is not surprising to find, tried hard 
 the judgment and temper of the British representa- 
 tive. Yet, after all, the contrast between their 
 demeanour and his, a contrast of which the dis- 
 patches convey a very lively and doubtless true con- 
 ception, was no more than their relative positions 
 
188 THE STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS OF STRENGTH. 
 
 made perfectly natural. He pressed upon them in 
 terms direct and straightforward the instructions of 
 his Government, and did not conceal from them that 
 they might be, in consequence of the backwardness 
 they had already shown, subjected to yet farther 
 demands; he told them in the haughty, yet open 
 language of power*, that the road through their terri- 
 tory, if refused, would be taken; that resistance 
 would be their destruction; that the Governor- 
 general was ready to go to war at once with Persia, 
 Afghanistan, Nepaul, and Burmah, if requisite for 
 the safety of India; that he scorned the insinuations 
 of personal danger; that his Government had hun- 
 dreds of better servants to take his place, but that the 
 hinted threats were disgraceful to those who made 
 them, alike as rulers and as men. So would a 
 Roman ambassador have spoken at the court of Mas- 
 sinissa or Tigranes, and he would have spoken 
 worthily and well. No fault can be found with the 
 bearing of our representative; the thing to be re- 
 gretted is, that in the year of Christ, 1838, the policy 
 of England should be equally Roman. 
 
 The pecuniary payment to Shah Soojah was a 
 subject of frequent discussion: but here Colonel 
 Pottinger was met by the unexpected difficulty above 
 alluded to, and thus stated in his dispatch of October 
 9: — "The question of a money payment by the 
 Ameers of Sinde to Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk is, in 
 my humble opinion, rendered very puzzling by two 
 
 * Correspondence, page 73 « 
 
A STARTLING DIFFICULTY 189 
 
 releases, written in Korans, and sealed, and signed by 
 his Majesty, which they have produced." 
 
 Very puzzling, indeed; but there is a diplomatic 
 ingenuity which is proof against puzzles. No ques- 
 tion appears to have been raised on the authenticity 
 of these releases, which, seem to have been given 
 on the occasion of some of Shah Soojah's previous 
 attempts on Affghanistan; but some doubts were 
 expressed as to their meaning. It was contended that 
 they were merely renewed grants on the old terms, and 
 this interpretation, it is fair to say, was adopted by Sir 
 Alexander Burnes. We have, however, the words of 
 the releases to judge from, at page 53 of the Corre- 
 spondence, and in the dispatch of the 25th October, 
 we find Colonel Pottinger's opinion as to their vali- 
 dity and meaning. After carefully distinguishing be- 
 tween the two documents, and pointing out that the 
 words of the earlier, granted to a preceding Ameer, 
 are consistent with the above interpretation, he thus 
 proceeds to refer to and follow the terms of the 
 second, granted to the existing rulers. "As will be 
 observed, it contains a formal renunciation in behalf 
 of the King, of any scrt of claim or pretensions in 
 Sinde, and Shikarpore, and their dependencies; and 
 promises that none shall be made. How this is to 
 . be got over, I do not myself see." It is, indeed, 
 difficult to see. 
 
 At page 84, however, we may learn how it was 
 got over. The Secretary with the Governor-general, 
 in a letter dated November 19, has the following- 
 passage, — a passage which every Englishman must 
 
190 INGENIOUSLY OVERCOME. 
 
 read with an indignation repressed only by melan- 
 choly recollections, and with astonishment even 
 greater than his indignation. 
 
 "Admitting the documents produced to be ge- 
 nuine., and that they imply a relinquishment of all 
 claim to tribute; still they would hardly appear to be 
 applicable to present circumstances ;" — 
 
 Certainly not. Circumstances were greatly 
 changed. Shah Soojah gave the documents, doubt- 
 less^ because it was then his interest to give them. It 
 was now his, or the Indian Government's interest to 
 retract them. This was the change, and the only 
 change; but it would puzzle any one to say this 
 change affected the validity of the releases. It is a 
 pity, however, to interrupt the sentence, which thus 
 continues; "And it is not conceivable that his Ma- 
 jesty should have foregone so valuable a claim with- 
 out some equivalent, or that some counterpart agree- 
 ment should not have been taken, the non-fulfilment 
 of the terms of which may have rendered null and 
 void his Majesty's engagements." 
 
 There must have been a counterpart : there may 
 have been a non-fulfilment; but was there either ? 
 
 Here are two distinct suppositions: 1st. That 
 there was some such counterpart agreement: 2ndly. 
 That that agreement had been violated; both neces- 
 sary to the writer's purpose, both entirely and equally 
 gratuitous: a chance of a chance — of what? — that the 
 demand on the Ameers, scandalously unjust at any 
 rate, may not also have been (as far as Shah Soojah 
 was concerned) a piece of direct perjury; for perjury 
 
APPROACH OF THE ARMY. 191 
 
 in a Mahometan it must be to break an agreement 
 solemnly made "in the name of God and by the 
 sacred Koran." 
 
 The Secretary then proceeds to state that the 
 question concerns Shah Soojah and the Ameers only — 
 a statement of which the soundness has been already 
 examined — and to suggest that the arbitration of the 
 question might be left — to the Envoy and Minister at 
 the court of Shah Soojah: that Envoy and Minister 
 being ultimately, as all the world knows, himself, W. 
 H. Macnaghten. These kind of things are severe trials 
 to human patience. The downright sword of the con- 
 queror may be bad enough; but it is noble compared 
 with the "sharp practice" of the attorneylike politician. 
 
 Time passed on, and by the end of November the 
 Bengal army was assembling on and along the river. 
 A part of the Bombay force had arrived at its mouth; 
 and the approach of danger had drawn from the 
 Ameers, disunited, distrustful of each other, distrustful 
 of the British Government, a reluctant consent to 
 forward its designs. On the arrival, however, of the 
 force from Bombay, the promised supplies of camels, 
 boats, and grain, were not forthcoming; and much 
 delay was occasioned by the deficiency. It can 
 hardly be doubted that the uneasiness and suspicion 
 of the Ameers had been increased by the knowledge 
 which, as has been seen, they possessed, that some- 
 thing yet undisclosed was or might be hanging over 
 them as a penalty for the backwardness they had 
 already shown; and this, be it observed, was a diffi- 
 culty of the British Government's own creation. 
 
192 THE HEAVIEST OF THE DEMANDS. 
 
 How could men be expected, even under circum- 
 stances otherwise more favourable, to co-operate 
 frankly in the designs of the Government, when that 
 very co-operation would enable it better to exact a 
 punishment, of which they were repeatedly told they 
 had already incurred the risk? But the difficulty 
 was in one sense unavoidable. The intended de- 
 mands altered from time to time, and the Corre- 
 spondence suggests plan after plan, various means 
 for one uniform end — the establishment of complete 
 supremacy: but prominent in every scheme was the 
 demand which related to the establishment in Sinde 
 of a British subsidiary force, to be paid by the 
 Ameers; and this it was of importance to keep back. 
 Why, will appear from the following extracts from 
 Colonel Pottingei-'s letter of the 15th of December. 
 
 iC My dispatches subsequent to that of the 2nd of 
 November will have shown the abject state to which 
 Noor Mahomed Khan has been reduced by my re- 
 fusal to treat with him relative to the money payment 
 to Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk ; hut even when labouring 
 wider his worst apprehensions, it will be observed 
 that no such idea has apparently ever crossed his 
 mind, as that our ultimate plan was to station even a 
 company of sepoys in Sinde ; and the moment that 
 intention is announced, I think it will be the signal 
 for a cordial coalition to oppose our arrangements. 
 Even had I authority to offer them our guarantee of 
 their territory individually, without their paying one 
 farthing for it, but stipulating that we were at our 
 own expense to keep a force in this province, I think 
 
WHY KEPT BACK. 193 
 
 they would reject the proposal; and therefore, to ex- 
 pect that they will, without coercion, consent to make 
 the smallest pecuniary sacrifice, and to agree to our 
 having a single regiment in their country, seems to 
 me to be hopeless. They have acted all along, and 
 are now doing so, as though we had put their friend- 
 ship and forbearance to the last test, by requiring a 
 passage for our troops through their country " 
 
 Considering the Treaty of 1832, perhaps it was 
 not utterly unreasonable in the Ameers so to regard 
 the passage of our armies; and, undoubtedly, Colonel 
 Pottinger was quite right in anticipating that they 
 would consider the proposal for the maintenance of a 
 subsidiary force as a yet severer test of their friend- 
 ship and forbearance. Perhaps they might even have 
 said or thought that the proposal went far to justify 
 their original jealousy of our approach in anything 
 like a military capacity. The admission of a sub- 
 sidiary force is synonymous with the deprivation of 
 political independence; it is the usual and well-known 
 rivet of the chain which binds a subject State to the 
 Indian Government, A subsidized State is a State 
 which exists by virtue of its allegiance to the para- 
 mount power. It was, therefore, Colonel Pottinger's 
 intention not to disclose the fact that Sinde had 
 ceased to be independent, until the absolute presence 
 of the British force should, by rendering resistance 
 hopeless, prevent it. But before this letter, written 
 on the 15 th of December, was penned, it seems that 
 Sir Alexander Burnes, in the course of his communi- 
 cations with the old chief of Khyrpore, contrasting 
 
 K 
 
194 DISCLOSED AT LAST. 
 
 the favourable terms which that chieftain might earn 
 by friendly conduct with the penalty to be imposed 
 on the Hyderabad Ameers, had " let the cat out of 
 the bag;" and a sharp enough letter from Colonel 
 Pottinger, of the 19th of December, rebukes him in 
 consequence as a Marplot. This probably precipi- 
 tated measures ; and Colonel Pottinger, by this time 
 striving with manifold delays in the British camp at 
 Vikkur, at the mouth of the Indus, instantly wrote 
 to summon the reserve force from Bombay. Finally, 
 on the 13th of January, all things being ripe (p. 119), 
 Lieutenant Eastwick was instructed by him to lay be- 
 fore the Ameers the draft of a Treaty of twenty-three 
 Articles for their acceptance (p. 122). Some articles 
 related to commerce at the port of Kurachee, some 
 to the abolition of tolls on the Indus; but the critical 
 points were contained in the 2nd and 3rd Articles, 
 which are as follows: — 
 
 "2. The Governor-general of India has com- 
 manded that a British force shall be kept in Sinde, 
 and stationed at the city of Tatta, where a canton- 
 ment will be formed. The strength of this force is 
 to depend on the pleasure of the Governor-general 
 of India." 
 
 " 3. Meer Noor Mahomed Khan, Meer Nusseer 
 Mahomed Khan, and Meer Mahomed Khan, bind 
 
 themselves to pay, annually, the sum of , in 
 
 part of the expense of the force, from the presence of 
 which, their respective territories will derive such 
 vast advantages." 
 
 It would be loss of time to enlarge on the effect 
 of these articles ; it is evident that the 2nd went to 
 
CONFERENCE ON THE TREATY. 195 
 
 establish our entire supremacy in Sinde (in Colonel 
 Pottinger's words respecting a similar step) "as 
 effectually as if we had subjugated it :** and that the 
 3rd made the Ameers, to that very end, our tributa- 
 ries. It must be observed that the fourth Ameer, 
 Meer Sobdar, is exempted from payment. 
 
 Lieutenant Eastwick has given, at page 131 of 
 the Correspondence, a detailed and lively account of 
 the conference which took place between himself and 
 the Ameers on the presentation of this treaty. A 
 striking but not unexpected incident marked its com- 
 mencement (page 132). "After a profusion of civi- 
 lities, evidently forced, Meer Noor Mahomed pro- 
 duced a box, from which he took out all the treaties 
 that had been entered into between the British and 
 Hyderabad Governments. Showing them to me, one 
 by one, he asked, What is to become of all these?" 
 
 Anticipating the possibility of a reference to these 
 treaties, " with the object of contrasting their provi- 
 sions with those now tendered/ 5 Colonel Pottinger 
 had furnished his deputy with the * simple answer, 
 * * * that their failure, and not ours, had led 
 to the change P Simple, indeed ; with the simplicity 
 of — truth ? With that treaty before his eyes which 
 opened the river of Sinde to commerce, and shut it 
 to war, Lieutenant Eastwick did not make the answer 
 contained in his chief's instructions ; he merely 
 referred Noor Mahomed to the first article of the 
 proposed treaty, confirming all former agreements 
 not cancelled by the present. (To which of these 
 categories, the annulled, or the confirmed, did the 
 
 k2 
 
193 SELFISH BARBARISM, AND 
 
 " eternal friendship " belong ?) Noor Mahomed pro- 
 ceeded :— " Since the day that Sinde has been con- 
 nected with the English, there has been always 
 something new : your Government is never satisfied ; 
 we are anxious for your friendship, but we cannot be 
 continually persecuted. We have given a road to 
 your troops through our territories, and now you 
 wish to remain. This the Beloochees will never 
 suffer. But still we might even arrange this matter, 
 were we certain that we should not be harassed with 
 other demands. There is the payment to the King, 
 why can we obtain no answer on this point ?" (That 
 is, with reference to the amount which they were 
 ultimately to pay.) 
 
 Noor Mahomed may have been a sad bar, but 
 he seems to have advanced, under Colonel Pottin- 
 ger's instruction, into a tendency towards speaking 
 truth, or something very like it. The demands of 
 the English had grown from commercial friendship 
 to more than the sacrifice of political independence ; 
 if this were granted, why should they not ask more 
 to-morrow, when better able to take it, if denied ? 
 
 The Ameers were urged, in the words of the 
 treaty, with considerations of the (i vast advantages " 
 which were likely to arise from the presence of the 
 British force, both to themselves and to the people 
 of Sinde : but on these points they showed a dulness, 
 and, as far as regarded the people, a selfishness which 
 greatly shocked the enlightened officer who was 
 deputed to treat with them. * All this may be very 
 true," replied Noor Mahomed, " but I do not under- 
 
ENLIGHTENED BENEVOLENCE. 197 
 
 stand how it concerns us; what benefits do we derive 
 from these changes ? on the contrary, we shall suffer 
 injury:" and much more in a similar tone. Alas! 
 Lieutenant Eastwick ! Can men be selfish ? Can 
 men prefer, and openly profess they prefer, their own 
 interests to those of others ? especially in the pre- 
 sence of a British envoy, — the very herald and apostle 
 of the British Government's disinterested friendship. 
 Their ignorance, however, their slowness to 
 grasp even the u commonest truths * of a philosophic 
 policy, such for instance as "the prosperity of the 
 subject is the strength of the ruler " (page 134), was 
 yet more incomprehensible ; and draws from Lieu- 
 .tenant Eastwick the following touching apostrophe i 
 , — " It is painful to the mind of a British subject, 
 enjoying the blessings of British civilization, British 
 laws, and British libertj^, to reflect upon a nation 
 languishing at this hour in such a miserable state of 
 ignorance and degradation. He may be pardoned 
 for expressing his humble hope that the time may 
 not be far distant when the light of knowledge may 
 reach their land, and the beams of science and philo- 
 sophy break in upon them, to blaze at some happier 
 period, in still later times, with full lustre." It is 
 impossible not to smile at all this ; it is impossible 
 not to feel that the matter is sad earnest. The light 
 of knowledge and the beams of philosophy most 
 essential to the poor Ameers at present were, the 
 knowledge of their own weakness, and the philosophy 
 which would enable them to bear with equanimity 
 whatever might be imposed on them. The u light" 
 
198 THE "MARCH OF INTELLECT" 
 
 of this * knowledge/' the " beams m of this m philoso- 
 phy^" guided too by a high order of European 
 (i science/' were already on their gentle way ; flashing 
 from ten thousand bayonets " blazing with full lustre" 
 in the sun of Sinde. Nearer, perhaps, than the 
 Ameers yet thought, nearer with every tread of the 
 British army, the illuminating "beams" had not 
 yet, however, " broken in upon them." The confe- 
 rence terminated unsatisfactorily ; the subsequent 
 messages of Lieutenant Eastwick could extract no 
 decisive answer ; the Ameers were said to be assem- 
 bling their troops; they announced to the British 
 agent that they could no longer be answerable for his 
 safety ; and on the 24th of January Lieutenant East- 
 wick found himself obliged to retire from Hyderabad. 
 Meanwhile, the excitement in the country was 
 great and increasing; the roads were crowded by 
 Beloochees hurrying to the capital; the chiefs 
 u taunted Noor Mahomed for his cowardice, and 
 openly declared that any one who would lead them 
 against the English should be ruler of Sinde." The 
 Bombay force advanced steadily up the Indus, to 
 within two marches of Hyderabad ; a strong detach- 
 ment from the Bengal army moved rapidly down the 
 Indus. Sir John Keane, in command of the Bombay 
 force, already speculated with professional satisfaction 
 on crossing the river and storming the Beloochee 
 lines, as a a pretty piece of practice for the army," 
 and a collision seemed inevitable. But the courage 
 of the Ameers failed them ; they had been, not once, 
 but many times, warned, that if a shot were fired, the 
 
VICTORIOUS IN SINDE. 199 
 
 country should pass from them ; they had no reason 
 to doubt that this promise would be kept by the 
 British, if able ; and they saw that the vivid words of 
 Colonel Pottinger's threat to them were approaching 
 to their literal fulfilment ; they saw, as he had told 
 them they should see, the British armies ci ready to 
 come from all quarters like the inundation of the 
 Indus." They agreed to all the demands that had 
 been or might be made upon them ; they signed the 
 Treaty of twenty-three Articles ; they paid down at 
 once ten lacs of rupees ; the u golden prospects " of 
 Captain Havelock were "blighted*;" the army of 
 Bengal retraced its steps; the army of Bombay 
 moved onwards unopposed ; and on February 4th the 
 British Resident could write, from Sir John Keane's 
 <e camp, opposite Hyderabad/ 5 that he considered our 
 supremacy " finally and fully established in Sinde." 
 
 The accessory negotiation at Khyrpore had been 
 conducted somewhat earlier, and with less difficulty, 
 to an equally successful termination. 
 
 Roostum Khan, the chief Ameer of this State, an 
 old man more than eighty, was, in the opinion of Sir 
 Alexander, really well-disposed to the English; 
 whether so or not, he was tolerably well aware of 
 the hopelessness of opposition: his power was far 
 inferior to that of the Hyderabad Ameers, for whom 
 he felt no particular regard ; he seems to have 
 looked to connexion with us to relieve him from 
 dependance on them ; and in yielding to our last and 
 
 * See page 95. 
 
200 NEGOTIATION AT KIIYRPORE. 
 
 most obnoxious demand upon himself, his principal 
 pain seems to have arisen from the fear that they 
 might not be subjected to any infliction equally dis- 
 agreeable. This demand was for the possession, 
 during the war, of the island fortress" of Bukkur, on 
 the Indus; the heart and key of his dominions, lying 
 in the route of our troops to Shikarpore. The whole 
 state of the case is shown in two lines of a despatch 
 of Sir Alexander Burnes (p. 103). "lam negotiating 
 for the fortress of Bukkur, and think I have nailed 
 it; if not, we must just take it. The poor chiefs of 
 Khyrpore are civil, and well-inclined towards us. 9> 
 And yet more fully, in the subsequent declaration of 
 the poor old man himself (p. 110), "He said, that in 
 giving up Bukkur to the British, he had had to en- 
 counter great disgrace; that his tribe and his family 
 were alike opposed to it; but that he was an old 
 man, with but a few years to live, and it was to save 
 his children and his tribe from ruin that he had years 
 ago resolved on allying himself to us; that other in- 
 vaders of India might be resisted, but if one of our 
 armies were swept away, we could send another, and 
 that such power induced him alike to fear and rely 
 upon us; that he was henceforward the submissive and 
 obedient servant of the British, and hoped I would 
 avert all injury befalling him, and tell him, without 
 hesitation, what he could do to please us. The an- 
 swer to such a declaration was plain, to give us orders 
 for supplies, and place all the country, as far as he 
 could, at our command; and he has done so, as far 
 as he can." 
 
MEER ROOSTUM KHAN. 201 
 
 Poor Roostum Khan! had all your countrymen 
 been like you, thanks would never have been voted 
 for the battle of Meeanee. His ready consent ob- 
 tained him one favour. He was actually exempted 
 from his share of the payment to Shah Soojah: and 
 why? — "In consequence of the more friendly dispo- 
 sition he has manifested towards the British Govern- 
 ment, and the valuable cession to us of the fort of 
 Bukkur*;" — an honest avowal, at last, of the real 
 meaning of the pecuniary demand on behalf of Shah 
 Soojah, which services to us could cancel. The mind 
 will cling to a gratifying thought when it can find 
 one; and here it is pleasing to hope that poor Roos- 
 tum was both negatively consoled by the exception 
 for himself, and positively made happy by the fleecing 
 of his brethren. 
 
 Here we may pause for a few words of retrospect, 
 and ask whether, through the course of the proceed- 
 ings which have been sketched, our conduct can be 
 considered as regulated by any law or principle except 
 one — the principle of bending all considerations before 
 the interest of the stronger ? 
 
 The Ameers were unwilling to let our armies 
 march through their country. Granted: but so was 
 Runjeet Singh, "our old and faithful ally." His 
 refusal to permit our passage it was which made the 
 demand on the Ameers necessary. If any one can 
 discern a reason for disregarding the scruples of the 
 one party, and respecting those of the other, except 
 
 Letter from the Secretary, March 14, 1839, p. 182. 
 
 K 3 
 
202 VATTEL AND THE PREMIER. 
 
 their comparative strength; that is, except our in- 
 terest, he is bound to point it out to the world. 
 
 " But they intrigued with Persia." But the very- 
 existence of Noor Mahomed's letter to the Shah, 
 whatever it may have meant, was not even known to 
 the Indian Government till long after the first trans- 
 mission of their demands on Sinde. The same com- 
 munication which u suspended" the Treaty, called on 
 the Ameers for " concessions" as " sincere friends," 
 and "near neighbours." Neighbours, indeed! but 
 not as the wounded man to the Samaritan. 
 
 It was with reference to this point of the passage 
 of our armies through the territory of Sinde assumed 
 to be neutral, that Sir Robert Peel made his recent 
 and remarkable declaration, that the rules of inter- 
 national morality received in Europe were not always 
 strictly capable of application in India, — a declaration 
 in which he afterwards complained he had been mis- 
 understood; and certainly it is a declaration which 
 admits of a good deal of misunderstanding in more 
 than one direction. "It was difficult," Sir Robert 
 Peel is also reported to have said on the same occa- 
 sion, "when Russia was intriguing against England 
 in India, to say calmly, I look at my Vattel and my 
 PufFendorf, and I refrain from marching my troops 
 across a neutral territory." 
 
 It may certainly be less difficult to say calmly, "I 
 look at my own interests and my own strength, and 
 I march where I will, suspending what treaties I 
 will." But if Vattel and Puffendorf have laid down 
 a right rule, their rule ought to be followed, whe- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF NEUTRALITY. 203 
 
 ther calmly or not; and though the way be difficult, 
 yet Sir Robert Peel, bound as he once was to 
 Oxford, by the tie, not only of Protestantism, but 
 also of classical scholarship, knows from both 
 sources, from Hesiod and from the New Testament, 
 that it is the other way which is easy*. 
 
 The assertion that barbarous or half-civilized states 
 have, as against civilized powers, no rights whatever, is 
 plain and intelligible; it is one which has been main- 
 tained before now, but it is not one which Sir Robert 
 Peel may be expected to maintain. If, then, it is to 
 be admitted that Asiatic states have any rights at all, 
 analogous to those possessed by European states, it 
 is difficult to imagine a ground for dealing with those 
 rights in a different manner. The very idea of rights 
 implies this. The rights of a party exact a certain 
 line of conduct from all who acknowledge them, and 
 similar rights exact similar conduct. If the conduct 
 of the one party be such as to absolve the other from, 
 the obligation to observe these rights, a new state of 
 things arises; and a code of international law must 
 be incomplete if it does not include the solution of 
 any difficulties which may thus arise, under the head 
 of either a rule or exception. Such exceptions may 
 apparently contradict the rule; if both are based on 
 justice, they cannot contradict it in reality; but every 
 particular case of exception, to be allowed, must be 
 made out. 
 
 Tt}v pev roi KaKorrjra Kai IXadov ecrnv iXecrdai 
 'Pj/tSi'coy Xefy fxev odos, fxaka §' eyyvBt vaUi. 
 
 Works and Days, 285. 
 
204 IN EUROPE AND IN ASIA. 
 
 The occurrence of such apparent exceptions, how- 
 ever, is not confined to Asia or to India. Alleged 
 violations of the rights of neutrality have occurred in 
 every European war since Vattel was published, and 
 will probably occur again; they have been either 
 defended or condemned as indefensible. All men 
 have heard of the English fleet at neutral Copen- 
 hagen, of the French armies in neutral Prussia or 
 Switzerland. Such cases may be capable of justifi- 
 cation, and if so, and if Vattel is worth anything, 
 they may be justified consistently with the principles 
 of Vattel. 
 
 Belligerents have no right to interfere with the 
 territories of a neutral power without its consent. 
 Let this be admitted to be the general rule; are we 
 to add, except when these territories are in Asia? 
 except when one of the belligerents is Christian, and 
 the neutral power Mahometan? If not, wherein does 
 the exception consist in the case of the Ameers of 
 Sinde ? 
 
 If there is a distinguishing circumstance in their 
 case, in it must be sought the ground of the excep- 
 tion. There is one such circumstance, — is the ex- 
 ception based on this, — the sole visible distinction ? 
 — that the rights of objecting to the passage of 
 armies, which they might otherwise have had as 
 neutrals, were secured to them by an express gua- 
 rantee ? Sir Robert must have forgotten this, when 
 he spoke of the neutral rights of the Ameers as 
 dependent only on PufFendorf and Vattel. They 
 depended also on the recorded pledge of the Indian 
 
GROUND OF THE EXCEPTION. 205 
 
 Government^ deliberately given, not for nothing, but 
 in return for an equivalent; that equivalent being 
 a concession made by the Ameers of Sinde at the 
 express (i request" of the Indian Government. A 
 pledge so obtained and so given, ought not to be 
 quite valueless even when given to some caput lupi- 
 num of an Asiatic chief, who never heard of the 
 rights of neutrals as laid down in Puffendorf or 
 Vattel. 
 
 Let the necessity of our passage for the object 
 in question, the invasion of AfFghanistan, be as- 
 sumed. It is at least obvious that the Ameers 5 
 objecting to it was so natural, so inevitable, that it 
 needed no excuse and merited no penalty. In bare 
 justice every possible exertion should have been 
 made to overcome their scruples by fair means, to 
 make endurable a course which could not be other 
 than unacceptable. The jealousy which did not 
 even interrupt the close alliance between ourselves 
 and Runjeet Singh, was no crime in a weaker power, 
 less able to guard itself, and less used to deal with us, 
 and therefore yet more distrustful of our intentions ; 
 yet it was regarded from the beginning as a crime, 
 — a crime which entitled us to exact a penalty. 
 
 Attention has already been directed to the ec sus- 
 pension" of the treaty of 1832; and it is obvious 
 how much this direct violation of an existing agree- 
 ment must have tended to increase the distrust 
 which the demand would at any rate have been 
 calculated to produce. How could the Ameers be 
 sure that the passage of the army was all that was 
 
206 INJUSTICE UNDISGUISED 
 
 intended? How rely on the assurance of the British 
 that no harm was meant to them; when the demand, 
 unsoftened by the offer of any advantage, itself in- 
 volved a positive, unequivocal, literal, breach of 
 agreement ? They were told that circumstances had 
 arisen which made it necessary that the treaty should 
 be set aside. It was just because those circum^ 
 stances had arisen that the treaty became important 
 to the rulers of Sinde. Would there have been any 
 sense in a provision that the British were never to 
 lead their armies through Sinde — except when they 
 thought it necessary? Necessary or not, the demand 
 was a breach of treaty, and no argument can change 
 its character. Would it not have been but scant 
 justice to offer to the rulers of Sinde some price for 
 their consent, — to attempt to soothe, even at the cost 
 of some sacrifice, the jealousy which had dictated the 
 6i suspended" conditions, and which could not but 
 be multiplied ten-fold by their suspension? Make 
 the very worst of their intrigues with Persia ; then 
 compare their position and our position, — their 
 strength and our strength, — their morality and our 
 morality, and say whether their futile intrigues can 
 be weighed for a moment against our treaty-suspend- 
 ing, money-exacting, demand. 
 
 The Ameers were asked to place themselves in 
 the absolute power of an ally which was even then 
 breaking its agreement. No nation that ever existed 
 would have conceded such demands without some 
 equivalent, if it could reject them with impunity. 
 But they could not have been made on such a 
 

 AND SLIGHTLY DISGUISED. 207 
 
 nation, or if made, not persisted in. They were 
 persisted in ; they were coupled with no offer of an 
 equivalent ; they were coupled, on the contrary, with 
 the demand for money, — a demand not more ob- 
 noxious than unnecessary; the resistance roused by 
 this combination was not soothed by concessions, 
 but threatened with indefinite punishment : and the 
 punishment ultimately inflicted was the loss of inde- 
 pendence ; for the justice of states is the interest of 
 the stronger. 
 
 Enough has, perhaps, been said as to the justice 
 and as to the motives of the pecuniary demand, but 
 not enough as to the manner in which the British 
 Government combined hypocrisy with its oppression. 
 It treated this as a question between the Ameers and 
 Shah Soojah ; talked perpetually of its own disinte- 
 restedness; its hopes of prevailing on him to lower 
 his demand "to a reasonable amount;" its wish 
 that the Ameers should appreciate the value of the 
 "boon" which it was holding out to them. " We 
 do not exact this;" such was the tenor of their 
 reasoning ; ei we want nothing of you, — but wait till 
 you see Shah Soojah at Cabool; perhaps he might 
 then claim more of you : we should be very sorry to 
 see you, our old friends, so ill treated. We advise 
 you as friends; but if you don't pay, we wash our 
 hands of the consequences." How they dealt with 
 the releases produced has been already seen. Ap- 
 prehensive of what the demand might grow to if 
 unsettled, the Ameers often requested them to fix 
 the exact amount. This they would never do before 
 
208 THE ULTIMATE ARRANGEMENT. 
 
 the final rupture at Hyderabad. " Settle it with the 
 Shah/ 5 they said; "he is the party interested, — he 
 and you, not we/ 5 As if that miserable and perjured 
 slave of the English had in the matter a will or a 
 judgment of his own*; as if he dared ask a rupee 
 more or a rupee less than was set down for him in an 
 English memorandum. 
 
 We need hardly say that the sum to be paid, the 
 proportions in which it was to be paid, the exceptions 
 partial or otherwise from payment, were ultimately 
 fixed, and the whole business carried out, as it had 
 been begun, by the British Government alone. 
 Looking at the whole of this business of the money, 
 from beginning to end, — the injustice, the hypocrisy, 
 the low motives to which alone it is possible to attri- 
 bute it, there really appears to be nothing recorded 
 in the history of the British Government in Asia at 
 once so wicked and so mean, since the time when 
 Hastings let out the army of India for hire to 
 slaughter the Rohillas. 
 
 The Treaty of twenty-three Articles, which the 
 Ameers of Hyderabad had accepted from Colonel 
 Pottinger, was not confirmed by the Indian Govern- 
 ment. Another of fourteen Articles, generally similar, 
 but somewhat more stringent in its terms, was sub- 
 stituted for it, and after some demur, finally accepted 
 by the Ameers ; their remonstrances against what 
 appeared to them the hardship of some of its pro- 
 
 * Perjured, if Colonel Pottinger's interpretation of the 
 releases were correct ; and perjured too by the instigation of 
 the British Government. 
 

 MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY. 209 
 
 visions being kept up until our successes in Afghan- 
 istan, appeared to remove all prospect of a change for 
 the better. 
 
 The main provisions and objects of the Treaty 
 cannot be more shortly recapitulated than they are 
 by Lord Auckland, in his letter (page 181) to the 
 Secret Committee. 
 
 " I may be permitted to offer my congratulations 
 to you upon this timely settlement of our relations 
 with Sinde, by which our political and military 
 ascendancy in that province is now finally declared 
 and confirmed. The main provisions of the pro- 
 posed engagements are, that the confederacy of the 
 Ameers is virtually dissolved, each chief being upheld 
 in his own possessions, and bound to refer his dif- 
 ferences with the other chiefs to our arbitration ; that 
 Sinde is placed formally under British protection, 
 and brought within the circle of our Indian relations ; 
 that a British force is to be placed in Lower Sinde at 
 Tatta, or such other point to the westward of the 
 Indus as the British Government may determine ; a 
 sum of three lacs of rupees per annum, in aid of the 
 cost of this force, being paid in equal proportions by 
 the three Ameers, Meer Noor Mahomed Khan, Meer 
 Nusseer Mahomed Khan, and Meer Meer Mahomed 
 Khan; and that the navigation of the Indus, from 
 the sea to the most northern point of the Sinde ter- 
 ritory, is rendered free of all toll. These are objects 
 of high undoubted value, and especially so when 
 acquired ivithout bloodshed: as the first advance 
 towards that consolidation of our influence, and ex- 
 
210 OUR MILITARY AND POLITICAL 
 
 tension of the general benefits of commerce, through- 
 out Affghanistan, which form the great end of our 
 designs." 
 
 Alas ! for the " great end n of these two-fold 
 designs on Affghanistan ; for the commerce which 
 was to bless peace, and the power which was to be 
 consolidated by war ! The olive branch of commerce 
 was withered before it was planted, and the sword of 
 war, which it strove to cover, was broken at last. 
 
 The language of Lord Auckland respecting the 
 effecting our objects in Sinde without bloodshed, is 
 the natural, and doubtless, sincere language of huma- 
 nity ; but the threat of war may be an instrument of 
 injustice, hardly less potent than the infliction of 
 war. Moreover, though the armed men were not yet 
 sprung up, the dragon's teeth were sown: and the 
 fields of Meeanee were yet to see the reaping of a 
 stern and plenteous harvest. 
 
 The terms of the treaty above sketched, apply in 
 strictness only to the Ameers of Hyderabad; the 
 Ameers of Khyrpore, with one exception, were not 
 held liable to contribute to the payment of the sub- 
 sidiary force, and their chief was left in the posses- 
 sion of the rights of headship; but in most respects 
 they stood on a similar footing. The exception was 
 Meer Moobaruck, who had shown a more hostile 
 disposition than the others. He was also required 
 to pay a portion of the sum demanded on behalf of 
 the Shah; but neither the one nor the other was 
 ever actually paid ; his remonstrances and represen- 
 tations of inability to pay, and subsequently those of 
 
RELATIONS WITH SINDE. 211 
 
 his heir, Meer Nusseer, keeping the question unset- 
 tled even up to 1S42. A treaty, on the usual terms 
 of tribute and protection, was afterwards entered into 
 with the chief of Meerpore. The chief points actu- 
 ally held in force by the British, during the subse- 
 quent events, were, in Lower Sinde, the Fort of 
 Kurachee; in Upper Sinde, Sukkur, including the 
 fortress of Bukkur, and Shikarpore ; these last being 
 in the route to Candahar, and so connected with the 
 occupation of Affghanistan. 
 
 Henceforth, therefore, the position of the Ameers 
 of Sinde towards the British Government was 
 changed. Our tributary allies, having, indeed, the 
 full power of government within their dominions, but 
 beyond the limits of the country expressly bound to 
 take no step, to communicate with no foreign power 
 without our knowledge; their political importance, 
 yet further diminished by the breaking up of the 
 Hyderabad confederacy, by the declaration of their 
 internal equality, by the provision for our mediation; 
 they were henceforth, in fact, as they were told they 
 were by nature, an integral portion of the empire of 
 Hindostan; and the jealously guarded river of Sinde 
 had become a river of Hindostan. The British 
 Government, as paramount sovereign of that empire, 
 was legally entitled henceforth to call their intrigues 
 against it, treason — their resistance to its political 
 commands, rebellion. In this state they were left by 
 Lord Auckland; in this state they were found by 
 Lord Ellenborough. 
 
 How this object had been attained it is not neces- 
 
212 FORESIGHT. 
 
 sary to repeat; but the thing was done. The first 
 great step was taken. One person, at least, and that 
 one a leading actor in the transactions already re- 
 lated, a man of no ordinary talent and foresight, saw 
 already what our next step would be if we were 
 driven to take another. The words which follow 
 have no signature, but they occur in a long letter 
 dated " Sinde Residency, February 13th, 1839." — 
 (p. 152). 
 
 " I beg to distinctly record that I anticipate no 
 such event; but if we are ever again obliged to exert 
 our military strength in Sinde, it must be carried to 
 subjugating this country." 
 
 The event has happened; the expected result has 
 followed; and a letter, dated in 1843, has appeared 
 in print denouncing the result as an atrocity. That 
 letter is attributed to a name which in the former 
 case the date enables us to supply; the name of H. 
 Pottinger. It is difficult to repress a doubt whether 
 the letter of 1843 is genuine. 
 
 The next chapter will trace the events which led 
 to the failure of Colonel Pottingers anticipation, 
 and the fulfilment of his conditional prophecy. 
 

 213 
 
 SINDE IN 1842 AND 1843. 
 
 A\s [*€i> opegar loov, to de Bevrepov iksto reKpoop. 
 
 Two strides the Lord of Ocean made. The second reached 
 the goal. 
 
 From the conclusion of the treaties of 1839, to 
 the commencement of the events which led to the 
 annexation of Sinde to the British dominions, the 
 outline of its history is simple. The Ameers quar- 
 relled now and then with each other, and the Political 
 Agent had to set them right. They committed per- 
 petual breaches of the commercial part of the treaty, 
 were duly found fault with, apologized, and repeated 
 the offence ; they occasionally intrigued against the 
 British, but with no result, except that of showing 
 a continued dislike to our dominion ; and perhaps 
 with no very definite purpose beyond that of letting 
 slip no opportunity which might arise of shaking it 
 off. Their eyes were steadily directed towards 
 Cabool, and the barometer of their kindly disposi- 
 tions rose and fell pretty accurately, as the horizon in 
 the north-west was stormy or favourable. 
 
 Some personal changes took place among them ; 
 of which the principal was the death of Noor Maho- 
 med, in December, 1840. He had of late_, with 
 apparent sincerity, identified his own interest with 
 
214 DEATH OF NOOR MAHOMED. 
 
 that of the British; and the last act of his life (affect- 
 ingly told in the Correspondence, page 267) was to 
 commend his two sons and successors to the pro- 
 tection of the British Resident, Major Outram, for 
 whom he felt a strong personal friendship ; a com- 
 mission which that noble soldier fulfilled, and more 
 than fulfilled. " You are to me as my brother, Nus- 
 seer Khan," said the Ameer to him, in words 
 stamped with the sincerity of death. * * # "From 
 the days of Adam, no one has known so great truth 
 and friendship as I have found in you." To have 
 merited this touching testimony from the rude and 
 distrustful chieftain, is more than to have been called 
 by the conqueror of Sinde, "the Bayard of the 
 Indian army." 
 
 In one point, this death was of importance. 
 Nusseer Khan, the next brother of Noor Mahomed, 
 would as such have succeeded to the headship of 
 Lower Sinde, but for our policy of breaking up the 
 Hyderabad confederacy, and placing all its members 
 on an equal footing. He had before been active in 
 opposition to us, and some detected intrigues of his 
 were passed over with lenity ; but henceforth he is 
 said to have looked on the British as keeping him 
 out of his birthright, and to have been more than 
 ever our enemy. 
 
 The generally uneventful character, however, of 
 the Correspondence relative to these two years (1840, 
 1841) indicates that they passed over on the whole 
 pretty smoothly: but a more critical time was at 
 hand. 
 
THE RISING IN AFFGHANISTAN. 215 
 
 On the 10th January, 1842, Major Outram writes 
 thus, to Lieutenant Postans, his Assistant Political 
 Agent at Shikarpore : — " We are fortunately be- 
 coming stronger at Sukkur and Shikarpore, daily, or 
 there is no knowing how far the Ameers might be 
 excited by the disastrous accounts from Cabool when 
 the truth can no longer be disguised. Do not relax in 
 the canals and other public works; we must show that 
 nothing can discompose us down here' 9 
 
 Such was the impression of a sincere friend to 
 the Ameers, respecting our doubtful position with 
 them at this time ; and it soon appeared that Major 
 Outram judged rightly. The rising of Cabool, the 
 destruction of our army, could not fail to suggest 
 to the Ameers the thought that, the power of the 
 British was not irresistible ; that their supremacy, 
 even after it had been established, might be over- 
 thrown. 
 
 A letter from Lieutenant Leckie to the Political 
 Agent*, describes vividly the immediate change in 
 the demeanour of Meer Nusseer Khan, of Hyder- 
 abad, evidently traceable to this cause, and that the 
 Ameer, at least, appears to have lost no time in com- 
 mencing a system of hostile intrigues. Seven days 
 from the date of the letter just quoted from Major 
 Outram, his deputy sends him notice of the inter- 
 ception of a letter, of a very suspicious character, 
 and fully believed by him, though never positively 
 proved, to be Nusseer Khan's. 
 
 * jSinde Correspondence, page 310. 
 
216 ITS EFFECTS IN SINDE. 
 
 At this very time an amicable negotiation was in 
 progress for the transfer of Shikarpore, the chief 
 mart of Upper Sinde, in farm, to the British, on 
 advantageous terms to the Ameers. They were to 
 receive a revenue higher by one-fifth than the place 
 had ever yielded to them; the other party looked for 
 the advantages of their side of the bargain, to the 
 expected growth of commerce, and the security of 
 their position on the Indus. The negotiation was 
 far advanced, when it was at once suspended, in 
 consequence of the altered tone of Meer Nusseer 
 Khan (who conducted it on behalf of himself and 
 the other Ameers of Hyderabad), and the obstacles 
 thrown by him in the way of its completion; an 
 indication not to be mistaken of the feelings roused 
 by the intelligence from Affghanistan. " See" 
 Nusseer Khan is reported to have said to Meer 
 Roostum, of Khyrpore, the head of Upper Sinde, 
 (: the AfFghans have got rid of the English through 
 their bravery; we are not inferior to them; let us 
 show them that we have spirit and courage* ." 
 Secret communications were opened with the hill- 
 tribes of the passes; secret combinations with each 
 
 * Statements given to the Political Agent, page 335, &c. 
 These statements are not always of a character to be relied 
 upon as far as any particular fact is concerned ; but coming 
 simultaneously from various quarters, and corroborated by 
 various circumstances, there can be no doubt that they fully 
 warrant the entire conviction of the Political Agents (ex- 
 pressed by none more strongly than by Major Outram), that 
 various intrigues were in progress of a character hostile to the 
 British. 
 
THE INTRIGUES AND THEIR RESULT. 217 
 
 other entered into; secret attempts were, there can 
 be little doubt, made to concert hostile movements 
 with Shere Singh, the ruler of the Punjaub. 
 
 It was natural, inevitable ; but it was fatal. That 
 there was any moral crime in their desire to drive 
 us from their country, no one will assert; that the 
 breach — even the treacherous breach — of treaties im- 
 posed as these had been, merits to be viewed by 
 those who imposed them, with any deep moral in- 
 dignation, no one can maintain. 
 
 But supposing their object to have been legiti- 
 mate, and legitimately sought, was it one to which 
 the Governor-general could accede ? To impose a 
 treaty by compulsion, and after that treaty has for 
 some time existed, to exact penalties for its viola- 
 tion, are two very different proceedings. The first 
 may be gratuitous injustice: the second must be, 
 of necessity, one horn of a difficult dilemma. And 
 though justice requires that we should connect the 
 first step with the second, when looking at the con- 
 duct of a nation, it is necessary, in some degree, to 
 separate them when looking at the conduct of the 
 individual statesmen who are their respective instru- 
 ments. 
 
 To evacuate the country during the campaign of 
 1842 in Affghanistan, would have been impossible; 
 to evacuate it afterwards (if it ever was seriously con- 
 templated, of which there are certainly some indica- 
 tions*), a course, under the circumstances, beset with 
 
 * Supplementary Correspondence, page 99. 
 
 L 
 
2 IS LORD ELLENBOROUGH'S POSITION. 
 
 difficulties. A second, and not a friendly, with- 
 drawal, would undoubtedly have increased the effect 
 of our retirement from Aflfghanistan. That the 
 sovereign power of India should reward the hostility 
 of allies with independence, would have been felt by 
 all India as a confession of weakness to punish 
 them. This consideration, however, belongs to a 
 somewhat later period than the date of Lord Ellen- 
 borough's arrival in India. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough found the British empire in 
 India staggering from an unexpected shock; the 
 opinion of our strength shaken, the reputation of 
 our army tarnished, the sepoys, for the first time, 
 actually shrinking from encounter with an Asiatic 
 enemy. 
 
 The crisis was one to try the real strength of our 
 hold on the princes and people of Hindoostan. It 
 was the time for the ambitious to hope, for the dis- 
 affected to combine; it was the last time at which 
 the paramount power could look with indifference 
 on individual instances of disaffection. 
 
 The Mahomedan millions scattered through the 
 country, from whom the dominion of the Indian 
 peninsula had passed to the English; the Mahome- 
 dan rulers, who were our political dependants, heard 
 of the great victory gained by the Mahomedan Aff- 
 ghans; we know, in some degree, and can well ima- 
 gine for the rest, with what feelings they heard it. 
 In the map of India published by the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the States 
 marked as under " British protection," distinguished 
 
HIS LETTER TO THE AMEERS. 219 
 
 from those which constitute " British possessions," 
 are in number more than twenty. We held Sinde 
 by a tenure similar to that which connects us with 
 them. Few of them, it may be hoped, have been 
 added to our virtual empire by means so inde- 
 fensible; but their legal relation to us was the same. 
 The rulers of Sinde were bound by treaty to 
 allegiance; the breach of that allegiance presented 
 the choice of only two alternatives: — a choice iden- 
 tical with that which would have been presented by 
 the defection of any subsidiary Indian power; — of 
 relinquishing the claim, or enforcing and maintain- 
 ing it; an end to which punishment of the breach 
 might or might not be essential, according to the 
 circumstances. This is a broad but sufficient enun- 
 ciation of the problem which Lord Ellenborough 
 had to solve. The iniquity of the original compul- 
 sion increases our compassion for the ultimate re- 
 sult, but does not alter the nature of the alternatives 
 left to their successor by those who imposed the 
 allegiance. 
 
 The first step taken by Lord Ellenborough, with 
 reference to the Ameers of Sinde, was, in accordance 
 with his resolution to maintain the position we had 
 acquired on the Indus. Having received from the 
 Resident in Sinde a distinct statement that some of 
 the Ameers were engaged in hostile intrigues, he 
 proceeded to send Major Outram an address to 
 these princes, to be delivered or withheld according 
 to that .officer's discretion. The main object may 
 be gathered from the concluding paragraph. 
 
 L 2 
 
220 WHY NOT DELIVERED. 
 
 " I should be most reluctant to believe that you 
 had deviated from the course which is dictated by 
 your engagements; I will confide in your fidelity 
 and in your friendship, until I have proof of your 
 faithlessness, and of your hostility in my hands; but 
 be assured that, if I should obtain such proofs, no 
 consideration shall induce me to permit you to exer- 
 cise, any longer, a power you will have abused. 
 On the day on which you shall be faithless to the 
 British Government, sovereignty will have passed 
 from you; your dominions will be given to others; 
 and in your destitution all India will see that the 
 British Government will not pardon an injury 
 received from one it believes to be its friend. " 
 
 This letter is dated May 6, 1842, and if ever 
 such a letter could be justified, it was so by the 
 circumstances of that time. 
 
 Major Outram kindly as well as prudently 
 thought it better to withhold a threat which might 
 drive these princes, all conscious of having subjected 
 themselves already to the penalties denounced, into 
 combined and open hostility; and Lord Ellen- 
 borough (by letter dated June 4th) approved of his 
 so withholding it. The letter, therefore, led to no 
 immediate result; but the principle it expressed was 
 the basis of what followed, and it has therefore been 
 sriven above. 
 
 Time passed on, and our successes in Affghan- 
 istan, renewing the fear of our strength, kept down 
 the smouldering fire of disaffection during the sum- 
 mer of 1842. But we were about to withdraw from 
 
SIR C. NAPIER TAKES THE COMMAND IN SINDE. 221 
 
 Afghanistan ; and it appears from the Blue Book 
 that the intrigues which had slackened were re- 
 newed, in consequence of the impression produced 
 by the news of our intended withdrawal*. If our 
 position on the Indus was to be maintained, without 
 the constant presence of an overpowering force, it 
 may well have appeared necessary to show the 
 Ameers that the treaties which placed us there were 
 not to be broken with impunity. Something was 
 due to those for whom we had opened the navigation 
 of the Indus ; something, too, was due to the future 
 safety of our garrisons. 
 
 Sir C. Napier took the command in Sinde in 
 September, 1842, with the understanding, that what 
 is called in India a "revisal" of the treaties with the 
 Ameers was at hand ; the functions of the Political 
 Agent being at the same time superseded : a step at 
 such a crisis, of very questionable policy. 
 
 In the previous remarks the hostility of the 
 Ameers during the year 1842 has been taken as an 
 acknowledged fact. If the Ameers were not guilty 
 of hostile intrigues they of course cease to be appli- 
 cable; and as the character of the proceedings from 
 September 1842 to February 1843 rests to some 
 extent, though not altogether, upon this point, it 
 is proper to consider shortly, before going farther, 
 the various opinions respecting it which have been 
 maintained. 
 
 * Minute by the Governor of Bombay, page 353. 
 
222 QUESTION OF THE AUTHENTICITY 
 
 Not only in the House of Commons, on the 
 occasion of Lord Ashless late motion, but even in 
 the debates at the India House, where the speakers 
 are, perhaps, as well informed on these matters, 
 many doubts were expressed as to the cogency of 
 the evidence brought forward in proof of the hostile 
 intrigues of the Ameers. The letters especially 
 exhibiting proofs of dangerous intrigues with dif- 
 ferent parties; these it was urged by some eloquent 
 and learned friends of the Ameers were not suffi- 
 ciently "proved" to be legally admissible in evi- 
 dence. Now, whether the " treasonable" letter 
 alleged to be written by Meer Roostum of Khyr- 
 pore to Shere Sing was written by his minister, with 
 or without his privacy; whether the treasonable 
 letter, professedly addressed by Meer Nusseer of 
 Hyderabad to a hill chief, was demonstrably written 
 by the Ameer; these seem to be questions which the 
 state of things in those countries, the frequency of 
 forgeries, the copiousness of false-swearing, might 
 render very difficult of decision even for those per- 
 sonally acquainted with the circumstances and the 
 men. But those who were so, certainly decided 
 that the letters were what they professed to be. 
 That the Ameers denied having written them is 
 really a matter of course; it has no weight what- 
 ever towards the decision of this particular point. 
 There is at page 474 of the Correspondence a letter 
 addressed by Meer Nusseer Khan to Sir Charles 
 Napier, which contains his energetic denial of having 
 written the treasonable letter, or even having ever 
 
OF THE INTERCEPTED LETTERS. 223 
 
 heard the name of his supposed correspondent*. It 
 contains also the following passage, which, spite of 
 the sadness of the subject, it is impossible to read 
 without considerable amusement. The Ameer is 
 referring to his conduct in former times: — 
 
 "Subsequently, I and Meer Noor Mahomed 
 Khan saw the advantage of seeking the protection of 
 the wisest and most powerful nation on the earth, 
 and therefore urged Sir Henry Pottinger, during two 
 whole years to come into the country, after which 
 iv e finally succeeded in introducing a British force." 
 
 The Ameer's object appears to be to argue from 
 this version of the facts of 1839, that he is necessa- 
 rily incapable of having done the hostile act in ques- 
 tion, or any other. The soundness of the premiss is 
 not such as to recommend the inference to our 
 absolute acceptance. Have we any right to bear 
 severely on the poor Ameer's mendacity ? No, in- 
 deed; but this is a question of fact, and on such a 
 question it is right to show that his statement can 
 be worth little. 
 
 It was important to establish the authenticity of 
 these letters, not as containing the whole case against 
 the Ameers, but as distinct single instances of a 
 manifold system of intrigue, of the existence of 
 which there can be no doubt, unless all the political 
 agents in Sinde were utterly misled and misinformed. 
 
 * "God is my witness," he says, "that up to this moment 
 I know not whether the name you mention is that of a man 
 or of a whole tribe ;" an assertion which hardly sounds cre- 
 dible. It is an attempt to prove too much. 
 
224 OPINIONS OF THE POLITICAL AGENTS. 
 
 Their testimony to the covert hostility of the Ameers, 
 and especially of the one above mentioned, Meer 
 Nusseer of Hyderabad, already in a certain sense the 
 leading chief of the Hyderabad Ameers, and the 
 aspirant to the actual headship of Lower Sinde, is as 
 positive and strong as general testimony can be. All, 
 without exception, speak in the same manner. Major 
 Outram, whose authority has been appealed to by 
 the advocates of the Ameers in this country, not only 
 repeatedly expresses this belief in his letters, but was 
 so satisfied that their conduct had been such as to 
 justify the British Government in requiring a revisal 
 of the treaties, that he himself drew up a draft of 
 the requisitions to be made upon them in a new 
 treaty, with the fact of their "treasonable corres- 
 pondence with a view to the expulsion of the British 
 from Sinde*," deliberately stated in the preamble. 
 
 It does not appear that Lord Ellenborough can 
 be fairly charged with having been careless on this 
 point. His statement to the contrary contained in 
 the defence of his general course addressed by him 
 in June, 1843, to the Secret Committee f, is fairly 
 borne out by the tenor of the instructions addressed 
 by him to the British agents in Sinde. A letter 
 addressed to Sir C. Napier on his proceeding to take 
 the command in September, 1842, contains these 
 words: — "Your first political duty will be to hear 
 all that Major Outram and the other political agents 
 
 * June 21st, page 342. 
 t Supplementary Correspondence, page 98. 
 
DECISION OF SIR C. NAPIER. 225 
 
 may have to allege against the Ameers of Hyderabad 
 and Khyrpore, tending to prove the intention on the 
 part of any of them to act hostilely against the 
 British army. That they may have had hostile feel- 
 ings there can be no doubt. It would be impossible 
 to believe that they could entertain friendly feelings ; 
 but we should not be justified in inflicting punish- 
 ment upon the thoughts." 
 
 £i Impossible/ 5 indeed, yet the distinction is a just 
 one ; just, even though neither the thought nor the 
 action were unmerited by the conduct of the English. 
 The question of the authenticity of these letters was 
 referred by the Governor-general to Sir C. Napier, 
 " on whose sense of justice he had the fullest reli- 
 ance*," and who, aided on the spot by the opinion 
 and advice of those who from their position and 
 circumstances were fittest to decide the point "was 
 infinitely more competent to form a correct con- 
 clusion than I could be at Simla." This is really 
 self-evident. 
 
 Sir Charles Napier's ultimate conviction was, 
 that e£ every letter was written by the Ameers, and 
 that nothing is wanted but an opportunity to attack 
 us; I mean as regards Meer Nusseer Khan of Hyder- 
 abad and Meer Roostum Khan of Khyrporef." 
 The first conclusion, though not actually demon- 
 strated, rests on the positive judgment of those best 
 able to judge, and little doubt can be felt as to the 
 second. In truth, their hostility was too natural to 
 
 * /Supplementary Correspondence, page 99. 
 f Page 462. 
 
 l 3 
 
226 CIVILIZATION 
 
 be improbable, and it appears to be sufficiently- 
 proved. 
 
 Two points then must be assumed as the basis of 
 what followed; that our position on the Indus was 
 to be maintained, and that the acts of the leading 
 Ameers had been decidedly though secretly hostile. 
 The steps taken in consequence require separate 
 consideration. 
 
 Sir C. Napier, as has been said, arrived in Sinde 
 in September ; and on October 25th he sends his 
 view of the state of things there to Lord Ellen- 
 borough, in a letter, (No. 379, page 362 of the Sinde 
 Correspondence,) beginning with the marked words, 
 " It is not for me to consider how we came to occupy 
 Sinde/ 5 — a clever and downright, but very one-sided 
 letter, which no one can read without feeling that the 
 writer is too much on the side of "civilization/ 5 — 
 too entirely determined to benefit these unfortunate 
 people, even at the cannon's mouth, whether they 
 will or no. 
 
 Here is paragraph 19 of the letter: — "To their 
 selfish feelings and avarice, and love of hunting, are 
 such great general interests to be sacrificed ? I think 
 not. The real interests of the Ameers themselves 
 demand [that their puerile pursuits and blind ava- 
 ricious proceedings should be subjected to a whole- 
 some control, which their breaches of treaties and 
 our power give us at this moment a lawful right to 
 exercise, and the means of peaceably enforcing. If 
 any civilized man were asked the question, e Were 
 you the ruler of Sinde, what would you do V his 
 
AND COERCION. 227 
 
 answer would be,, ( l would abolish the tolls upon 
 the rivers, make Kurachee a free port, protect Shik- 
 arpore from robbers, make Sukkur a mart for trade 
 on the Indus. I would make a trackway along its 
 banks; I would get steam-boats/ Yet all this is 
 what the Ameers dread" 
 
 Steam-boats, commerce, humanity, relief of the 
 impoverished people, are all on one side; and doubt- 
 less there is much to be said for steam-boats, com- 
 merce, humanity, and removal of poverty. But on 
 the other side is a coercion," and the good to be 
 expected from the coercion ought not to have made 
 the General forget that ccercion is a painful process 
 to the coerced, even for objects the most just and 
 necessary. A revisal, to a certain extent, of the 
 treaties was just, if their breach could make it so, 
 and necessary, perhaps, if our position in Sinde was 
 to be maintained secure from the recurrence of 
 similar violations. But it was impossible that both 
 parties, at least, could forget the question, which 
 "it was not for Sir Charles Napier to consider/ 5 
 u how we came to occupy Sinde ?" 
 
 The suggestions of this letter, based as they were 
 upon previous communications from Lord Ellen- 
 borough, were in many respects identical with the 
 demands ultimately made upon the Ameers by the 
 new treaty. They were shortly, territory for our- 
 selves, (for our own good and that of the people of 
 Sinde and traders on the Indus ;) territory for our 
 friends, (as a penalty on the Ameers) ; the right of 
 cutting wood for the steamers on the Indus, for the 
 
228 TERMS OF THE REVISED TREATY. 
 
 benefit of all whom it concerned; to which was 
 afterwards added in the treaty the right of coinage, 
 for the commercial convenience of India in ge- 
 neral. 
 
 These were the general and simple objects ; but 
 the particular arrangements by which they were to 
 be attained, were complicated to a degree which ren- 
 ders it difficult even to discover what they were; 
 singularly difficult to give an account of them at once 
 consistent with truth, clearness, and brevity; and 
 perhaps most difficult of all to estimate fairly their 
 moral character. Some appear reasonable, and some 
 not ; some moderately and some excessively severe. 
 The enquiry is entangled and bewildering; any one 
 who would explain its results must hope and try to 
 be just, though he must despair of avoiding being 
 tiresome. 
 
 The territory to be ceded to us consisted of 
 Sukkur, including the fortress of Bukkur, and the 
 town of Roree on the Indus, all in Upper Sinde; in 
 Lower Sinde the port of Kurachee: each with a 
 moderate arrondissement; (Tatta too was included 
 in the draft, but afterwards relinquished;) all of these 
 posts occupied by our troops; the principal object 
 being to secure the military command of the river 
 and protection of its commerce. . 
 
 In return for the proposed cessions, the British 
 Government gave up its claim to the tribute paid by 
 the Ameers of Lower Sinde towards the expences of 
 maintaining the subsidiary force. The territory to 
 be occupied by us in Lower Sinde, (and, indeed, in 
 

 CESSIONS TO THE BRITISH. 229 
 
 both divisions,) was far from equivalent to this 
 tribute; the surplus, or land to its value, was to be 
 at our disposal; some of it was to be made over to 
 such of the Ameers of Upper Sinde as were looked 
 upon as comparatively clear of offence, in compensa- 
 tion for their interest in the ceded lands; and some 
 to Meer Sobdar, partly in compensation for his 
 share of Kurachee, and partly as a gift. He had 
 remained faithful to us hitherto, and was therefore 
 to gain by the transaction. 
 
 Thus far, therefore, none of the Ameers of 
 Lower Sinde were to suffer in revenue. One was to 
 gain, the rest were to give land in exchange for 
 tribute; part of which only was to be retained in 
 our own hands; the surplus was to be applied to 
 compensate the cession of Upper Sinde, and was 
 expected to be more than sufficient to indemnify all 
 whom it was not intended to punish. The British 
 Government would lose in immediate revenue, but 
 gain in security of position and in power of protect- 
 ing the commerce of the Indus. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the commercial pro- 
 visions of the Treaty of 1 839 had been frequently, and 
 in some respects, vexatiously violated. A part of the 
 Correspondence is occupied with a series of appeals 
 from the aggrieved traders to the English Represen- 
 tatives, against the exactions of the Ameers, and the 
 misconduct of their subordinates. Some of these 
 appeals proceeded from foreign traders, some from 
 their own subjects, and the latter especially caused 
 perpetual irritation. Taking advantage of that article 
 
230 EXCHANGE OF TRIBUTE 
 
 of the treaty which declared them supreme in their 
 own dominions, the Amers protested, though from 
 the beginning corrected as to the undoubted inten- 
 tion of the imposers of the treat}', that it gave us no 
 right to exempt their own subjects from tolls. If our 
 position on the Indus, and with our position the right 
 of a free trade, which we had professed to secure to 
 others, was to be maintained, no alteration in the 
 existing state of things could be so permanently 
 effective as the holding in our own right and under 
 our own government, certain points of territory. 
 
 The exchange by the British Government of 
 tribute for territory was noticed in the last debate on 
 Afghanistan and Sinde, as a mere " difference of 
 policy *' between Lord Auckland and Lord Ellen- 
 borough. It is so ; and the motives of this prefer- 
 ence, some of which Lord Ellenborough himself tells 
 us at page 43S of the Correspondence, if they do not 
 absolutely command assent, are certainly very strong. 
 The cession of territory is done at once and over ; 
 the payment of tribute is a lasting hardship; a 
 source of ever recurring irritation to the rulers, a 
 cause and pretext of increased exactions on their part 
 from the people. There is, too, another consideration 
 which ought not here to be forgotten : that to the 
 people it is in general a real benefit to exchange the 
 government of a native power for that of the British. 
 In the papers before us it is repeatedly, not stated 
 by way of eulogy, but assumed as a positive and 
 recognised basis for calculation, that when a part of 
 the land of a country like Sinde passes into the 
 
FOR TERRITORY. 231 
 
 power of the British ; into that land cultivators flock 
 from the surrounding districts, the produce increases, 
 wealth and population grow together; a testimony 
 which, with all that can be said against our conduct 
 to the Heads of States, we may yet hope is frequently 
 true. And if it is true, the preference of territory 
 over tribute of an equal value is, as far as the people 
 are concerned, the preference of their direct advan- 
 tage to their injury; injury, too, which, though it 
 proceeds indirectly from ourselves, we have no power 
 to alleviate. These considerations do not of course 
 justify an otherwise unjust demand on a State ; they 
 do not alter or affect in the slightest degree the 
 nature of our original dealings with the Ameers. 
 But they do point to the objects which, consistently 
 with due regard for rights, it ought to be the aim of 
 our policy to effect ; and, always supposing that the 
 revisal of the treaties was justifiable, they are appli- 
 cable to the position in which Lord Ellenborough 
 found himself. 
 
 If the Indian Government had stopped here, it 
 might fairly have claimed the praise of lenity. But 
 besides the cessions to the British, the Ameers were 
 called upon to give up to the Khan of Bhawulpore 
 a territory along the river; including the provinces 
 of Subzulkote and Bhoong Bhara, wrested by them 
 from his predecessor. Meer Nusseer Khan of Hy- 
 derabad and Meer Roostum of Khyrpore, esteemed 
 the principal offenders, were the persons interested 
 in these two districts and mulcted by their transfer; 
 a penalty which the Governor-general justified in 
 
232 CESSION TO BHAWULPORE 
 
 each case mainly by the overt act of the treasonable 
 letters. With the claim of Bhawulpore upon these 
 provinces, of course the British Government had 
 originally nothing to do ; but on the hypothesis that 
 these Ameers had merited this degree of punish- 
 ment, the mode seems in this case, also, to have 
 been judicious ; at once punishing a breach of alle- 
 giance and rewarding the fidelity of more than one 
 generation, by the restoration of an ancient posses- 
 sion to the family of Bhawulpore; whose claim had, 
 it appears, never been relinquished until the Ameers 
 became our protected tributaries in 1839*. Major 
 Outram does not appear to have thought the trans- 
 fer of Subzulkote by any means a severe penalty on 
 Meer Nusseer, who owned two-thirds of it ; we find 
 him writing thus in June: — "I consider the making 
 over of Subzulkote to the Khan of Bhawulpore, a 
 most desirable arrangement in every respect fv* 
 
 But the territory demanded by the new treaty on 
 behalf of the Khan of Bhawulpore was not limited to 
 the ancient possessions of his family in Subzulkote 
 and Bhoong Bhara. It extended southwards beyond 
 Bhoong Bhara to Roree — one of the points to be 
 occupied by the British ; and included lands in 
 which all the Ameers of Upper Sinde seem to have 
 been more or less interested. The largest possessor 
 was Meer Nusseer (of Khyrpore) son of the late 
 Meer Moobaruck, the only Ameer of Upper Sinde 
 on whom the British had since 1839 a claim for 
 
 * Sinde Correspondence, page 345, 444, &c. 
 + lb., page 345. 
 
AN EXCESSIVE PENALTY. 233 
 
 tribute, which, however, had remained in arrear. 
 This chief is frequently named by Major Outram, 
 together with his namesake of Hyderabad and Meer 
 Roostum, as the most implicated in intrigues against 
 the British; and he might therefore, perhaps, be 
 considered liable to some penalty proportionate with 
 theirs, especially as the treaty relieved him from all 
 pecuniary claims, whether on account of the unsettled 
 tribute, or of the demand on behalf of Shah Soojah 
 left unpaid by his father. 
 
 These considerations might have warranted a 
 slight addition to the territorial penalty inflicted by 
 the loss of Subzulkote and Bhoong Bhara ; but not 
 such an addition as the terms of the draft of the 
 revised treaty imposed. It is perfectly clear that 
 through some misinformation or want of information 
 the Governor-General, when he inserted in the draft 
 "all the territories of the Ameers of Khyrpore, &c, 
 intervening between the dominions of Bhawulpore 
 and the town and district of Roree" was exacting a 
 penalty far greater than he intended to exact* ; the 
 
 * See Lord Ellenborough's letter to Sir C. Napier, dated 
 November 4, the date also of the draft treaties with which it 
 must have been transmitted. He states, in paragraph 13 of 
 the letter, (p. 439, Correspondence^ that he is not informed of 
 the exact value of this territory— and the paragraph itself, as 
 well as other parts of the letter, indicates that the drafts of the 
 revised treaties were not in this and in other respects meant to 
 be positive and final arrangements. It is clear, however, that 
 he greatly underrated the value of the district between Bhoong 
 Bhara and Roree— for in the next paragraph, to meet the pos- 
 sibility of its belonging in part or wholly, not to the offending 
 
234 APPARENTLY AN ERROR 
 
 main object being, as stated by himself, (Correspond- 
 ence, p. 5 02 J to have a communication along the 
 
 Meer Nusseer of Khyrpore, but to his brothers, he suggests 
 that compensation might be made to them out of the surplus 
 tribute, or of the lands received in exchange for it — a fund 
 adequate enough to compensate a cession proportionate to that 
 of Subzulkote or Bhoong Bliara, but wholly inadequate to 
 meet the value, such as it afterwards turned out to be, of the 
 district from Bhoong Bhara to Roree. The real value of the 
 district does not appear to have been known even to Major 
 Outram until the 24th of January, on which day he states its 
 income, together with that of the other cessions as above, at 
 more than six iacs, nearly one-third of the whole revenue of 
 Upper Sinde, (p. 18, Supplementary Correspondence) ; and the 
 whole territory transferred to Bhawulpore, apparently bore to 
 the restored possessions the proportionate value of more than 
 three to one. 
 
 For observe ; the yearly tribute of Lower Sinde was three 
 lacs ; this was to be exchanged for equivalent land ; of this land 
 we were to keep Kurachee, valued at one lac, (and in the ori- 
 ginal draft Tatta also.) Meer Sobdar was to receive half a lac ; 
 there remained at most one and a half; to which must be added 
 something for the interest of arrears of tribute ; altogether 
 making perhaps two lacs. This was the fund available for 
 compensations. 
 
 Now the value of the cessions required from the Ameers of 
 Upper Sinde turned out to be more than six lacs —of this the 
 penalty imposed on Roostum by taking Bhoong Bhara and 
 his share of Subzulkote was less than one. 
 
 Sukkur, Bukkur, and Roree, the places to be held by us, 
 formed a very small part of the rest — and compensations were 
 to be given to at least two of the Upper Sinde Ameers for their 
 shares in these ; reducing somewhat further the surplus fund. 
 
 The district between Bhoong Bhara and Roree made up the 
 rest of the cession— and part, or possibly the whole of this was 
 to be compensated (should it belong to the younger sons of 
 Meer Moobaruck, and not to the eldest son Meer Nusseer) 
 (paragraph 14 of the Governor-general's letter.) Out of what? 
 out of the surplus fund remaining after previous deductions, 
 and, it was even supposed that something might remain 
 
CORRECTED TOO LATE. 235 
 
 • 
 
 Indus through a friendly country " rather than to 
 inflict any farther punishment on the Ameers." 
 
 But it fell most severely upon the Ameers of 
 Upper Sinde. "It has thrown them/' Sir C. Na- 
 pier says, "into consternation/* (p. 502). It was 
 evidently greater than could be considered in any way 
 necessary or just for the purpose of punishment, — 
 far greater than Major Outram, or even Sir C. Napier 
 himself, when they had at length informed themselves 
 of its value, [Supplementary Correspondence, p. 18,) 
 thought it desirable to exact. They agreed in press- 
 ing upon Lord Ellenborough the reconsideration of 
 this part of his arrangements, and he at once ex- 
 pressed, in a letter which will be found in p. 502 of 
 the Correspondence, his readiness to attend to their 
 opinion. But before this letter can have reached Sir 
 C. Napier, the whole case had been tried by the judg- 
 ment of the sword. The question will suggest itself, 
 Had this letter been dated January 10, instead of 
 February 10, would the battle of Meeanee have been 
 fought? A question which must remain unanswered. 
 This severity, apparently unintentional, but not there- 
 fore less unjust, is one of the most painful parts of 
 the whole subject. It is a grave error to have been 
 committed by a ruler: a most striking example of 
 the injustice which is certain to follow upon anything 
 like wholesale dealing with interests not perfectly 
 comprehended. 
 
 over to lessen the penalties after the compensations had been 
 made. It is too clear that the revised treaty meant to take 
 perhaps a lac where it took four or five. 
 
236 COINAGE, AND GAME PRESERVING. 
 
 The other main requisitions of the new treaty 
 were the right of cutting wood (to be paid for) from 
 the Ameers 5 shikargahs (hunting grounds) on the 
 Indus, and the right of coinage. The establishment 
 of an uniform currency throughout India seems to 
 be a favourite project with the present Governor- 
 general; and its commercial advantages are obvious. 
 But the proposal to stamp the queen* s head upon the 
 coins of Sinde, was calculated, it is said, to interfere 
 with the Mahometan abhorrence of idolatry, (p. 438,) 
 and if so, as an additional and avoidable grievance, 
 it was clearly wrong. 
 
 The attack on the valued shikargahs has been 
 vehemently discussed; on the one side as a harsh 
 interference with the Ameers, on the other as a 
 laudable disregard of their selfish pleasures and 
 prejudices. The Ameers certainly were game pre- 
 servers to an unreasonable extent. Their vast tracts 
 of wild land, it was said, even interfered with the 
 spread of population, — a circumstance which has 
 been noticed with very proper severity in England, 
 where the extravagant love of field sports is unknown, 
 where from the Norman Conquest up to the Spring 
 Assizes of 1844, no such thing has ever been heard 
 of as the loss of human life for the preservation of 
 game. But the immediate importance popularly 
 attributed to this question of the shikargahs hardly 
 seems borne out by the papers presented to Parlia- 
 ment. It is frequently discussed between the Go- 
 vernor-general and his agents before the presentation 
 of the new treaty, and never even mentioned after- 
 
THE TERMS SUMMED UP. 237 
 
 wards. The Ameers had, indeed, in former conver- 
 sations with Colonel Pottinger spoken of the shikar- 
 gahs as dearer to them than their wives and children; 
 but all feeling on this point seems to have been lost 
 in the greater grievances of the treaty. The right of 
 cutting wood was, after all, very carefully limited, and 
 only to be exercised in case the Ameers failed to 
 supply a sufficient quantity ready cut for purchase. 
 Those who judge from the Blue Book will think that 
 the territorial cessions were the real penalty. 
 
 The general terms of the treaty, and the motives 
 for exacting a penalty which would be felt, are thus 
 shortly summed up by Lord Ellenborough, in a 
 letter to the Secret Committee; November 19th, (p. 
 456). 
 
 * I am satisfied that in exchanging tribute for ter- 
 ritory, in refraining from the acquisition of any terri- 
 tory on or beyond the Indus, which is not required 
 for the purpose of possessing the command of that 
 river, and in granting a great reward to our most 
 faithful ally, the Khan of Bhawulpore, I have acted 
 upon true principles of policy. 
 
 (i To make the Ameers feel that the treaty with us 
 was not to be violated with impunity, was, I thought, 
 absolutely necessary. The British Government can 
 make no concession before a native power which is 
 collecting troops, nominally for defensive purposes, 
 but which the slightest appearance of wavering on 
 our part would direct to purposes of aggression." 
 
 A defence which does not meet the whole case : 
 its partial force may be felt ; but even by those most 
 
238 PRESENTATION OF THE TREATY. 
 
 disposed to accept it, it cannot be accepted without 
 an uneasy feeling. It is impossible not to recollect 
 that if treaties were "not to be violated with 
 impunity" in 1842, treaties had been " suspended" 
 with impunity in 1838 : that if we had now strength 
 and law on our side, we had then only the strength 
 which made the law. 
 
 The address of General Napier to the Ameers of 
 Upper and Lower Sinde, accompanying the presen- 
 tation of the new treaty, is dated December 1st, 
 1842. From that period to the battle of Meeanee, in 
 February, 1843, the Correspondence discloses a 
 series of events singularly confused and intricate, an 
 aspect of affairs changing every day. For some time 
 previously, the preparations of the Ameers had been 
 threatening; on the announcement of these terms 
 they did not cease to be so. They professed readi- 
 ness to accede, but still collected troops ; they re- 
 ceived the remonstrances of Sir Charles Napier, they 
 professed to acquiesce in them; but they still col- 
 lected troops. " Oh, kind friend!" "God knows, 
 we have no intent' on of opposing the British, 
 nor a thought of war or fighting. We have not 
 the power." (page 473). Such was the style of 
 their correspondence with the English ; but among 
 themselves they spoke, it is said, in what the English 
 agents call " a most arrogant strain." " I will see to 
 it," said Meer Nusseer, in anticipation of one of the 
 British demands; "we obtained the country by the 
 sword, and if it is to pass from us, it shall not do so 
 without the sword " (page 483) ; — words not without 
 
WORDS AND DEEDS. 239 
 
 their nobleness, which were fulfilled beyond expecat- 
 tion. 
 
 Much vacillation, much falsehood, stained the 
 cause of the chiefs of Sinde ; the vacillation of fear, 
 the falsehood of barbarism and of mistrust. 
 
 Sir Charles Napier, conscious of always meaning 
 friendship when he spoke of friendship, and war 
 when he denounced war, was by no means disposed 
 to make much allowance for their suspicions ; yet it 
 is too possible that the suspicion which he regarded 
 as a mere pretext may often have been genuine. 
 Major Outram thus accounts on one occasion for the 
 conduct of Meer Roostum of Khyrpore, in avoiding 
 an interview with Sir C. Napier: — "That he did not 
 go to your camp under the influence of the lies 
 which had been told him, perhaps says less for his 
 imbecility than for our own credit, which our pro- 
 ceedings in this and neighbouring countries, since 
 1838, have brought to a very low ebb, I am ashamed 
 to confess " (page 370 
 
 Ashamed, indeed ! and so should be every Eng- 
 lishman who reads it. Major Outram may or may 
 not have been mistaken in this explanation of the 
 particular case; but one who had lived for years in 
 the country could not be misled as to the general 
 feeling of the people on such a point. 
 
 Sir C. Napier had one aim, the carrying out of 
 the new treaty; and he went straight towards 
 it with characteristic vigour and boldness. The 
 Ameers had as many purposes and plans as 
 they had various feelings; their selfishness, their 
 
240 THE AMEERS, THE GENERAL, AND 
 
 mutual suspicions, their fears, continually crossing 
 with their common purpose of striking a blow for 
 victory and revenge. We have Sir C. Napier writing 
 to them in such terms as these: "When a man's 
 actions and his words do not accord, I am greatly 
 distressed to know how to act. The government of 
 the Ameers is one of many heads, all speak and act 
 after a different and a strange manner." "The in- 
 trigues of these people," he says elsewhere, "are 
 very silly, and like a tangled skein of thread." "I 
 am positively sick," says Major Outram, "and doubt- 
 less you are tired, of these petty intrigues — brother 
 against brother, and son against father — and sorry 
 that we should be in any way the instruments to be 
 worked upon by such blackguards*." 
 
 The Ameers with their false intricacy of plots, 
 and the British General with his words, like Luther's, 
 half battles t> from their straightforward and vivid 
 
 * Supplementary Correspondence, p. 7 and 14. 
 
 t It is not often that a Blue Book can be recommended as 
 entertaining reading, but the volume of Supplementary Cor- 
 respondence on Sinde is more interesting than most novels ; 
 Sir Charles Napier's letters are as unmistakable as those of a 
 greater leader, less calm, but more picturesque and vivid. 
 Seldom can a series of papers have been presented to Parlia- 
 ment so strongly marked with individual genius. The short 
 letters especially to the insurgent chiefs after the battle, are 
 instinct with a fiery and piercing simplicity. Every letter 
 shows the character of the man, noble and frank, with a strong 
 tinge of haste and despotism. There is one letter only which 
 ought to have borne a less chivalrous signature than that of 
 Napier. It was written in difficult and dangerous circum- 
 stances; but nothing can excuse threats like these addressed 
 
THE BELOOCHEES. 241 
 
 energy, occupy the foreground of the confused pic- 
 ture. But in the background, like a cloud on the 
 horizon, is seen the "gathering" of the Beloochee 
 tribes, brave men under brave chieftains, more 
 honest and more determined than their princes, 
 truly regarding the dominion of the English as the 
 dominion of force, and resolute to try whether 
 the English or the Beloochees were the stronger 
 in Sinde. 
 
 by their conqueror to prisoners, who had just ceased to be 
 princes. 
 
 "Your intrigues * * * give me a great deal to do. 
 * * * If you give me any more trouble, by stating gross 
 falsehoods, •-.,*"• I will cast you into prison, as you de- 
 serve. You are prisoners, and though I will not kill you, as you 
 ordered your people to do to the English, I will put you in irons 
 on board a ship. * * * Be quiet, or you will suffer the 
 consequences of folly." 
 
 No, nothing can excuse it, — not even the extremity of dan- 
 ger. Here is another addressed to one of the bravest and 
 foremost of the Beloochee chiefs, in a very different tone, and 
 altogether noble. 
 
 "Sir C. Napier to the Chief Ahmed Klian Lugharee, 
 " Chief, Hyderabad, May 11, 1843. 
 
 " I honour a brave soldier, but I have not authority lo 
 forgive you. You attacked the Residency of a British envoy, 
 Outram. Your princes themselves accuse you. The Gover- 
 nor-general is in wrath at this insult offered to the British 
 Government, and has ordered me to make the Ameer Shahdad 
 and yourself prisoners. I must therefore appeal to the Gover- 
 nor-general, and will plead your cause with him. I hope to 
 gain your pardon ; but I will not pledge myself to anything 
 which I may not be able to perform. If you come and reside 
 here, I will receive you till his Lordship's pleasure be known ; 
 and if he refuses pardon, I will give you forty-eight hours to 
 depart unmolested." 
 
 M 
 
242 MEER ROOSTUM KHAN 
 
 Had they succeeded who could have blamed 
 them? Who can blame them for the trial? 
 
 Let us try to seize and follow the main thread of 
 the "tangled skein " of intrigue, till the knot was cut 
 by the English sword. 
 
 The Ameers of Upper and of Lower Sinde alike 
 met the announcement of the new treaty with 
 friendly professions and doubtful conduct. The dis- 
 positions of both were similar; but at this period 
 (December, 1842,) it was in Upper Sinde that ap- 
 pearances were most threatening. Meer Roostum 
 Khan of Khyrpore was now eighty-five years old; 
 and the increasing passiveness of age, which had 
 made him our friend in 1839, had made him in 1842 
 a tool in the hands of our opponents. If he could 
 be said to act in anything from his own will, his sub- 
 sequent conduct seems to have been a mixture of craft 
 and timidity. His brother, and by the law of Sinde, 
 successor in the rights of headship, Ali Moorad, 
 was an active, contriving, dangerous man, with no 
 great love, perhaps, for the English, but with sense 
 enough to stand steadily on the English side in pre- 
 vious as well as subsequent transactions, at least in 
 such of them as came under the public cognizance 
 of the English authorities. 
 
 Previous to Sir C. Napier* s arrival in Sinde, Meer 
 Roostum had, it appears, taken some steps indicative 
 of his desire to transfer either during his life or after 
 his death the headship of Upper Sinde to his son, to 
 the exclusion of Ali Moorad. Shortly after Sir C. 
 Napier's arrival, Ali Moorad stated to him Roostum's 
 intention, and asked whether the English would 
 
AND ALI MOORAD. 243 
 
 assist him in it ? adding with frank boldness, that 
 whether they did so or not, he would maintain his 
 own rights by arms if necessary. The General re- 
 plied, that he would unquestionably support the 
 legal claim of Ali Moorad, not against his brother, 
 but against his nephew, as bound by treaty to do. 
 "That," said Ali Moorad, "is all I want: I wish my 
 brother to keep the Turban, and I will obey him, but 
 I will not allow him to give it to any one else." 
 This conversation (recorded at page 114, Supp. Cor- 
 respondence) had probably the effect of fixing Ali 
 Moorad on our side. His tone and conduct on this 
 occasion would seem to bear out the character of him 
 drawn by the swordlike pencil of General Napier. 
 se He is vigorous-minded, ambitious, and I suspect a 
 cunning man, but apparently generous and bold; in 
 short, as good as barbarians can be, and better than 
 most." His after conduct is more doubtful. 
 
 On the 18th of December, Roostum, frightened 
 and bewildered by the storm that was rising around 
 him, sent to the British General an offer to come 
 into his camp, and place himself under his personal 
 direction*. General Napier recommended him to 
 
 * Meer Roostum afterwards denied having ever sent any 
 such message. It was undoubtedly delivered : the bearer dis- 
 tinctly swears that he received it from the Ameer (Supplemen- 
 tary Correspondence, page 118) ; it does not seem likely that he 
 would dare to invent it; and Meer Roostum immediately 
 acted on the answer. His denial tends rather to show the 
 impossibility of positively depending on any of his statements, 
 even on the allegation that the transfer of the Turban was pro- 
 cured by compulsion. The lax memory of eighty-five years 
 
 M 2 
 
244 RESIGNATION OF THE TURBAN, 
 
 seek in preference the protection and advice of his 
 brother and heir: he did so, and shortly after Gene- 
 ral Napier heard that Roostum had resigned to AH 
 Moorad the Turban of Upper Sinde. 
 
 The intention and object of General Napier's 
 advice seems undoubtedly to have been, that AH 
 Moorad should exercise in his brother's name the 
 power of the Turban, rather than become himself its 
 holder. He wrote to AH Moorad to this effect, and 
 was told in answer, that the renunciation by Roos- 
 tum was solemn and complete. It was certainly 
 written in the Koran in a formal manner, and it 
 seemed also to be confirmed by a separate letter 
 
 would account for so much, that it is hardly necessary to urge 
 in addition the probability that they had been eighty-five years 
 of practised inaccuracy. 
 
 There is a state of mind which may be persuaded to any 
 thing by the first comer, and persuaded by the second coiner 
 that it has been harshly compelled. 
 
 It is worth noticing that about the very date of Meer 
 Roostum's betaking himself to Ali Moorad (December 19th) 
 there are in the Digests of Intelligence (page 481) distinct 
 traces of advances made by Meer Roostum, and apparently by 
 his younger relatives also, towards Ali Moorad, even to the 
 extent of a scheme for investing him with the Turban, pro- 
 bably on some terms of advantage to themselves. It is impos- 
 sible to get at the bottom of these things ; but if such a scheme 
 was on foot, quite independent of Roostum's application to 
 the English General, it seems the less likely that anything 
 like compulsion should have been needed to induce him to 
 transfer the Turban when immediately under his brother's 
 influence. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that 
 Meer Roostum and his relatives, in subsequent conferences 
 with Major Outram, repeatedly professed their ability to prove 
 what they asserted as to the transfer of the Turban having 
 been extorted by compulsion, and eagerly requested a promise 
 of inquiry. 
 
AND FLTGHT OF MEER ROOSTUM. 245 
 
 from Roostum to the General (page 503, Sec.) : both 
 were afterwards asserted by Roostum to have been 
 extorted by compulsion, — a thing not impossible, — 
 easy to suspect, and capable neither of proof nor 
 disproof, from the evidence collected in the Blue 
 Book. It was asserted by Roostum, whose assertion 
 does not prove it to be true: it was denied by Ali 
 Moorad, whose denial does not establish its false- 
 hood. Ali Moorad was certainly an interested party; 
 but Roostum's younger relatives were yet more 
 deeply interested, and the old chief was soon again 
 under their control. 
 
 On the 29th of December, Sir C. Napier thus 
 announces to the Governor-general an occurrence 
 which it is evident that he felt to be suspicious as 
 well as critical. " And now, my Lord, I have to tell 
 you, that Meer Roostum has decamped yesterday 
 morning (December 28th). I met Ali Moorad the 
 night before, and desired him to say that I would 
 pay my respects to his Highness the next day; and 
 the next day I heard of his flight." 
 
 This may have been from mere timidity; but the 
 old chief afterwards asserted, what Sir Charles Na- 
 pier himself, for a time at least, suspected, that Ali 
 Moorad had advised him to fly, telling him that the 
 English General intended to imprison him. With 
 whatever motive, he fled; he proceeded to act in 
 concert with the other Khyrpore Ameers, who had 
 taken refuge in the desert, and were collecting 
 troops round their strongholds. Sir C. Napier heard, 
 at the same time, of 15,000 men assembled here, 2000 
 
24.6 ITS RESULTS. 
 
 there — " all," in his own phrase, a changed as if by- 
 magic." The assertion went abroad that the Turban 
 had been extorted by compulsion. Great indigna- 
 tion was excited against Ali Moorad, and Meer 
 Roostum continued to claim the allegiance of the 
 Beloochee Chieftains, as the head of the Talpoors in 
 Upper Sinde. 
 
 Sir C. Napier upheld Ali Moorad as the sole and 
 rightful possessor of the Turban. If any unworthy 
 means had been made use of to procure the transfer, 
 it is needless to say that Sir C. Napier was neither 
 concerned in nor privy to them. But before any- 
 thing of the kind was suggested, he had taken his 
 course, and he did not change it. On receiving from 
 Roostum, within a few days of his flight, a statement 
 not given in the Blue Book, but evidently referring 
 to both to the cause of his avoiding the proposed 
 meeting, and to the subject of the turban; he re- 
 fused, not without some harshness, to reopen the 
 question of the Turban, which he considered abso- 
 lutely settled, and on which, it appeared to him, "the 
 tranquillity of Upper Sinde depended." His subse- 
 quent attempts to effect a meeting with Meer Roos- 
 tum were, as he truly says, " invariably foiled by the 
 Ameer himself;" whether from real mistrust, caused 
 by the suggestions of Ali Moorad, or, as Sir Charles 
 ultimately thought, from the duplicity of his family, 
 fearing lest he should betray that the resignation of 
 the Turban was voluntary — cannot be ascertained. 
 
 It is easy to blame Sir C. Napier: but in the 
 position and character of those with whom he had 
 
CONDUCT OF THE ENGLISH GENERAL. 247 
 
 to deal, we may find a great deal to palliate, though 
 not to justify, the whole of his conduct. He had, 
 in the first place, to choose between letting the 
 power of the Turban be exercised by Ali Moorad 
 or by Meer Roostunr's younger relations ; at that 
 time, the question of peace and war might well seem 
 to depend on the choice, and the better right was the 
 heir's. Meer Roostum himself, whatever his inten- 
 tions might be from moment to moment, was really 
 incapable of dealing with such a critical time: his 
 eldest son, to whom he had been on the very point 
 of transferring the Turban, and in whose hands he 
 had, in fact, put much of its power, was, according 
 to one of the Digests of Intelligence, " burning for 
 war." Had Sir C. Napier encouraged (he did not 
 absolutely decline, but recommended the other course 
 in preference,) Meer Roostunr's offer to come into his 
 camp, it seems probable that all the feelings of the 
 Beloochees would have been roused against the 
 English, for holding the old man in their possession 
 as a tool and a slave, and war would instantly have 
 followed. The referring Meer Roostum to Ali 
 Moorad's advice and influence; that is, to the advice 
 and influence of his legitimate heir, of whom Sir C. 
 Napier had at that time no reason to think ill, seems 
 really the only way of meeting this difficulty, not 
 obviously inconsistent with common prudence or 
 with justice. The plan failed, whether through the 
 timidity of Roostum, or the treachery of Ali Moorad, 
 is even now uncertain. 
 
 Thus far, then, Sir C. Napier does not appear to 
 
248 THE BROAD WAY. 
 
 have been wrong; but in refusing afterwards to 
 entertain any question of the transfer of the Turban ? 
 It can only be said that the difficulties were imme- 
 diate and extreme. Before the idea of compulsion 
 having been used was suggested, and even before 
 the flight of the old chief, he had completely and 
 positively committed himself to the support of Ali 
 Moorad. 
 
 The state of Sinde in the end of 1842 was cer- 
 tainly not favourable to judicial inquiry. The diffi- 
 culty, and even the danger, of reopening the question 
 of the transfer of the Turban are obvious. It was 
 easier, and looked safer, to declare it closed. Be- 
 lieving that by establishing Ali Moorad he had 
 secured the tranquillity of Sinde, unwilling to take 
 a step towards undoing his own work, despairing 
 perhaps of discovering the truth, Sir C. Napier 
 seized strong hold of the expedient: "The intrigues 
 of these people," he said, "are nothing to me." 
 But the treaty which bound him to guarantee the 
 rights of Ali Moorad, bound him equally to gua- 
 rantee those of Meer Roostum, if they could be 
 ascertained; and it is impossible to deny that he 
 took for granted that which, if he had any real doubt 
 about it, he was bound to attempt to ascertain. The 
 whole result is given by himself in one short sen- 
 tence; "We walk over his folly, and Ali Moorad^s 
 intrigues, going our own way." Going our own 
 way ? — yes. 
 
 What the real conduct of Ali Moorad through all 
 these transactions was, it is difficult and even impos- 
 
ALI MOORAD. 249 
 
 sible to discover with any certainty. With Major 
 Outram he is really the villain of the drama, both in 
 extent and ubiquity of evil; with Sir C. Napier, he 
 is indifferent honest; and the actual and certain 
 facts, the resignation of the Turban, the flight of 
 Roostum, and all that subsequently followed, do 
 admit of explanation on either hypothesis, or on a 
 mixture of both. Major Outram charges him, not 
 only with making the protection of the British the 
 foundation for unreasonable and provoking encroach- 
 ments on his relatives; but with the deep villainy of 
 secretly urging them to commit themselves by hos- 
 tilities, in the hope of securing to himself their for- 
 feited lands; a charge, whether capable of proof or 
 not, not proved in the Blue Book. 
 
 By Major Outranks advice, and with the direct 
 view of obviating the evil which might arise from 
 either of these sources, Sir C. Napier assured Ali 
 Moorad more than once, in person and by letter*, 
 that the British would support him in no claims 
 whatever beyond those legally attached to the Tur- 
 ban, and that in case of forfeiture by the others,, 
 their territories would not be transferred to him. 
 But the high and even despotic tone in which the 
 General asserted the rights of Ali Moorad (pro- 
 ceeding, as it evidently did, from strong desire to 
 have a single, and, as far as interest could make 
 him so, trustworthy person to deal with as head 
 of Upper Sinde,) may well have excited more alarm 
 
 * Sinde Correspondence, p. 9. 
 
 m a 
 
250 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 than his statements to AH Moorad could allay. 
 The consequence of all this was, that the name 
 and wrongs of Meer Roostum became the rallying cry 
 of insurrection; the point on which, if on any point, 
 the question of peace or war ultimately turned. 
 
 The interests of the other Ameers of Upper Sinde, 
 especially of the younger branches of Roostum's 
 family, were so deeply affected by the transfer of the 
 Turban to Ali Moorad, that it is easy to suppose how 
 all their influence over the Beloochees and over the 
 old chiefs mind would be put in requisition to undo 
 the transaction, whether legitimate or not. The law 
 or practice of Sinde, so far as it could be considered 
 established, attached a fourth part of the land to the 
 Turban, in addition to whatever else might be held 
 in his own right by its possessor*. But at the last 
 transmission of the Turban from his father to Roos- 
 tum, there had been four chiefs of princely rank in 
 Upper Sinde ; now there were, with the sons and 
 grandsons of Meer Roostum's generation, eighteen or 
 nineteen; many of them inimical to Ali Moorad, 
 holding of Roostum portions of the land attached 
 the Turban, and likely to be dispossessed by his 
 resignation. In a letter at p. 18 of the Supplemen- 
 tary Correspondence, Major Outram, summing up 
 the extent to which the Khyrpore chiefs are likely to 
 be impoverished between the cession to Bhawulpore 
 and the transaction of the Turban, (an extent which 
 he appears to have increased by a considerable- error, 
 
 * Will of Meer Sohrab Khan Talpoor. Suppl, Correspon- 
 dence, pi 111. 
 
TRANSFER OF THE TURBAN. 251 
 
 but which at any rate was great*,) he prefaces a list 
 of eighteen names with the strong expression, " The 
 following is a list of the Ameers and their sons, who 
 are now rendered desperate." 
 
 This letter is one of those to which in the Blue 
 Book are appended some of Sir C. Napier's notes, 
 and very pointed and to the purpose they are in this 
 and most other cases. He observes that this was 
 done, not by us, but by their own law; that we 
 merely asserted that law, as we were bound by treaty 
 to do; and that even if the Turban had not been 
 transferred to Ali Moorad, the death of Roostum, 
 which must soon occur, would be followed by the 
 same consequences. 
 
 Taking for granted, as Sir C. Napier did, that the 
 turban was legally transferred, all this is true. But 
 the hardship to the eighteen chiefs was great; and 
 if we had not been there, it was one of those hard- 
 ships which would have righted itself — by the strong 
 
 * By an error, mainly respecting the value of some pro- 
 perty of Ali Moorad, in the district ceded to Bhawulpore, 
 which (as he had not broken the treaty with us,) was to be 
 made good to him. {Supplementary Correspondence, p. 134.) 
 It was also said, and believed by Major Outram, that Meer 
 Roostum had been induced by Ali Moorad to cede to him, or 
 that Ali Moorad had occupied without such cession, other 
 lands than those attached to the Turban ; any grievance of this 
 nature the British Government was bound to investigate and 
 settle, and doubtless it would have done so had the opportunity 
 ever been given. The Supplementary Correspondence touches 
 on this point more than once, in a manner which would seem 
 to indicate it was of some importance ; but leaves it after all 
 utterly doubtful whether any such lands had been made over 
 or not. — See page 97 Supplementary Correspondence. 
 
252 "MEDIATION." 
 
 hand, if in no other way. The law, represented by 
 Ali Moorad, would have come into conflict with 
 existing interests, backed by something of natural 
 equity, and they would have fought it out, or, be- 
 tween blows and words, have scrambled into a kind 
 of compromise. If any trust can be put in their 
 declarations, they wished for nothing better than to 
 settle it among themselves by some such process. 
 But this we could not allow; we were bound to keep 
 the peace, and to mediate between them according to 
 law; and so here our resistless power stepped in, 
 with the sword in one hand and their own law in the 
 other, making its harsh decision hateful. These are 
 the consequences of interference. Forced upon a 
 people who neither trusted us nor loved us, this 
 mediating power had become a firebrand. Between 
 the law of Sinde supported by the English, and the 
 law of nature and passion working in the hearts of 
 brave and barbarous clans, all things were now 
 tending one way. 
 
 Yet it is hard to say how far a change on this or 
 any other point would have altered the ultimate 
 result. Before as well as after the transaction of 
 the Turban, the Ameers of Khyrpore had peace on 
 their lips and war gathering round them. They sent 
 civil messages to General Napier, but pertinaciously 
 kept out of his reach ; they avoided all treating with 
 him, whether personally or by deputy; they conti- 
 nued to levy at various points the forces which they 
 were required to disband ; even a night attack on the 
 British camp was at one time anticipated; and Gene- 
 

 EMAUM GHUR. 253 
 
 ral Napier, reiterating the question, "Is it peace?" 
 and receiving from words and deeds a contradictory 
 and doubtful answer, had to move through the land 
 in the proverbial attitude of soldierly suspicion, — 
 the hand to the sword, the beard on the shoulder. 
 No blow was struck, unless in some plundering and 
 scrambling affrays between Ali Moorad's people and 
 those of the other Ameers ; but military movements 
 on the one side, and hostile but undecided gatherings 
 on the other, occupied the end of December and the 
 beginning of January. The object of the Ameers 
 was, to the judgment of the British General, clear 
 enough ; to avoid collision till the heat should make 
 war impossible, or until their numerical strength 
 should make the result of battle certain. 
 
 Many marches south of Khyrpore, and in the 
 heart of the desert of the Indus, stood the fortress of 
 Emaum Ghur, considered in that country impreg- 
 nable. The Ameers, it was said, looked to it as a 
 refuge and rallying point for the disaffected, beyond 
 the power of the British to reach. It seemed pro- 
 bable to General Napier that to disabuse them of 
 this idea would insure the present and future tran- 
 quillity of Sinde; the recent transfer of power had 
 placed the legal right to the possession of the fortress 
 in the hands of Ali Moorad. With his ready, if 
 not willing consent, and active personal co-operation, 
 General Napier marched into the desert, reached the 
 fortress of Emaum Ghur, found it unoccupied and 
 destroyed it, (January 13 — 15, 1843*.) 
 
 * This statement of the case is given on the authority of 
 
254 REASONS FOR ITS DESTRUCTION. 
 
 This step has been vehemently blamed. If the 
 fortress had been occupied, General Napier was pre- 
 pared to attack it, and this would have led at once to 
 war. The ground of blame is, that war was recklessly 
 hazarded, if not unjustly begun; of defence, that the 
 Ameers were undoubtedly levying war; that the 
 fortress was Ali Moorad^s ; and, finally, that war was 
 likely to be prevented by its destruction. Sir C. 
 Napier, we must recollect, had distinct orders to 
 insist on the dispersion of the troops of the Ameers 
 and their acceptance of the new treaty, even at the 
 cost of war. His intention certainly was to prevent 
 war, the step had in his eyes more than a legal 
 colour; and had it succeeded it would have been 
 called humane as well as politic. 
 
 A day towards the end of January was appointed 
 
 General Napier. A recent writer in the Edinburgh Review 
 argues, not without force, against Ali Moora,d's right to the 
 possession of Emaum Ghur; it is a point of some importance 
 in our estimate of Sir C. Napier's proceedings ; and it is one 
 which the Blue Book, like many other points, leaves some- 
 what doubtful. The Reviewer has referred to passages which 
 seem to imply that the fort was the rightful property of 
 another Ameer, neither Roostum nor Ali Moorad ; but, on the 
 other hand, there is a letter from Roostum, which ends with 
 these words: — " And the fort of Emaum Ghur, for which your 
 Excellency's order was to evacuate, mj/ son Meer Mahomed made 
 it over to Ali Moorad' s people" The rest of the letter relates to 
 other forts in the desert, which the old chief states have been 
 placed in the actual possession of his son, and will not be given 
 up without his son's order. This would certainly seem to 
 acknowledge that Meer Roostum had, through himself or his 
 son, the control over Emaum Ghur, and had given, or ordered 
 it to be given up to Ali Moorad. 
 
NEGOTIATIONS 255 
 
 for the Ameers, either in person or by deputy, to 
 meet Major Outram at Khyrpore: the Hyderabad 
 Ameers sent their deputies; the Khyrpore Ameers 
 neither sent nor came themselves; but they moved 
 with their forces southward on Hyderabad, in which 
 direction Sir Charles Napier followed them, having 
 addressed to them an emphatic exhortation and warn- 
 ing to desist from the course they were pursuing. 
 "You imagine that you can procrastinate till your 
 fierce sun drives the British troops out of the field, 
 and forces them to seek shelter in Sukkur. You 
 trusted to your desert, and were deceived; you trust 
 to your deadly sun, and may again be deceived*/* 
 
 The Ameers of Khyrpore showed an apparent 
 disposition to take the General's advice ; not indeed 
 to the extent of dispersing their forces, which were 
 speedily swelled by the addition of the levies of 
 Lower Sinde ; but they agreed to meet Major Out- 
 ram at Hyderabad, to which place the final nego- 
 tiations were now (February 8th) transferred. 
 
 Throughout all these and the subsequent transac- 
 tions, Major Outram struggled to save the Ameers. 
 He pressed upon Sir Charles Napier to recollect, 
 among many other things, "that whatever rabble 
 soldiery they had assembled, was solely with a view 
 to self defence, in misapprehension of our real 
 objects, misrepresented as they were to them by Ali 
 Moorad, and much more that may be urged in ex- 
 cuse for such suspicious people, who have had little 
 
 * /Sinde Correspondence, page 501. 
 
256 AT HYDERABAD. 
 
 reason, heretofore, to estimate our good faith very 
 highly." 
 
 The remark, it may be feared, is too true ; the 
 suspicion was too natural, and it is possible that it 
 had its share in drawing together the Beloochee 
 forces. But the Beloochee chiefs and tribes were no 
 mere rabble soldiery, and subsequent events showed 
 how much Major Outram was mistaken in regarding 
 them as drawn together for (in this sense) defensive 
 purposes only. 
 
 Conferences followed (from the 8th to the 12 th of 
 February), at which the Ameers both of Upper and 
 Lower Sinde were present. They expressed a readi- 
 ness to accede to the demands of the British for 
 themselves and the Khan of Bhawulpore, but remon- 
 strated bitterly against the transfer of the Turban and 
 the lands attached thereto to Ali Moorad; while pro- 
 fessing to spare no exertion to disperse their follow- 
 ers, they repeatedly declared that the Beloochees 
 were beyond their control ; and they entreated Major 
 Outram to delay the advance of General Napier on 
 Hyderabad. Feeling how natural their reluctance 
 was, and in the belief that their intentions were as 
 fair as their professions, Major Outram wrote to the 
 British General, who delayed his march for three 
 days (from the 10th to the 13th). 
 
 It was with reason that the Ameers spared no 
 protestations to effect this object. Every hour's 
 delay was indeed of the utmost importance to the 
 plans which they had laid; every hour increased 
 their strength ; and a few days, perhaps even a day 
 
PEACE OR WAR? 257 
 
 more, by bringing them over the great festival of 
 Moharrem, which detained many of their people in 
 the villages., would have raised their forces in the field 
 to 50,000 or 60,000 men. 
 
 Sir Charles Napier's position had now become 
 one of no ordinary responsibility. At a moment 
 when peace and war were hanging by a thread, he 
 was perplexed by accounts of the most opposite ten- 
 dency. He received the protestations of the Ameers 
 that they were doing all in their power to disperse 
 the Beloochees : and armed men were brought into 
 his camp bearing their letters to the chieftains, sum- 
 moning all the strength of the tribes to meet them at 
 Meeanee. " Why do you stop me ? " said the chief 
 of the party ; " there are 600 armed and assembled 
 
 in the village of , within six cos of you ; 
 
 plenty every where." (p. 40.) Major Outram wrote 
 on the 11th, expressing his confidence in the Ameers, 
 his belief that their forces were dispersing or dis- 
 persed ; and the spies brought intelligence that the 
 whole country was in arms. With 25,000 men, as 
 they truly told him, already collected in his front, 
 25,000 more marching upon him in all directions, 
 he was in truth in the utmost peril ; greater even 
 than he himself believed; for it is clear that General 
 Napier and Major Outram alike underrated the 
 courage of the Beloochees till the day when they 
 met us face to face in the field. The storm clouds 
 which had so long flitted about the horizon were 
 concentrating towards a point, and that point was 
 the British army. 
 
258 THE QUESTION DECIDED. 
 
 Once satisfied that a most honourable and kind 
 feeling had led to Major Outram's being deceived 
 by the Ameers, General Napier felt that the die was 
 cast ; there was no time for negotiation ; no time for 
 delay. He knew of the Moharrem festival, and 
 coupling its occurrence with the information he re- 
 ceived, conjectured the meaning of the efforts to gain 
 time. He felt on this most critical 14th of Febru- 
 ary as an English general was bound to feel ; " The 
 Ameers and their falsehoods passed from my head : 
 their armies alone occupied my attention." " I 
 neither can nor will halt now," he writes on the pre- 
 vious day to Major Outram, Ci their object is very 
 plain, and I will not be their dupe. I shall march to 
 Syudabad to-morrow, and next day to Halla, and 
 attack every body of armed men I meet, according to 
 my orders, and which it would be trifling to defer 
 any longer, as no move has been made for four days* 
 and my sick list increasing ; it would be to betray 
 the troops to delay another day. * * * i" do 
 hope, my dear friend, that you will see the very 
 perilous ground on which I stand. * * * " 
 
 This advance, it has been asserted, unnecessarily 
 caused the bloodshed of Meeanee; the Correspon- 
 dence proves that it saved the army. With a whole 
 people in arms closing around a force of less than 
 3000 men, with evidence under their own hands 
 of the double dealing of the Ameers, was General 
 Napier to wait till the weather and their numbers 
 should enable the Ameers to consummate his des- 
 truction ? « Was I," he asks, " to place the army 
 
NOTES OF THE CONFERENCE. 259 
 
 at their mercy, to spare or destroy as they pleased ? " 
 No, indeed ! He resumed his march on the 14th. 
 
 In Major Outranks notes of his ei Conferences 
 with the Ameers of Sinde, February 8th and 9th, 
 1843," the following questions and answers are 
 reported : — 
 
 Ameers. " Do you know the value of the terri- 
 tory taken from Upper Sinde?" 
 
 Commissioner. " About six lacs I understand." 
 
 Ameers. " Does the Governor-general know it ? 
 
 Commissioner. (i The General has informed the 
 Governor-general." 
 
 While the notes of these Conferences on the 8th 
 and 9th were on their way to the hands of Sir C. 
 Napier, three other things were going on. The 
 British General at Sukkurunda was weighing the 
 reports of his spies against the information of Major 
 Outram, and gradually becoming assured of the near- 
 ness and greatness of the danger. The Beloochees, 
 readily obedient to the call of their princes and to 
 their own determined resentment, were flocking in 
 thousands to the muster at Meeanee ; and an answer 
 to the GeneraPs application, for a more lenient 
 arrangement respecting the Roree district, (a con- 
 cession for which he meant, in his own words, to 
 <f make a hard fight," had it been necessary,) — an 
 immediate and favourable answer, — was already on 
 its way ! 
 
 ■Caesar hath sent- 
 
 Too slow a messenger. 
 
 It is true that the loss of this territory was not 
 the point ultimately most urged by the Ameers : still 
 
260 THE TREATY ACCEPTED. 
 
 it is evident how much a timely concession on this 
 point would have lightened the other sacrifices ; and 
 it might, possibly, in their opinion, have turned the 
 scale of advantage to themselves on the side of peace. 
 
 As it was, the Ameers played their dangerous 
 and crafty game to the last. Secretly summoning 
 all the strength they could call into the field, and 
 openly protesting the people were beyond their 
 control, they did all they could to increase the 
 chance of success, and secure themselves, if possible, 
 against the consequences of failure. But they had 
 no intention, and probably not much expectation, of 
 failing. This was their treachery; a treachery per- 
 haps under the circumstances not so deeply criminal 
 as it was heavily punished. Many European princes, 
 with a similar opportunity of trying the chances of 
 war and evading its responsibility, would have done 
 much the same. 
 
 On the 12th of February, all the Ameers of 
 Upper and Lower Sinde then present at Hydera- 
 bad solemnly accepted the draft of the new treaty. 
 On retiring from this conference, Major Outram 
 passing to the Residency through a dense crowd, 
 was assailed with expressions of open hostility — 
 stones were thrown, and the whole excited multitude 
 joined in a wild and measured cry of invocation to 
 their local saint against the Feringees. The Ameers 
 did their best to protect him; as well they might, 
 for he was to the last, as far as it was possible 
 for an English officer to be so, their steady friend. 
 Feeling, it is evident, most deeply the hardships of 
 
OUTRAM AND THE AMEERS. 261 
 
 their position, feeling that Sinde had but too much 
 reason to complain of the conduct of England, rely- 
 ing too confidently on their personal regard for him- 
 self, he believed their assurances of friendly inten- 
 tions, he strove to avert their fate, till his efforts 
 nearly terminated in his own destruction. With a 
 view to the restoration of entire confidence, he wrote 
 to request Sir Charles Napier to send the troops to 
 Meerpore, and come in person to Hyderabad; as 
 a step which would at once remove all doubts. 
 Ci Unquestionably, it would have removed all doubts, 
 and my head from my shoulders," is the General's 
 note on this confiding proposal. The Ameers sent 
 to Major Outram more than once, warning him that 
 their people were beyond their control, and that he 
 had better leave the city; he replied that he would 
 not even place a sentry over his door. No public 
 servant ever fell into an error more complete, or 
 more honourable. 
 
 The advance of the British may have led the 
 Ameers to tear off the mask a little sooner; that it 
 made any other difference in their course it is im- 
 possible to believe. They had accepted the treaty 
 on the 12th; they afterwards bribed Major Outranks 
 moonshee to steal the counterpart copy in that 
 officer's possession*. On the morning of the 15th 
 of February, they tore to pieces the treaty so ob- 
 tained before the assembled chiefs in full durbar; 
 and at once led 8000 men with cannon to the 
 
 * Sir C. Napier's Observations, page 92, Supplementary 
 Correspondence. 
 
262 MEEANEE. 
 
 attack of the British Residency*. Fortunately., Sir C. 
 Napier had thought that Major Outranks confidence 
 might compromise his own safety, and had sent to 
 Hyderabad a company of soldiers to aid in his pro- 
 tection, if necessary. After a skilful and brave 
 defence the Residency was evacuated with little loss 
 on the part of the English; but the sword was 
 now drawn in earnest. Major Outram joined Sir C. 
 Napier by the way of the river: and the General 
 continued his advance, till on the 17th he came in 
 sight of the Beloochee force strongly posted at 
 Meeanee, within sight of the towers of Hyderabad. 
 Then followed that battle, which taught us to respect 
 the Beloochees of Sinde; in which skill, trained 
 valour, and artillery, hardly prevailed over undis~ 
 ciplined numbers and equal valour. We have won 
 in India some battles of greater importance; we 
 nave won many in which the opposed armies were 
 far more numerous; but never was the scale of 
 victory more nearly balanced, more slow to turn. 
 Sir Charles Napier has told the story of the best 
 fought of Asiatic battles in a despatch which does 
 justice to the merits (at least the warlike merits) of 
 all concerned, friends or enemies, except himself. 
 "My conscience," he says, " acquits me of the blood 
 which has been shed. The tyrannical and deceitful 
 Ameers brought on the battle, the fierce tribes of 
 Beloochee robbers were resolved that it should be so, 
 and bravely did they execute their resolution." 
 
 * One, or two, of the Ameers were present ; one, it appears, 
 remonstrated against the attack. Suppl, Corr. pp. 137, 141. 
 
THE SECOND BATTLE. 263 
 
 The hostile Ameers both of Hyderabad and 
 Khyrpore surrendered at once, and the British occu- 
 pied Hyderabad without resistance. But the spirit 
 of the Beloochees was not yet broken. In little 
 more than a month, on March 24th, they met Sir 
 Charles Napier in another great battle (known as 
 that of Dubba or Hyderabad), under the command 
 of Meer Shere Mahomed of Meerpore. As that 
 chieftain's interest had in no way been affected by 
 the new treaty, his opposition to us, which, seen 
 from the English side, was unreasonable and unac- 
 countable, in another point of view throws some 
 light on the real causes of the war, and has in truth 
 very much the look of proceeding from that un- 
 reasoning feeling, which failure makes disaffection, 
 and success patriotism. Though the English force 
 was nearly twice as strong as at Meeanee, on this 
 occasion, and the Beloochees fewer, they resisted 
 manfully, and retired from a battle-field heaped with 
 the corpses of the elite of the tribes, all, it was 
 afterwards observed, men in or past the prime of 
 life, without a youth among them. They had now 
 tried their full strength and had failed; they had ful- 
 filled their resolve. The country they had won by 
 the sword had past from them by the sword, and 
 they do not appear to have gathered in force again. 
 
 Thus was completed the victory which, with the 
 exception of the possessions of Ali Moorad, "placed 
 at the disposal of the British Government the coun- 
 try on both banks of the Indus, from Sukkur to the 
 
264 ANNEXATION OF SINDE. 
 
 The Ameers, with the exception of that chief, 
 were deposed, and their country annexed to British 
 India. Thus was the work begun in 1838, com- 
 pleted in 1843. This was the end, — an end which, 
 if we look back to the beginning, shocks every feeling 
 of justice. Yet, at the point which things had at 
 last reached, it is hard to suggest a better solution of 
 the question, "What was now to be done with 
 Sinde?" 
 
 The Ameers had not only shown themselves, as 
 they well might, our bitter enemies, but they had in 
 the proceedings immediately previous to the battle, 
 given their cause a character of falsehood ; and they 
 had all but succeeded in a well-laid scheme for the 
 destruction of our army. They had played a deep 
 game, and it had been decided against them, — a game 
 of that kind which can never be played twice*. 
 
 * It is worthy of notice that Major Outram himself did not, 
 even at the time, entirely believe in the perfect sincerity of 
 their professions of desire to disperse their troops. He says, 
 (February 14,) "I believe" that they "merely hoped to get 
 Roostum's party benefitted by leaking an appearance of fer- 
 ment amongst their Beloocbees," (p. 43,)— a belief somewhat 
 inconsistent with his other belief, that they did in fact try to 
 disperse them, as well as with their own statement that they 
 could not restrain them, and with the opinion that they were 
 at last only hurried along with the in esistible feeling of the 
 people. They certainly urged the question of justice to 
 Roostum with a reiterated earnestness which, as reported by 
 Major Outram, it is difficult' to believe fictitious. Whether 
 any concessions on the 'point would have altered their course 
 it is impossible to say. Their treachery, such as it was, con- 
 sisted in the friendly professions by which they strove to evade 
 the responsibility of their hostile acts. While negotiations 
 were pending, they kept drawing together all the forces 
 
MEER SOBDAR. 265 
 
 With the exception of Ali Moorad, whose interest 
 had kept him on our side in opposition to his coun- 
 trymen and relations, all were implicated in the hos- 
 tilities to which their previous conduct had given a 
 character of deceit. Meer Sobdar, who had been 
 considered our friend up to the battle of Meeanee, 
 and whom, as such, the Revised Treaty not only 
 compensated for his share of Kurachee, but rewarded 
 with additional territory, had in these last transactions 
 played zealously the part of Facing both ways, — a 
 part sometimes dangerous as well as contemptible. 
 
 A few days before the battle he sent to Sir C. 
 Napier, proposing in case of hostilities to march out 
 into the field with the other Ameers; the English 
 were not to attack him, and he would be ready to fall 
 on the Beloochees at a given signal. General Napier 
 saw through the complex treachery of the villainous 
 proposal, and returned an answer at once honest and 
 acute. u Tell your master that my army has no fear 
 of the Beloochees, and does not need the aid of 
 traitors. I consider his Highness as our good ally, 
 and as a friend advise him to keep his soldiers in 
 Hyderabad; for if I should meet his 5,000 men in 
 the field, I shall assuredly fall upon them/ 5 Meer 
 
 they could collect, and at last let them loose upon the English, 
 protesting that they could not control them. Of thus much it 
 seems impossible to acquit them. Some light, perhaps, is 
 thrown on the truth by the fact, that on the occasion of the 
 passage of the army of the Indus in 1839, they made similar 
 professions of their inability to restrain their people ; but the 
 complete tranquillity that thence at once followed their accept- 
 ance of the treaty showed that it was not the power that was 
 wanting. 
 
 N 
 
266 THE COURSE ACTUALLY TAKEN 
 
 Sobdar, thus forced to choose, chose the side which 
 he thought at this point the strongest. He kept, 
 indeed, in Hyderabad — himself; but for his soldiers 
 — "his Highness sent 4,800 men into the field of 
 Meeanee, where they fought us manfully*." His 
 Highness moreover, it afterwards appeared, desired 
 one of his chief followers to join in the attack on the 
 Residency. Being asked to come forward himself, 
 he u laughed and said, that would never dof." 
 
 To confide in Meer Sobdar after this, " that/ 5 in 
 his own words, "would never do." And, as regards 
 the other Ameers, — with a judgment formed upon the 
 evidence afforded in the Blue Book, of their hatred 
 of British interference, of their spirit of intrigue, and 
 one can hardly avoid saying of treachery, of their 
 faithlessness, and of their internal misgovernment, it 
 is impossible not to be deeply impressed with the 
 belief that it would not have been wise or ultimately 
 beneficial, to restore to such men power, of which the 
 exercise must henceforth have been constantly checked 
 and watched ; it is too clear what the consequences of 
 such a course would have been. Mere puppets in 
 the hands of some English resident, capable of doing 
 a certain degree of harm but no good, — effective 
 chiefly as a means of reminding the Beloochee chiefs 
 of their lost independence and provoking them to 
 another struggle : such would have been the position 
 of these unfortunate men if we had still maintained 
 them as rulers. We should have been tyrants to 
 them, without being able to benefit the people. 
 
 * Supplementary Correspondence, page 92. f Ibid., p. 141. 
 
PERHAPS AT LENGTH NECESSARY. 267 
 
 That their dynasty was comparatively recent, and 
 their government tyrannical, were considerations 
 w r hich, though in no degree justifying what had gone 
 before, could not but have some weight in the crisis 
 at which things had arrived. Sinde was, and in 
 justice ought to have continued, nothing to us, but 
 we had made it something. We had taken the 
 charge of its destinies upon ourselves; we had in 
 1839 associated it, as an "integral part," with the 
 empire of Hindostan; and the main question seems 
 to be, whether in February, 1843, we had, or had not, 
 in one way or other, made it impossible for its former 
 rulers to govern it in connexion with us. If we had, 
 what course remained ? None perhaps, for the present 
 at least, so good as that which Lord Ellenborough has 
 taken. 
 
 It is an every-day remark, that the first step in 
 wrong is often all. The man who has freely taken it 
 finds himself no longer free. A second step must be 
 taken, and then a third, each enforced by an in- 
 creasing penalty. Nearly such is the progress of 
 nations in a course of injustice ; but with this differ- 
 ence, that to retract a criminal step is far more pos- 
 sible for an individual than for a statesman. At 
 every stage of international transactions new interests 
 spring up, new duties are contracted ; and even if the 
 right and wrong do not actually change sides, the 
 result often is, that the nation cannot right its origi- 
 nal wrong without wronging others whom it is bound 
 to protect. This is a part, and an appropriate part, 
 of the penalty for national wrongs. Deeply as the 
 
 N 2 
 
268 SINDE AND THE BRITISH. 
 
 Ameers have been injured, it may be feared that the 
 evil can be no more undone now than if they had 
 been slain with braver men on the field of Meeanee. 
 
 The history is after all, a simple and not a new 
 one. An unjust war brought us into unnecessary 
 collision with the rulers of Sinde ; the collision itself 
 was a violation of treaties, accompanied by unneces- 
 sary aggravations : they resisted, and to get rid of the 
 embarrassment of their resistance, we fixed on their 
 necks the yoke of our dominion ; they showed a dis- 
 position to shake it off, and to secure it we tightened 
 it severely ; they strove to break it with a great and 
 treacherous effort, and now at last in self-defence we 
 beat them down. The responsibility of all this is 
 shared among different individuals ; we may divide it 
 among them in different proportions ; we may vindi- 
 cate one or another, wholly or in part ; but we cannot 
 vindicate England. 
 
 That Sinde will be better governed than hereto- 
 fore, and many of its people happier, need not be 
 doubted. This duty the British Government have 
 taken on themselves, and it may be hoped that they 
 will strive to fulfil it. But before we had contracted 
 any duties towards the people of Sinde, we had con- 
 tracted duties towards its rulers. How we have dis- 
 charged them let the preceding pages tell. There 
 have been offences on both sides ; but every offence 
 of ours has been a gain to us, and every offence of 
 theirs has been heavily visited on them. They may 
 have deserved all that has happened to them; but 
 the balance of punishment between us and them has 
 
THE LOSER PAYS FOR ALL. 269 
 
 not yet been held by an even hand. From the place 
 of their exile* they have emitted grievous com- 
 plaints against the British Government, full, it is 
 true, of misstatements and inventions, but bearing 
 throughout the impress of one genuine feeling, a most 
 bitter sense of wrong. And such it must all seem to 
 them. "You charge us," they might say, "with 
 treacherous enmity; but we knew from the beginning 
 that you would take our country from us, and you 
 have taken it." Their narrow view of the events 
 which have reduced them from princes to prisoners, 
 if it could be fairly expressed either by themselves 
 or others, would not be the true one; yet we might 
 learn something besides compassion from it. But 
 we need not look at the affair from their side; it 
 is enough to look at it from our own. 
 
 We have seen the jealousy with which the chiefs 
 of Sinde regarded our first admission into their 
 country. There are engines which, if a man but 
 brush them with the edge of his sleeve, seize him 
 with a deadly hold, that passing unslackened from 
 sleeve to wrist, from wrist to arm, from arm to trunk, 
 drags him gradually and entirely into the iron mill 
 which grinds him to nothing. Is our Indian empire 
 to be such an engine to its neighbours ? 
 
 Is it well that the yet independent princes of 
 India should stand before us in an attitude mingling 
 hate, distrust, and terror; that a single English tra- 
 veller should be dreaded as the forerunner of an 
 invading army; that all should feel, as the Beloochee 
 
 * Supplementary Correspondence, p. 57, &c. 
 
270 "PER FAS- 
 
 chieftain felt, that the land which an Englishman has 
 seen is the land of its rightful possessors no longer? 
 In the knowledge that such apprehensions follow our 
 steps, in the experience that has justified the ap- 
 prehensions^ is there nothing humiliating, nothing 
 except— Glory? 
 
 Surely, surely, we were not set up in India for this 
 only; to teach its hundred nations once again the 
 one lesson which it seems the world in six thousand 
 years has perfectly learnt, that strength is strong. 
 That much they might have learnt formerly from the 
 Mogul and the Mahratta. That strength can be 
 false and unjust, — this too is a lesson which they 
 ought to have learnt from them only. Is it no part 
 of our duty to teach them, — and to teach them, not 
 merely by just government in our own dominions, but 
 through those great transactions of States, which are 
 acted, like scenes, in the view of all mankind; which, 
 carrying to all, as they do, on their surface, a broad 
 and comprehensible meaning, are, and will be to 
 mankind in general the chief indications of national 
 character — that strength can be conscientious, just, 
 and true ? 
 
 But, some say, the Indian States must all sooner 
 or later fall under our dominion; and a little sooner, a 
 little later, what matters it? They will give us cause 
 for quarrel, and the subjugation will follow of neces- 
 sity; in aggression, even were it aggression, we do 
 but anticipate a little the natural course of events. 
 It must and will be so. What difference does it 
 make after all^ whether the steps which led to a 
 

 ARE THE TWO THE SAME? 271 
 
 conquest were all quite right, or were a little hurried 
 by the passions of man; nay, even a little unjust; — 
 since the conquest itself must have come at last? 
 
 That is to say, — We are the paramount power of 
 India, and while we remain so, those who attack us 
 will fall before us; those who will not keep at peace 
 with us will lose the power of making war. What 
 difference then does it make whether we respect their 
 rights or disregard them; whether we attack them 
 with or without cause? 
 
 What difference? To ourselves the difference of 
 infinity, the difference between right and wrong. 
 To the surrounding nations, the difference between 
 looking on our power with confidence in our justice 
 and moderation, or with jealous and merited sus- 
 picion. Even to those who may fall under our 
 power there is a great and corresponding difference 
 between an unwilling submission to conquest pro- 
 voked by themselves, and the bitter hatred of wrong. 
 It is much, but not enough that our sway should be 
 felt by a large majority of the inhabitants of India 
 as a blessing; it is a great drawback upon this, a 
 great check to the good which might be otherwise 
 effected, if the establishment of our power is to be 
 associated in the minds of many, and those not the 
 meanest nor the worst of our subjects, with recol- 
 lections, not of defeat only, but of falsehood, injus- 
 tice, hypocrisy. 
 
 It is not true that they are incapable of feeling 
 the difference. None are blind to the nobleness of 
 the combination of the might which could violate 
 
272 PRACTICE AND PRINCIPLES. 
 
 rights with the justice which respects them; none to 
 the hardship of the injustice which openly identifies 
 might with right; above all, none are blind to the 
 baseness of the hypocrisy which, while weighing 
 down the balance with a heavy sword, still protests 
 that it is even. Or if there are any nations in the 
 world thus incapable of distinguishing right and 
 wrong, worth and baseness in the conduct of others, 
 these very Sinde Papers would be enough to show 
 that such are not even the rudest among the Maho- 
 metan nations of India. ee We know you are power- 
 ful; you say you are moderate and just; now is the 
 time to prove it;" this not unfrequently is their tone. 
 They appeal to justice, to generosity; they try the 
 actions of others by a higher standard than they 
 observe themselves. Our actions ought to be above 
 their rule; when we show a grasping and covetous 
 spirit, when we attack the unoffending, when we 
 violate our pledged word, they are far below it. 
 Crimes of this character have before now shaken our 
 growing empire to its basis; it has little now to fear 
 from external assault; but they may yet make it not 
 worth the holding. 
 
 In the most practical point of view the import- 
 ance of India to England is rising every day; it is 
 brought nearer to us every day; the last ten years 
 reducing its distance from months to weeks have 
 done much to connect the tone, the thoughts, the 
 very statemanship of india, with England. The 
 next ten may do much more, and if India is to be a 
 school of political immorality — a field thrown open 
 
INDIA AND ENGLAND. 273 
 
 to u uncontrollable principles/ 5 the lessons learnt 
 there may yet be practised at home. India is not 
 now a money speculation; it is not even, though 
 this is much more, a mere outlet to the enterprise 
 and courage of many for whom there is no worthy 
 place in our crowded island; it is a great trust com- 
 mitted to our hands for purposes to which the dreams 
 of a conqueror are commonplace and ignoble. 
 
 What is our Indian empire? Look in the East 
 India Register, and you will not find it there. You 
 will find lists of mostly undistinguished names, 
 belonging to certain Merchants, Factors, Writers, 
 otherwise and more truly designated as Collectors, 
 Magistrates or Residents ; the dry bones of a living 
 miracle. These few hundred Englishmen, taken 
 almost at random from the educated classes, sup- 
 ported by a small force of English soldiers ten 
 times outnumbered by their native army, govern, 
 judge, or influence one hundred and forty mil- 
 lions. By right and by wrong, by the brain and 
 by the hand, by strength of intellect and of will ; 
 by the calmness of steadfast purpose, by the very 
 rashness of courage, by that confidence of success 
 which fulfils itself, by the sense and proof of supe- 
 riority, they have won and hold this unexampled 
 dominion. To the praise of wisdom and valour they 
 have shown themselves anxious to add that of just 
 and benevolent rule towards those under their sway. 
 It is the most wonderful chapter in the history of 
 mankind: it might be the noblest: if we are true to 
 ourselves and to the principles we profess, it yet will 
 
 n 3 
 
274 THE TRUE END OF EMPIRE. 
 
 be. With every drawback that can be named, with 
 all their faults, national and individual, the English 
 yet represent to the people of India a something 
 above themselves, and better than themselves ; some- 
 thing which they must respect, and might be gra- 
 dually led to imitate, but not if we place obstacles in 
 the way; not if we teach them to make the signifi- 
 cant distinction, " We know that you are powerful; 
 you say that you are just/ 5 
 
 The real mission of England in India is not to 
 crush, but to raise. For this, not only should our 
 strength be feared, as it is, and will be — but our 
 justice undoubted, our generosity acknowledged — 
 above all, our word fixed as the oracle of God. 
 Every broken word, every gratuitous war, every 
 unjust acquisition, not only stains the present inde- 
 libly, but retards or destroys some part of the pro- 
 mise of the future. The many who are indifferent 
 whether these things are done or not, are so far in- 
 different to their duties as English citizens; the few, 
 who having a direct power to check them are equally 
 indifferent, are so far unfit to guide the destinies of 
 England; and those by whom they are deliberately 
 done are false to the best hopes of mankind, and 
 ten times false to the highest glory of their country. 
 
275 
 
 NOTE ON A RECENT ARTICLE IN THE 
 "EDINBURGH REVIEW." 
 
 While the foregoing pages are passing through the 
 press, an article on the conquest of Sinde has appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Review ; an article censuring the conduct 
 throughout both of the Governor-general and of Sir Charles 
 Napier with a severity which would have been more impres- 
 sive had it been less obviously partial. An elaborate state- 
 ment proceeding from such a quarter, and written with 
 much vigour as well as bitterness, is likely to produce a 
 considerable effect upon all who read it ; it is therefore 
 only right to mention that the article in question contains 
 not a few serious misrepresentations, and to support the 
 assertion by noticing some of them. 
 
 Among the points urged most strongly by the Reviewer 
 are the following : — 
 
 That Lord Ellenborough had no real grounds for de- 
 manding a revisal of the treaties. 
 
 That Lord Ellenborough, by the revised treaties, 
 punished the more and the less guilty alike. 
 
 That Lord Ellenborough punished one Ameer over 
 whom he had no pretence of control whatever. 
 
 That this Ameer was punished for an utterly frivolous 
 offence. 
 
 That the final accusation of treachery against the 
 Ameers in the proceedings previous to the battle of 
 Meeanee, is utterly and obviously groundless. 
 
 And that Sir C. Napier, in addition to other indefen- 
 sible proceedings, disavowed an important act which he 
 undoubtedly committed. 
 
2?6 NOTE. 
 
 On some of these heads it is my intention, not so much 
 to argue against the Reviewer's view, as to contrast the 
 statements by which he supports it with the materials on 
 which they are professedly founded, and to show the very 
 serious variances which occasionally exist between the two. 
 
 At page 507, and elsewhere, the Reviewer treating as 
 futile the idea that there was really any ground for appre- 
 hending hostility from the Ameers, speaks of the antici- 
 pated danger, especially after our successes in Affghanistan, 
 not only as a mere and absolute mare's nest, but a posthu- 
 mous mare's nest, discovered after the event to justify the 
 Indian Government's proceedings, and refers to the general 
 opinion of " those best qualified to judge," that the offences 
 in question were not really dangerous. The degree of 
 danger, of course it is open to any one to dispute by fair 
 reasons ; but not by such means as are made use of in the 
 following statement. " The most that the Indian Authori- 
 ties ever attributed to the Ameers was ' acts of intended 
 hostility;' by which ambiguous phrase was meant, not a 
 conspiracy, such as the House of Commons was taught 
 to believe in, but the expression on paper, in two instances, 
 of feelings hostile to us, and the levying of tolls on the 
 River Indus." (Edinburgh Review, p. 507.) 
 
 What kind of conspiracy the House of Commons was 
 taught to believe in no one can say ; it is sometimes taught 
 to believe in strange inventions : but as to the Reviewer's 
 description of " the most that the Indian Authorities ever 
 attributed to the Ameers," it is a description which the 
 House of Commons, should it ever read the Sinde Papers, 
 will hardly be brought to believe. 
 
 At page 352 of the Sinde Correspondence is a Minute 
 containing these words : — " The intelligence which has 
 reached us from various quarters, within the last few days, 
 from Upper and Lower Sinde, renders it in my opinion 
 highly desirable that we should, if possible, strengthen the 
 force now stationed at Kurachee, in order to enable the 
 General Officer commanding in Sinde to call, when the 
 
NOTE. 277 
 
 necessity arises, for reinforcements to the troops now sta- 
 tioned at Sukkur and other places in Upper Sinde. 
 There can be no doubt that most of the Ameers in Upper 
 and Lower Sinde have, for some time past, been engaged 
 in intrigues against us ; in fact, that they only want the 
 power, not the will, to make an attempt, in imitation of 
 the tribes of Afghanistan, to expel us from their country." 
 The Minute goes on to quote extracts from the digests of 
 the Sinde Agencies, which, it is added, "place beyond 
 doubt the hostile spirit and excitement which prevail, and 
 at the same time indicate the cause, which will, if precau- 
 tions are not adopted, probably cause it to break out into 
 active operation." The cause directly alluded to, is "the 
 intelligence of the British having evacuated Candahar, or, 
 as it is here rumoured, having been expelled from it." 
 The Minute continues : — " The above relates to Upper 
 Sinde. In Lower Sinde, if possible, a more hostile spirit 
 exists. * * * These indications ought not to be neg- 
 lected : measures should be adopted either to prevent the 
 Ameers from proceeding to extremities, or to punish them, 
 should such be deemed necessary, for what they have 
 already done." 
 
 The person who writes this Minute, concurred in by 
 another official, may or may not be qualified to judge, 
 but he is at least an Indian Authority, for he is Sir George 
 Arthur, Governor of Bombay. 
 
 On the same subject, and in the same spirit, the Re- 
 viewer, at page 483, says, "that the Governor-general, 
 about the end of August, reverted once more to the possi- 
 bility of turning to account the story, now some months old, 
 of the Ameers' intrigues." 
 
 That is, the Governor-general, about the end of 
 August, was reviving a "story" quite gone by; some 
 months old. The story of the Ameers' intrigues in 
 February or April, was undoubtedly some months old by 
 the end of August ; but the story of the Ameers' intrigues, 
 speaking generally, was by the end of August, not quite 
 
278 NOTE. 
 
 so obsolete. The date of the above Minute by Sir George 
 Arthur is September 2nd, and the Sinde intelligence to 
 which it particularly refers, is that of August 9th and 
 10th. Now as Simla appears to be only about seven 
 or eight days' distance from Sukkur, it may seem not 
 improbable to any one except the Reviewer that the 
 Governor-general when, on August 26th, he penned the 
 letter which "reverts to the possibility of turning to 
 account the story of the Ameers' intrigues," was in posses- 
 sion of the same materials upon which the Governor of 
 Bombay formed the judgment expressed above. 
 
 That Lord Ellenborough was mistaken ; that the 
 Governor of Bombay was mistaken ; that the danger really 
 never existed ; — this is open to any one to contend : but 
 that "the most that the Indian Authorities ever attributed 
 to the Ameers was * acts of intended hostility,' " with the 
 explanation of that phrase given by the Reviewer, — this is 
 a statement which, in the face of the above Minute, it 
 required some, but not admirable, boldness to make. 
 
 In connection with the question of the actual commis- 
 sion of the alleged offences, the Reviewer (page 485) 
 makes by implication a very serious charge against Lord 
 Ellenborough and General Napier. He attributes to the 
 Governor-general the wickedness of urging and hurrying 
 the General, by expressions of his own wishes, to an incon- 
 siderate decision on the point referred to his judgment — 
 the authenticity of the two " treasonable " letters attributed 
 to Meer Roostum Khan and Meer Nusseer Khan ; and he 
 attributes to Sir Charles Napier the baseness of allowing 
 the wishes of the Governor-general to influence his deci- 
 sion on a question which he was bound to decide according 
 to his conscience and conviction. 
 
 The revised treaties were sent to Sir Charles Napier, 
 with the intimation that their enforcement was to depend 
 upon his decision respecting the authenticity of the letters. 
 This is the Reviewer's account of what followed : — 
 
 "A little hesitation on the part of the General — who 
 
NOTE. 279 
 
 now looked a serious responsibility in the face, and was 
 anxious to verify afresh the doubtful points of fact — called 
 forth, on the 24th of November, a second and less equi- 
 vocal expression of the Governor-general's wishes. 'Your 
 force being now collected, I am disposed to think that no 
 delay should take place in communicating to the Ameers 
 the ultimate decision of the British Government with 
 respect to the revision of our engagements with them, 
 which their conduct has compelled us to demand.' Sir 
 Charles Napier could hesitate no longer. He instantly 
 resolved to act. He 'saw his way clearly.' He no longer 
 had the least doubt that Nusseer Mahomed Khan of 
 Hyderabad, and Eoostum Khan of Khyrpore, were guilty 
 of having written, with 'hostile designs,' all the letters 
 imputed to them . . . ." (Edinburgh Review, p. 485.) 
 
 That is, on the receipt of the letter of the 24th of 
 November containing the "less equivocal expression of the 
 Governor-General's wishes," Sir C. Napier, who had before 
 hesitated, hesitated no longer; having before doubted, no 
 longer had the least doubt. He "saw his way clearly," 
 that is, to the conclusion which was not clear to him 
 before; this is what the Reviewer wishes us to believe. 
 Let us see what are the facts of which he thus expresses 
 the result. At page 453 of the Sinde Correspondence 
 is a letter from Sir Charles Napier dated the 17th of 
 November, containing his view of the state of the question 
 respecting these letters: a question which was referred 
 to him by letters which reached him on the 12th, and 
 which he is, on the 17th, answering. He states that he 
 has been trying, as yet unsuccessfully, to procure and 
 submit for Lord Ellenborough's opinion a secret seal of 
 Meer Nusseer Khan's, to be compared with that of the 
 intercepted letter; he adds some circumstances which go 
 to prove its authenticity; and concludes his remarks with 
 these words : — "In short, no one here has any doubt of the 
 authenticity of the letter. But I shall nevertheless en- 
 deavour to get a proof seal." 
 
280 NOTE. 
 
 He next states that the other letter was undoubtedly 
 written by Meer Roostum's confidential minister, the only- 
 question being whether Meer Roostum was privy to it, and 
 that another hostile act attributed to the same minister is 
 equally certain. Lord Ellenborough's letter of the 24th of 
 November is in answer to this of the 17th, and takes up 
 the question on the ground furnished by it, — that is to say, 
 on the belief of Sir Charles Napier, nearly positive already, 
 waiting only for one confirmatory circumstance. "You 
 are much more competent to decide on the spot, as to the 
 authenticity of the letters attributed to Meer Nusseer 
 Khan and Meer Roostum Khan, than I am here, and 1 am 
 prepared to abide by, and to support, your decision. . . ." 
 And shortly afterwards follows "the less equivocal ex- 
 pression of the Governor-general's wishes," quoted by the 
 Reviewer; and dependent, like the other expressions of 
 the Governor-general's views, previous as well as sub- 
 sequent, upon Sir C. Napier's ultimate decision. 
 
 But at any rate the slight doubt on Sir C. Napier's 
 mind was removed by the Governor-general's letter of 
 the 24th? No. On the 18th, the next day after his 
 former letter, Sir C. Napier had written to the Governor- 
 general; "I have procured, not only a similar seal to that 
 of Meer Nusseer Khan's, but on the cover of the letter to 
 which it is attached is writing known to be that of 
 Chotram, the Ameer's confidential moonshee. I inclose 
 both this and the treasonable letter. There now remains 
 no question of the fact." Nor did Sir Charles Napier act 
 till he received an answer to this letter of the 1 8th. 
 
 To make the misrepresentation entirely complete in the 
 less as well in the more important part of the Reviewer's 
 statement, — the words, " He ' saw his way clearly/ " 
 which as used by him mean one thing, as used by Sir C. 
 Napier mean another. The Reviewer means to imply, 
 "He saw his way clearly," a way not clear before, to the 
 conclusion respecting the letters: Sir Charles Napier's 
 words are, "I had no intention of waiting for Major 
 
NOTE. 281 
 
 Outram's arrival, because till we get into the details of 
 the treaty I do not want assistance ; as your Lordship has 
 been so good as not to give me a colleague, I mean to 
 consult no one: / see my way clearly," that is, "I see the 
 course of action which it is expedient to follow with refer- 
 ence to the acceptance of the revised treaty," the question 
 of the letters being a separate and, as far as Sir C. Napier 
 was concerned, a settled one. 
 
 The Reviewer must reconcile his colouring of the facts 
 with these dates and letters, as he best can. Few persons 
 have a keener eye for discrepancies: he has pointed out 
 several in the Blue Book; here is one between his own 
 statement and the facts on which it should have been 
 based, which, if he can reconcile, he need not despair of 
 doing the same for Sir Charles Napier and Lord Ellen- 
 borough. 
 
 Having prepared his readers with this view of the man- 
 ner in which the Indian Government and its representative 
 in Sinde came to the conclusion that the alleged offences 
 had been committed, the Reviewer proceeds to comment 
 on the nature of the offences and the punishment by which 
 they were visited. The offence upon which the penalty 
 inflicted on Meer Nusseer Khan of Hyderabad was 
 mainly justified, was the writing of a particular treasonable 
 letter to a hill chief, Beebruck Boogtie. The Reviewer, 
 speaking of this letter, together with that addressed by 
 Meer Roostum's minister to Shere Singh, sometimes uses 
 expressions in truth applicable only to the latter, which 
 have the air of being a description of both, as in the 
 following words: "Is it then just — is it becoming — that a 
 Government, in the very act of denouncing the foundation 
 of a treaty as a fiction, should come forward and declare a 
 resultless infraction of the least important part of it 
 unpardonable] — a timid protest against its continuance, 
 whispered in the ear of a foreign sovereign, inexcusable?" 
 
 Though the effect of these words is to give a general 
 notion of both the letters, and as far as Meer Nusseer Khan's 
 
282 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 at least is concerned, an incorrect one, the "timid protest" 
 is probably meant to designate the letter to Shere Singh. 
 Certainly Meer Nusseer's letter to the hill chief is of a very 
 different character. To it therefore the other half of the 
 description is meant to apply. It must be the "resultless 
 infraction of the least important part of the treaty." 
 Resultless! — yes, perhaps ultimately resultless, except to 
 the unhappy chief himself; but, as to its being an "infrac- 
 tion of the least important part of a treaty," of which the 
 main object was in Lord Auckland's words, to establish 
 our entire political and military ascendancy in Sinde — let 
 the reader judge, comparing it at the same time with the 
 separate and distinct descriptions of it elsewhere given by 
 the Reviewer. 
 
 Meer Nusseer Khan of Hyderabad 
 
 to Beebruck Boogtie. 
 " To the Asylum of exaltation and 
 happiness. 
 "Prior to this a perwannah was 
 sent to you, and you have no 
 doubt acted up to the orders there- 
 in conveyed, since you are an old 
 and trusty servant of this Sirkar; 
 for this reason you ought to con- 
 sider yourself worthy of the fa- 
 vour of the Sirkar, whose kind- 
 ness is likely to be daily increased 
 towards you; it behoves you, 
 therefore, to exhibit your gallantry 
 and bravery, for you are aware of 
 the treaty between this Sirkar and 
 some people, which was only en- 
 Elsewhere described tered into to gain time, and to put 
 as an "aimless depar- off matters for the moment, and the 
 ture from his pledge" day appears now to have arrived; 
 not to hold intercourse and I also wrote to you before on 
 with foreign powers. this matter; and it is now evident 
 
 directed 
 Boogtie 
 
 "The call 
 to Beebruck 
 did not point to any 
 definite overt act, nor 
 indeed at action of any 
 sort; but merely at a 
 passive state of vigi- 
 lance and prepared- 
 (p. 495.) 
 
NOTE. 
 
 283 
 
 " Though vague in 
 its terms, expressive 
 of undisguised hosti- 
 lity to the British." 
 
 that some people have been worsted 
 by the Ghazees of Khorassan, and 
 are without hope, and are retreat- 
 ing towards Shade; and although 
 by the grace of God and the as- 
 sistance of the Prophet (upon 
 whom be peace!) every arrange- 
 ment that is possible will be made 
 by this Sirkar, to expel them from 
 this country, still you being an 
 especial servant, ought to be of 
 good cheer, and to exhibit a de- 
 gree of courage more than on for- 
 mer occasion, and be ready with 
 your foot in the stirrup, and in 
 expectation of my orders; and 
 also to signify to your brother 
 Beloochees and other mountain 
 tribes, to depend upon the favour 
 of the Sirkar, and to hold them- 
 selves in readiness to act with 
 you, and act according to the 
 orders you will receive from me, 
 and to show courage equal to 
 that of ' Doda Murree,' that your 
 prowess may become known." 
 
 Dodah Murree, it will be recollected, was the brave old 
 Murree chief of Kahun who had driven the English out 
 of his country. Could language be more hostile, more 
 pointed? could language be less accurately described, as 
 "aimless," as not pointing to "to action of any sort"] 
 There is a noble and barbarous strength in it which stirs 
 the blood; it is the letter of a determined though not open 
 enemy. It is of this letter that Lord Ellenborough says, 
 " If there be no doubt that Meer Nusseer Khan addressed 
 the letter attributed to him to Beebruck Boogtie, that letter 
 
284 NOTE. 
 
 alone is a sufficient ground for exacting from Meer Nusseer 
 Khan any penalty which it is allowable to impose on an 
 enemy/' To this opinion we need not altogether subscribe. 
 There is a difference in almost all cases, between the plan, 
 and the act: but no one would have disputed the con- 
 clusion that the letter alone, if authentic, was a sufficient 
 ground for feeling assured that nothing but fear could 
 restrain Nusseer Khan from hostilities, and for taking 
 whatever step of punishment or precaution might seem 
 necessary to restrain him. 
 
 Another point urged strongly by the Reviewer is, the 
 unjust distribution of the penalties among the Ameers. 
 He examines the terms of the revised treaty respecting 
 Lower Sinde, and states that " The result of the new 
 arrangement is, that Meers Nusseer Mahomed Khan, 
 Meer Mahomed Khan, Shahdad Khan, and Hosein Ali 
 Khan; all of Hyderabad, suffer precisely alike. The only 
 remaining Ameer of Lower Sinde, Sobdar Khan, suffers 
 somewhat, but less than his brethren." He proceeds to 
 point out the great disparity between the offences attri- 
 buted to Meer Nusseer, and those of the other Ameers, to 
 denounce vehemently the injustice of punishing them all 
 equally; a denunciation that would be just, if it had not 
 been altogether founded in error. Again, (at p. 500) 
 taking up the cause of Meer Mahomed Khan of Hydera- 
 bad, he says, " Now, the Governor-general says, in his 
 final summing up, ' In his case (Nusseer Mahomed Khan's) 
 the right to make any demand, extending to the cession of 
 territory,' depends upon his being the author of the trea- 
 sonable correspondence. How it happens, then, that the 
 Ameer Meer Mahomed Khan, who is charged with no 
 treasonable correspondence, and with only a third part of 
 the remainder of Nusseer Mahomed's delinquency, is con- 
 demned to ' the cession of territory,' to every other punish- 
 ment inflicted on his more guilty brother, is, to our humble 
 faculties a puzzle, which we wish that Lord Ellenborough's 
 defenders would have the goodness to explain." 
 
NOTE. 285 
 
 The defenders of Lord Ellenborough have at least in 
 this an easy task. The intention of the revised treaty is 
 not that attributed to it by the Reviewer. Though Ar- 
 ticle XL (which provides for the apportionment of the ces- 
 sions among the Ameers, according to the tribute previously 
 payable,) would if it stood alone bear the interpretation, 
 it is perfectly clear from the expressions of the Governor- 
 general, both elsewhere and in the very letter which trans- 
 mits the draft of the treaties to Sir C. Napier, and from 
 the circumstance of his addressing a separate note to Meer 
 Nusseer Khan to be delivered together with a draft of the 
 treaty, that the cessions of land to be so proportioned are 
 those to the British in exchange for, and commensurate 
 with the tribute previously payable ; and that the cession 
 of Subzulkote to the Khan of Bhawulpore is meant for a 
 penalty to fall upon Meer Nusseer Khan alone, of the 
 Lower Sinde Ameers. The others were to lose nothing in 
 revenue; he was to lose the revenue of his share of Sub- 
 zulkote as a penalty for his more active "treason." This 
 is the "cession" which is to be justified on proof of the 
 hostile letter. The terms of the draft of the treaty are 
 what they ought not to have been — inaccurate; but the 
 accompanying circumstances make it clear that their object 
 was in the case of Meer Sobdar, a gain as well as an 
 exchange; in that of three out of the five Lower Sinde 
 Ameers, a mere exchange; in Meer Nusseer Khan's case 
 alone, a penalty as well as an exchange. The Reviewer's 
 interpretation implies that the Governor-general was acting 
 in opposition not only to the views of the political agents 
 in Sinde, but to his own frequently declared intentions. 
 How Major Outram, the commissioner for the details of 
 the treaty, understood it, is quite clear from his letter of 
 January 18*, in which he balances Nusseer Khan's share 
 of Shikarpore, valued at one lac, against his tribute, one 
 lac, for which it would be therefore an exact exchange; 
 
 * No. 27, p. 12, Supplementary Correspondence. 
 
2S6 NOTE. 
 
 and then, suggesting that he may as well be mulcted 
 without compensation of his share of Kurachee, adds, 
 "The fourth share of Kurachee being 25,000 rupees, is 
 all Nusseer Khan would suffer in addition to his share 
 of Subzulkote" his share of Subzulkote being (as appears 
 at p. 445) two-thirds of the whole of that district; the rest 
 belonging to a son of Meer Roostum. 
 
 There were three Ameers, whom it was the intention 
 of the revised treaty to punish in this manner. These 
 were as above, in Lower Sinde, Meer Nusseer of Hydera- 
 bad; in Upper Sinde, Meer Roostum and Meer Nusseer 
 of Khyrpore. A point strongly urged by the Reviewer, 
 is the monstrous injustice of inflicting any penalty on 
 the last-mentioned chief, for his share in the intrigues : 
 and that for two reasons; first, because he was perfectly 
 independent ; next, because he was all but perfectly 
 innocent. 
 
 Nothing need here be added to what has been said in 
 the text, respecting the severity of the penalty inflicted on 
 Upper Sinde ; the undisguised facts, however, do not con- 
 tent the Reviewer. 
 
 There was something of a set-off to the punishment 
 inflicted on Meer Nusseer of Khyrpore, to which the 
 Reviewer thus refers: "It is also due to the Governor- 
 general to state, that, as a set-off to the forfeiture of half 
 this chief's territories, claimed by his Lordship in satisfac- 
 tion of the injury to ' British interests' above described, he 
 actually had the generosity to exempt his victim from 
 ' every claim heretofore made in the name of the late Shah 
 Soojah.' Shah Soojah, whose connexion with us the Go- 
 vernor-general had himself reprobated not many days pre- 
 viously, in stronger terms than are usually found in a 
 public proclamation; Shah Soojah, whose monarchy had 
 been for a year past extinct, and who was himself dead 
 and gone !" 
 
 The claim on Meer Nusseer's father, as well as on the 
 Lower Sinde Ameers, on behalf of Shah Soojah, was 
 
NOTE. 287 
 
 always monstrously unjust; but demanded as it was from 
 the beginning by us, and indirectly for our own purposes, 
 and perpetually claimed as due from 1839 to 1842, (and 
 even, it would appear from a return made by Sir C. 
 Napier, at page 367, having been specially advanced to 
 the Shah on behalf of the Ameers of Upper Sinde, that 
 is, of Meer Mobaruck,) it was due as much in 1842 as in 
 1839; but the Governor-general was quite right in relin- 
 quishing the claim. The candid Reviewer, however, omits 
 the fact, that the revised treaty also goes on in the same 
 sentence to exempt Meer Nusseer Khan from the " annual 
 tribute, and the arrears thereof, on his own behalf," 
 which had been also imposed on his father, as the one 
 hostile Ameer of Upper Sinde, as a distinct penalty for 
 his conduct in 1839, the claim for which had been 
 perpetually kept up, though never embodied in a definite 
 treaty; and whether originally right or wrong, could in 
 no way be weakened by the downfall or death of Shah 
 Soojah. 
 
 The Reviewer, however, maintains that Meer Nusseer 
 Khan of Khyrpore was in 1842 practically and perfectly 
 independent, and the circumstances from which he deduces 
 this conclusion, as stated by himself, are these: — "Meer 
 Nusseer Khan . . . stands exactly in his father's position ; 
 Meer Mobaruck (his father) being considered inimical to 
 the views of the British, was, during the original discus- 
 sions of 1838, refused the favourable terms (favourable as 
 compared with those exacted at Hyderabad,) which were ex- 
 tended to the other three members of the Khyrpore family; 
 and he was required, as the condition of a British guarantee, 
 to contribute seven lacs of rupees as a donation to Shah 
 Soojah, and one lac annually as a fixed tribute to ourselves. 
 To this he naturally demurred." Owing to various circum- 
 stances, "the issue was put off from year to year, till at the 
 close of 1841, Meer Nusseer Khan, the heir of Mobaruck, 
 found himself in precisely the same position as that in 
 
288 NOTE. 
 
 which Sir Alexander Burnes found* his father four years 
 before. The Indian Government still continued unable to 
 do more than threaten him with an attack from Shah 
 Soojah, unless he bought a guarantee from them on their 
 own terms; and the waning power of the Shah was ren- 
 dering such a threat every day less formidable, till ulti- 
 mately the King's death, and the extinction of his mo- 
 narchy, left Meer Nusseer Khan, at the moment of Sir 
 Charles Napier's arrival, in perfect independence, — in no 
 no danger from any foreign power, — unshackled by a single 
 engagement to the British," &c. (Review, page 490.) 
 
 This is really a strange kind of independence. Meer 
 Mobaruck, or his heir and representative, existed and had 
 existed since 1839, like the other princes of Upper Sinde, 
 by virtue of abstaining from opposition to the British 
 Government ; only the exact degree of severity to be in- 
 flicted on him for his former opposition had never been 
 positively and finally settled. The British Government had 
 uniformly regarded him as standing in a worse, not better, 
 position than the other Ameers ; as a debtor as well as a 
 subject; and accordingly we find that in 1840 and 1841 
 the British Political Agents were more than once proposing 
 to their Government to put an end to the excuses and 
 evasions of payment by attaching portions of the lands of 
 this independent prince; a course which Lord Auckland, 
 with very proper forbearance, declined to sanction ; among 
 other reasons, because the proportion in which Meer Mo- 
 baruck's wealth was divided among his sons, and the con- 
 sequent ability to pay of his principal heir, was not exactly 
 known. To say that the Indian Government were "un- 
 able to do more than threaten him with an attack from 
 Shah Soojah," is an assertion which refutes itself. It is 
 really absurd to maintain, that because Meer Mobaruck had 
 
 • " Found" implies a fallacy. Sir A. Burnes had undoubtedly 
 found his father independent ; the question is how Sir A. Burnes left 
 his father. 
 
NOTE. 289 
 
 entreated the same terms as were granted to the other Khyr- 
 pore Ameers, and had been refused them; because severer 
 terms had been thought more appropriate to his case ; and 
 because, consequently, the Government of India, though 
 forbearing to force the claim to a final settlement, had 
 been regarding him and his heir since 1839, not only as, 
 like the other Khyrpore Ameers, dependent, but as, unlike 
 them, tributary; therefore Lord Ellenborough, in 1842, 
 was bound to regard Meer Nusseer of Khyrpore as com- 
 pletely independent of the Government to which his more 
 friendly relatives were, on more favourable terms, con- 
 fessedly subservient ; to treat him as completely at liberty 
 to engage to any extent in the hostile intrigues, which 
 would have been punishable in them, without the British 
 Government's having a right to charge him with offending 
 against the existing relations between itself and him. 
 
 Having, however, thus established the political right 
 of this Ameer to take with impunity whatever steps he 
 might think right as against the English, the Reviewer 
 proceeds to aggravate the case of injustice against the 
 Indian Government, by asserting that Meer Nusseer Khan 
 of Khyrpore had committed no offence, even had he 
 been ever so dependent, at all of a character to call for a 
 penalty; and quotes, in support of his assertion, from the 
 Blue Book the only individual offence recorded against 
 him in the " return of complaints," at page 370, against 
 the Ameers of Khyrpore. It is this: — "Syud Bahadoor 
 Ali, agent of Meer Nusseer Khan at Khyrpore, placing in 
 the stocks and otherwise maltreating the servant of a 
 British officer, and no punishment inflicted on the offender 
 by the Ameer, his master." 
 
 Having stated and commented on this case, the Re- 
 viewer, in speaking of the Governor-general, slightly mis- 
 quotes a declaration of his, to the effect that Meer Nusseer 
 is, " as the Governor-general is informed, in the position of 
 an enemy," and then assures his "readers, however incre- 
 dible it may appear, that this is the whole of the case 
 
 o 
 
2 90 NOTE. 
 
 against this Ameer, and that he has suppressed nothing." 
 This is the literal truth. It is the only case stated in a 
 short "return of complaints" against the Ameers of Upper 
 Sinde; beyond which, the Reviewer tells us, we need not 
 look ; and certainly we need not for his purpose. It oc- 
 curred on the 28th of September, immediately before the 
 making out the return, which is probably the reason why 
 it was inserted. It was therefore upon this case, the Re- 
 viewer would have us believe, that Major Outram founded 
 such statements as the following, dated May 23rd (page 
 319), "There is, I consider, sufficient to convict Mee 
 Nusseer Khan of Hyderabad, and his namesake of Khyr- 
 pore, whenever it may please his Lordship to take notice 
 of their inimical proceedings." 
 
 Or the following, dated June 26th, which of itself suffi- 
 ciently indicates to what extent the Reviewer would be 
 supported by Major Outram in representing Meer Nusseer 
 Khan of Khyrpore as practically independent of the 
 British Government in 1842. "That chiefs (Meer Roos- 
 tum's) hitherto uniform friendliness to the British Govern- 
 ment may fairly entitle him to more lenient treatment for 
 his recent infidelity than is due either to Meer Nusseer 
 Khan of Hyderabad .... or his namesake of Khyrpore, 
 whose late father's hostility deprived his family of the 
 claim to pecuniary remission and exemption from tribute 
 granted to Meers Roostum Khan and Ali Moorad, and 
 whose own concern in the late intrigues entitles him to no 
 consideration." ..." Deprivation of this (Sukkur) would 
 be a trifling punishment for his concern in the late 
 intrigues." 
 
 And the following (page 368), which occurs in Major 
 Outram's " remarks" on Sir C. Napier's observations. 
 
 " 10th paragraph. The parties who have most deeply 
 committed themselves are Meers Roostum and Nusseer 
 Khan of Khyrpore and Meer Nusseer of Hyderabad." 
 
 This last remark, it must be confessed, is made after 
 the occurrence of the offence recorded in the return; in- 
 
NOTE. 291 
 
 deed, it is forwarded together with the return, and is 
 written six days after the date of the return ; but it has 
 hardly the appearance of being founded exclusively on the 
 return. Indeed, the heinous and single offence does not 
 appear to have added much to the strength of Major 
 Outram's expressions respecting Nusseer Khan of Khyr- 
 pore's hostility. 
 
 Mere exaggerative mis-statements of the amount of 
 the penalties inflicted by the revised treaties on the 
 Ameers, are comparatively, perhaps, unimportant, though 
 calculated to mislead many readers; but coming from a 
 writer quite capable of accuracy, and affecting to observe 
 it in details, they show an animus which it is worth while 
 in one instance to expose. " One-third of the Sinde terri- 
 tories, and one-half of the Sinde shikargahs, and the whole 
 of the Sinde coinage," were, in the Reviewer's rhetorical 
 language, to be delivered to the English. 
 
 For " one-third" of the Sinde territories, read, less than 
 a third of the territory of Upper Sinde, which was far 
 inferior to that of Lower Sinde. 
 
 For " one-half of the Sinde shikargahs," read, a con- 
 ditional right to cut wood in the shikargahs within " one 
 hundred yards of the banks of the Indus." If the conces- 
 sion of this right on the part of the Ameers would have 
 sacrificed a half of their shikargahs, they have been most 
 unjustly censured for the extent of their preserves, " the 
 vast tracts," of which the average width was at most two 
 hundred yards. 
 
 For " the whole of the Sinde coinage," an expression 
 without any meaning at all, but used as conveying a vague 
 idea of very extensive confiscation, it should be the right 
 of coinage. 
 
 The view respecting the ultimate treachery of the 
 Ameers given in the text is that deduced on the whole 
 from a comparison of all the circumstances as stated in the 
 Blue Book. The opposite view is taken by the Reviewer. 
 An argument on the subject would be endless ; one remark, 
 
 o2 
 
292 NOTE. 
 
 however, is necessary. The alleged treachery of the 
 Ameers (consisting mainly in their protestations that they 
 could not restrain the Beloochees from the hostilities of 
 which they were themselves the instigators, and for which 
 they had been and were making deliberate preparations,) 
 may, perhaps, be capable of disproof; but it is not dis- 
 proved by the undoubted fact that they warned Major 
 Outram of his danger ; assured him that their people were 
 beyond their control, and attempted to make him leave 
 the capital. That they, or some of them, were anxious to 
 save Major Outram personally there cannot be a question ; 
 and there is no reason for denying to their conduct in this 
 respect the credit of having been dictated by really good 
 feelings as well as by obvious policy. But this does not 
 settle the question of the imputed treachery. 
 
 With respect, however, to some of the grounds brought 
 forward in the Blue Book for accusing the Ameers of trea- 
 chery, the Reviewer makes the following statement. 
 " They" (i. e., Lord Ellenborough and Sir C. Napier,) 
 "persist in the charge of treachery, and they support it 
 — how? By evidence collected months after the event, 
 from certain obscure native followers of the Ameers, who 
 have not objected to do the British Government, now 
 ascendant in Sinde, a paltry favour at the expense of their 
 old masters ! We have read these depositions, signed by 
 the British commissioners, and British magistrate and col- 
 lector of Hyderabad, with unqualified disgust." 
 
 The depositions to which the Reviewer alludes will be 
 found at the end of the Supplementary Papers, No. 178, 
 182; they consist of the reports of two separate conver- 
 sations. One of them (178) is headed, " Evidence given 
 by Peer Budroodeen," confidential servant of one of the 
 Ameers. There seems no reason to discredit his evidence, 
 of which, though most points are against the Ameers, some 
 are for them ; but he may, perhaps, be called with truth an 
 obscure native follower. The other is a memorandum of 
 a conversation between Lieutenant Rathborne on the one 
 

 NOTE. 293 
 
 side, and Meer Gholam Shah, Meer Fuzzil Ali, and Meer 
 Bijjur, on the other side. Who are these men? "The 
 Meers Gholam Shah and Fuzzil Ali are nephews of the 
 ex-Ameer Meer Mahomed, their mother having been his 
 sister; and Meer Bijjur is brother-in-law of the ex- Ameer 
 Shahdad, his sister being Meer Shahdad's wife." These 
 men may have, or may not have been trustworthy; but 
 there is one thing which they evidently are not, — "obscure 
 native followers." Their evidence, like that of Peer Bud- 
 roodeen, is in some points in favour of the Ameers, in 
 others against them ; it goes to prove that Meer Nusseer 
 of Hyderabad ordered the attack on the Residency; (this, 
 however, as they distinctly state, is not of their own 
 personal knowledge,) that Meer Shahdad of Hyderabad 
 headed it, and that Meer Mahomed remonstrated strongly 
 against it. Any inference from the style of a conversation 
 is of course hazardous; but as far as one can judge, the 
 tone of the evidence of these chiefs is that of truth and 
 candour. If they are liars, they are better dissemblers 
 than their relations and former masters; so much so, that 
 far from exciting " unqualified disgust," this conversation 
 is calculated to give to all who read it a very favourable 
 impression of the demeanour and character of Beloochee 
 chieftains ; more calculated by far to awaken sympathy in 
 their behalf than anything that has been said by the 
 Reviewer. 
 
 The Reviewer closes his narrative of the events which 
 terminated in the annexation of Sinde to the British 
 dominions with a note respecting the fate of the Ameer 
 Shere Mahomed of Meerpore ; it is as follows : — 
 
 " The Ameer Shere Mahomed of Meerpore was over- 
 looked at the time of the imposition of the revised treaty, 
 but he did not on that account escape. His history is 
 shortly this : — that he stands charged, in the Return of 
 Complaints, with having allowed his tribute to fall in 
 arrear ; that he remained neuter till after the battle of 
 Meeanee, when he sent to know what terms he might 
 
294 NOTE. 
 
 expect ; ' that he was ordered to disperse his troops : that 
 he delayed to do so, was threatened by Sir Charles Napier, 
 and finally referred to the same terms as those granted his 
 brother chiefs (they were all prisoners of war) ; that seeing 
 there was no hope from submission, he preferred the alter- 
 native of arms, and was the leader in that second desperate 
 and, for the Beloochees, unsuccessful action, which took 
 place close to Hyderabad; and that he is at this moment 
 a wanderer among the mountains, without house or home.'" 
 
 The part of this statement marked with single inverted 
 commas is apparently quoted by the Reviewer from some 
 one ; but as he adopts it, it must be considered as his own 
 misrepresentation — indeed, more than misrepresentation — 
 of the case, as shown in the Blue Book. It distinctly 
 imputes Shere Mahomed's present state to Sir Charles 
 Napier's unjust harshness ; it implies that the Ameer, 
 though overlooked in the revised treaty, had reason to 
 expect injury; that nevertheless he stood neutral ; that, on 
 sending to know what terms he might expect, he was 
 required to disperse his troops, without mention of any 
 terms, except "finally . . . those granted his brother 
 chiefs." 
 
 Now for the facts. On February 11th, Sir Charles 
 Napier addressed a letter to Meer Shere Mahomed of 
 Meerpore, apparently in answer to some inquiry from that 
 chief, which is not given. The letter is as follows : — " No 
 hostility has to my knowledge been committed by you. 
 There is no mention of your name in the treaty, nor is 
 there any intention of dispossessing you of any of your land, 
 or doing anything displeasing to you. The British Go- 
 vernment makes war on its enemies, but not on its friends. 
 With regard to the tribute, be so good as to make it over 
 to Mr. Brown, who is now at Hyderabad. I hope you will 
 not allow any of the Ameers of Khyrpore to have any 
 troops within your territories*." It is obvious that the 
 
 Supplementary Correspondence, page 33. 
 
NOTE. 295 
 
 tone of this letter is decidedly and intentionally friendly. 
 But the Ameer Shere Mahomed of Meerpore, like a brave 
 Beloochee as he was, collected 10,000 men to fight on the 
 side of their countrymen. With these he was in full 
 march for Meeanee. He had already, Sir Charles Napier 
 states*, arrived within six miles of the field, when he 
 heard that the great battle was lost, which had he been 
 present would probably have been won. (This is what the 
 Reviewer calls neutrality). He retraced his steps, and sent 
 to Sir Charles Napier a letter, of which the General was 
 induced by Major Outram's generous advice, to assume the 
 truth. The letter is not given, but its tendency may be 
 inferred from the General's answer, which the Reviewer 
 may see (if he has not already seen it,) at p. 47 of the 
 Supplementary Correspondence. 
 
 jSir G. Napier to Meer Shere Mahomea\ 
 
 "February 18, 1843. 
 
 "Syud Imambree, your deputy, came to me with a 
 message from you, that your Highness is the friend of the 
 British, and you did not march with your army beyond 
 your own territory in this fight; therefore I approve of 
 your Highness' message. And now it is necessary that 
 you should disperse your troops you have with you, and 
 so keep no one with you (in the shape of any army) ; and 
 if I find that your Highness has any collected, I shall 
 attack them. If you disperse your troops and keep no one 
 with you, I shall reckon you just the same as before, — 
 friend and ally of the British" 
 
 This is holding out no hopes from submission ! A 
 fortnight after this, (March 3rd,) on finding that Shere 
 Mahomed had no intention of making submission, but was 
 rallying the Beloochees, Sir C. Napier writes to threaten 
 him with punishmentt, unless " he would come to his camp, 
 
 Supplementary Correspondence, p. 92. 
 -)• Page 48. 
 
296 NOTE. 
 
 to prove his innocence." Ten days later, (March 13th,) 
 Shere Mahomed had 20,000 (said to be 30,000) men round 
 him. It must have been at or about this time (the date 
 is not mentioned,) that he sent to Sir C. Napier a letter, 
 to which the General thus afterwards refers : — " You sent 
 a most insolent letter to me by vakeels. You offered that 
 if I would capitulate, you would let me quit the country. 
 I gave your vakeels the only answer such a letter deserved, 
 namely, that I would answer you with my cannon." 
 "Finally" it was, that (on the 19th March,) as an open 
 and most dangerous enemy, he was "referred" to the 
 same terms as those granted to the other Ameers ; that is, 
 to surrender as a prisoner of war. Like a brave man he 
 refused; he fought the battle bravely, and escaped from 
 it ; a result for which, we may be sure, Sir Charles Napier 
 was not sorry. That a brave chief should now be "a 
 wanderer among the mountains, without house or home," 
 merely because the English chose to connect themselves 
 with Sinde, — this is a subject of painful regret, but not a 
 befitting groundwork for unjust accusations. 
 
 Finally, it is necessary to notice the most serious charge 
 brought by the Reviewer against Sir C. Napier. It is very 
 like one of the most serious charges which can be brought 
 against any man ; the charge of denying a fact known by 
 him to be true. " It wears," in the Reviewer's statement, 
 and in his phrase, " a rather dark aspect." Let us look at 
 the " dark aspect" first, and then try whether some light 
 cannot be thrown upon both the darkness and its 
 originator. 
 
 " What was the reason assigned by Sir Charles Napier 
 for refusing to re-open the question of the Turban, when 
 grounds, apparently so sufficient, were brought forward by 
 the Ameers, and by Meer Roostum in person, for his doing 
 so 1 His words are as follows : — 
 
 1 Roostum's plea of being sent to Ali Moorad by me is a shallow 
 affair. * * * * I will not let his cunning attempt to cast his conduct 
 upon my advice, pass. He went contrary to my advice, and now 
 
NOTE. 297 
 
 wants to make out that he acted by it. I send you a copy of my 
 letter; a return to the Turban is, I think, out of the question, &c.,' 
 (Supplementary Papers, page 32.) 
 
 " The same thing is urged in a paper of explanations 
 sent to the Governor-general some months subsequently : — 
 
 • By my advice to Meer Roostum' (which, let the reader observe, 
 was not given till it was asked,) ' I secured to him the powerful pro- 
 tection of the British Government. This he did not choose to accept ; 
 he went to his brother. ' (Supplementary Papers, page 114.) 
 
 " Now the original document, a copy of which was sent 
 to Major Outram with the letter first quoted, is couched 
 in the following terms : — 
 
 " Sir C. Napier to Meer Roostum. 
 " Highness. My own belief is that, personally, you have ever 
 been the friend of the English ; but you are helpless among your 
 ill-judging family. I send this by your brother his Highness Ali 
 Moorad; listen to his advice; trust yourself to his care; you 
 are too old for war, and if battle begin, how can I protect you ? If 
 you go to your brother, you may either remain with him or I will 
 send an escort for you to bring you to my camp, where you will be 
 safe. Follow my advice ; it is that of a friend. Why should I be 
 your enemy ? If I was, why should I take this trouble to save you ? 
 I think you will believe me; but do as you please.' 
 
 " To complete the confusion we find (at page 6 of the 
 Supplementary Papers) the following proclamation by Sir 
 Charles Napier. 
 
 i Camp, near Khyrpore, January 1, 1843. 
 
 ' Ameers, and People of Sinde. His Highness the Ameer 
 Roostum Khan sent a secret messenger to me, to say that he was in 
 the hands of his family, and could not act as his feelings of friend- 
 ship for the English nation prompted him to do, and that if I would 
 receive him, he would escape and come into my camp. I answered 
 his Highness that I would certainly receive him; but that my 
 advice was for him to consult with his brother the Ameer Ali Moorad 
 Khan. He took my advice. He went to the fort of Dejee to his 
 brother. When I heard this I was glad.'' 
 
 " The difficulty is not to be disguised "' 
 
 (Edinburgh Review, p. 526.) 
 
 True. The difficulty, indeed, is not to be disguised, nor 
 
298 NOTE. 
 
 is the meaning of the Reviewer's cautious word, difficulty, 
 to be disguised; but there is one thing, which is disguised 
 by the quotations made by the Reviewer, and that is — the 
 truth. It is a disguise, however, easily removed. 
 
 In the first place, no one can fail to make the obvious 
 remark, that as Sir C. Napier actually transmits along 
 with these statements a copy of the letter which, and which 
 alone, supplies the means of contradicting him, there is 
 some difficulty in reconciling with his conduct the deli- 
 berate intention to mislead, which the Reviewer deduces 
 from his words. It is very clear that whatever else Sir C. 
 Napier may be, he is not a fool. One looks, therefore, 
 upon the contrast as on a puzzle, of which there must be 
 some explanation somewhere, though it is difficult to 
 anticipate its nature. At last, one turns from the Review 
 to the original, and there the explanation is found. Those 
 asterisks have done it all. The passage, (page 32) in its 
 unmangled state, stands thus : — 
 
 " Roostum's plea of being sent to Ali Moorad by me is 
 a shallow affair ; because, in the first place, he sent a secret 
 message (by Moyadeen, I believe Brown told me,) to say 
 he was to all intents a prisoner in Khyrpore, and that he 
 had tried to send away his family, and was obliged to 
 bring them back, after they were on their road, and that 
 he would escape and come to my camp. Brown knows all 
 this matter. The messenger said he (Roostum) would do 
 whatever I advised. My answer was, ' Take your bro- 
 ther's advice ; go to him, and either stay with him, or I 
 will escort you to my camp.' His flying from his bro- 
 ther's camp proves that he was not a prisoner; his not 
 flying to mine proves either his duplicity or his imbecility, 
 — I believe the latter; but imbecility is not a legitimate 
 excuse for rulers. I have only to deal with his acts ; he 
 played you the same trick ; he even now stands out ; he 
 cannot say Ali Moorad still influences him. I believe he 
 did at first, but does not now ; and I am half inclined now 
 
NOTE. 299 
 
 to doubt the fact, though I did not do so at first ; but as I 
 said the intrigues of these people are nothing to me, only I 
 will not let his cunning attempt to cast his conduct upon 
 my advice, pass. He went contrary to my advice, and now 
 wants to make out that he acted by it. I send you a copy 
 of my letter." " Any petition the Ameers like to send to 
 the Supreme Government it will be my duty to forward, 
 and I shall do so with pleasure." " The return • to the 
 Turban is, I think, out of the question. I will only agree 
 to it by an order, which I do not believe will be given ; 
 however, I will not prevent a petition on that or any other 
 subject." 
 
 " Roostum s plea of being sent to A li Moorad by me is a 
 shallow affair'* It is evident from the context that Sir C. 
 Napier intends neither to deny nor to disguise that he 
 advised Roostum to go to Ali Moorad ; what he means is, 
 not that Roostum's " plea of being sent to Ali Moorad by 
 me," is false in fact ; but that as a plea it is shallow ; that 
 the defence of his conduct, founded by Meer Roostum on 
 that fact, is " a shallow affair ;" "because," and then he pro- 
 ceeds to give an outline of the facts. " I will not let his 
 attempt to cast his conduct upon my advice, pass f that is, 
 " I will not allow him to shelter his conduct by the plea, 
 that it was owing to my advice;" having before stated 
 and truly stated, what his advice was. 
 
 Sir C. Napier speaks of Meer Roostum's conduct 
 generally — and in particular of what he has just men- 
 tioned, of his "flying from his brother's camp and then 
 not flying to mine," — neither of which steps, certainly, 
 were involved in, or in accordance with Sir C. Napier's 
 advice to him to "take his brother's advice; go to him, 
 and either stay with him, or I will escort you to my 
 camp." 
 
 "He went contrary to my advice." Although the 
 words, "My answer was, take your brother's advice; go 
 to him, and either stay with him, &c," occur within ten 
 
300 NOTE. 
 
 lines of these words, the Reviewer quotes them in the 
 manner and with the meaning which as separately quoted 
 by him, they of necessity bear : that Roostum went to Ali 
 Moorad, contrary to the General's advice. The obvious 
 meaning is, "he followed a course contrary to my 
 advice." 
 
 That the words of Sir C. Napier should directly con- 
 tradict- his acts is, to say the least, unlikely; that Sir C. 
 Napier of all men should directly contradict himself within 
 few lines is too absurd to be believed. Whether it is 
 possible that any one, carefully reading the whole of this 
 passage, could attribute to the words quoted by the 
 Reviewer, and especially to the word went, the mean- 
 ing which, as quoted separately by him, they undoubtedly 
 convey; this is a question, however natural, the answer 
 to which concerns no one, except the Reviewer. 
 
 To the words in Sir Charles Napier's letter to Meer 
 Roostum, "You are too old for war, and if battle begin 
 how can I protect you?" the Reviewer seems by italicizing 
 them to assign the meaning: Do not come to me, for I 
 cannot protect you ; a meaning which enables him to 
 throw upon Sir Charles Napier the onus of another con- 
 tradiction to his subsequent statement. But again, the 
 Reviewer's interpretation is confuted by the context. 
 What does he make Sir C. Napier say 1 ? Bo not come to me, 
 for I cannot protect you, but go to your brother, and either 
 stay with him, "or I will escort you to my camp, where you 
 will be safe." Do not come here, where you will not be 
 safe : but either go elsewhere, or come here, where you will 
 be safe. Likely nonsense for Sir Charles Napier to write — 
 almost as likely as that he of all Generals should say, 
 "I cannot protect a suppliant in my camp." Did Sir C. 
 Napier mean to say that he could not protect his own 
 standard? his own head quarters'? The meaning of Sir 
 Charles, of course, is, "You are, I believe, our friend: but 
 war may arise between us, and you in the hands of your 
 
NOTE. 301 
 
 family: 'you are too old for war/ and how can I protect 
 you if battle between us was once begun 1" 
 
 The second passage quoted by the Reviewer is, simi- 
 larly with the first, perverted from its meaning by the 
 omission what precedes it. As it stands, Sir C. Napier 
 seems to assert that he advised Meer Roostum to place 
 himself under his care: that Meer Roostum rejected this 
 advice, and went to his brother, contrary to the General's 
 advice. Now, take the passage with the context of the 
 two sentences immediately preceding it, and its whole 
 meaning is modified. 
 
 " The proposal of Meer Roostum to come into my camp 
 offered me an easy remedy for this evil ; and having 
 adopted the high opinion which Major Outram entertained 
 of Ali Moorad, I had no hesitation in recommending his 
 brother to seek his protection, and be advised by him : but I 
 beg the reader to bear in mind, for it is a matter of first- 
 rate importance, and one upon which the whole gist of the 
 matter depends, that while advising Meer Roostum to be 
 guided by his brother, yet having suspicions, in despite of 
 the high character given to me by Major Outram of that 
 brother, that some intrigue must be going on, I gave Meer 
 Roostum the option and invitation of coming to my camp 
 and putting himself under my protection. I repeat the 
 word ' must,' because it is utterly impossible for me to 
 believe that any Eastern Divan can act without intrigue. 
 By my advice to Meer Roostum, which let the reader 
 observe was not given till it was asked, I secured to Meer 
 Roostum the honourable and powerful protection of 
 the British Government. This he did not choose to 
 accept : he went to his brother, and then he fled from 
 his brother with his usual vacillating imbecility, &c." 
 
 Compare this whole statement with the letter to Meer 
 Roostum, and they will not be found to differ. Compare 
 with the letter the two last sentences as quoted by the 
 Reviewer, and the apparent contradiction is — what he 
 
302 NOTE. 
 
 wishes it to be. I advised him, says Sir Charles Napier, 
 to go to his brother ; but I gave him the option of com- 
 ing into my camp : " this he did not choose to accept ;" 
 that is, he did not avail himself of the option — he first took 
 the other course ; " and then he fled from his brother " 
 this, from whatever cause proceeding, was contrary to Sir 
 C. Napier's advice, which directed Meer Roostum either to 
 stay with his brother j " or I will send an escort for you to 
 bring you to my camp, where you will be safe." This was 
 the whole purport of Sir C. Napier's advice : Roostum 
 went to his brother, and so far followed it : he neither 
 remained with his brother nor came to the British camp ; 
 and therein he did not follow it. Sir C. Napier may have 
 been — he was — wrong in refusing to reopen the question of 
 the Turban ; he may have been wrong in attributing dupli- 
 city to Roostum ; Roostum's conduct may have been, in 
 truth, the consequence of his advice : to maintain this, is 
 very different from insinuating, and attempting to show, 
 by garbled extracts, that Sir Charles Napier ever denied 
 having given the advice which he undoubtedly gave ; and 
 this is what the Reviewer has, without directly asserting, 
 most distinctly attributed to him. It might perhaps have 
 been better to have left such a charge by an anonymous 
 writer against such a man, to be answered by the old 
 appeal, " Utri creditis, Quirites V 
 
 I have noticed the Reviewer's opinion on the conquest 
 of Sinde solely because of the "distortion of facts" by 
 which, to use a phrase which he has not scrupled to apply 
 to Sir Charles Napier, he has in part supported it. Hardly 
 any view can be taken of our connection with Sinde 
 which will not exhibit much to blame, much to grieve 
 over. That the beginning of that connection should have 
 passed almost unnoticed, while the end has been severely 
 censured ; this is in accordance with the general tendency 
 of men to stop at the nearest cause j to visit the later agents 
 in a transaction whose result they disapprove, with the 
 
NOTE. 303 
 
 undivided blame of an event for which they are seldom, in 
 truth, so much as half responsible; a natural but unjust 
 tendency, and as such congenial to a partisan. The cause 
 of right will not be advanced by a writer, who, in the 
 professed service of impartial justice, has not scrupled 
 occasionally to make use of means going beyond even the 
 large licence which legal expediency has conceded to advo- 
 cates, and political practice to faction. 
 
London • 
 
 Harrison and Co., Printkrs 
 
 St. Martin's Lanr. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 TRpi Tfi 
 
 22Ma/64DW 
 
 RECD LP 
 
 HAY Xg'64 -3 P M 
 
 RECO 
 
 APR20"66 C 
 
 Mft R 31 B> 
 
 "A** «S7l«(li 
 
 l4May'58LA 
 
 REC D L p 
 
 MY 51958 
 
 Sh t 
 
 ,LD 21-50m-8,*57 
 
 (C8481sl0)476 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
yd 26437