History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ agent were basking in the royal sunshine at Teheran, and were entertained as guests of the prime minister, the representative of Great Britain was told that he must conduct his negotiations and content himself with the countenance of lesser dignitaries of state. Persian officers were instructed to amuse the British envoys, and to gain time. “The earnest desire of the king,” wrote the prime minister to Nussur-ood-Dowlah, at Shiraz, “is to procrastinate, and to avoid all decided measures. You must, therefore, amuse General Malcolm by offering your assistance;” and in this and other letters the local officers at Shiraz were instructed by every means in their power to detain Captain Pasley at that place; but he had departed before they were received, or it is difficult to say in what manner the imperial mandate might not have been obeyed.[34] “A consideration of all these things,” wrote Captain Pasley to Government, “induces me to conclude that the subsisting alliance between the Government of France and Persia is more intimate than we have yet imagined—that its nature is more actively and decidedly hostile to our interests than has hitherto been suspected, and that the reliance of the king on the promises and assurances of the French agents must be founded on better grounds than have yet come to our knowledge.”[35]

      Chafed and indignant at the conduct of the Persian Court, General Malcolm at once came to the determination to return immediately to Calcutta, and to report to the Supreme Government the mortifying result of his mission. On the 12th of July he sailed from Bushire, leaving the charge of the embassy in the hands of Captain Pasley, who remained at his post only to be insulted, and at last narrowly escaped being made prisoner by a precipitate retreat from the Persian dominions.[36] The failure of the mission, indeed, was complete. Persia continued to make professions of friendship to the British Government; but it was obvious that at that moment neither British diplomacy nor British gold, which was liberally offered, could make any way against the dominant influence of the French mission. Napoleon’s officers were drilling the Persian army, casting cannon, and strengthening the Persian fortresses by the application, for the first time, to their barbaric defences, of that science which the French engineers had learnt in such perfection from the lessons of Vauban and Cormontagne.

      Of the wisdom of Malcolm’s abrupt departure from Bushire, different opinions may be entertained. On the day after he embarked for Calcutta, one of the most sagacious men then in India was seated at his writing-table discoursing, for Malcolm’s especial benefit, on the advantages of delay. “As to the real question,” wrote Sir James Mackintosh to the Brigadier-General, “which you have to decide in the cabinet council of your own understanding, whether delay in Persia be necessarily and universally against the interests of Great Britain, it is a question on which you have infinitely greater means of correct decision than I can pretend to, even if I were foolish enough, on such matters, to aspire to any rivalship with a man of your tried and exercised sagacity. I should just venture in general to observe, that delay is commonly the interest of the power which is on the defensive. As long as the delay lasts, it answers the purpose of victory, which, in that case, is only preservation. It wears out the spirit of enterprise necessary for assailants, especially such as embark in very distant and perilous attempts. It familiarises those who are to be attacked with the danger, and allows the first panic time to subside. It affords a chance that circumstances may become more favourable; and to those who have nothing else in their favour, it leaves at least the ‘chapter of accidents.’ ”[37] The ‘chapter of accidents’ is everything in Oriental diplomacy. Malcolm, too impetuous to profit by it, left his successor to reap the harvest of altered circumstances. Sir Harford Jones, who had been waiting his opportunity at Bombay, entered the arena of diplomacy a few months later than Malcolm, and his progress was a long ovation. It was the ‘chapter of accidents’ that secured his success.

      On the first receipt of intelligence of General Malcolm’s withdrawal, Lord Minto despatched a letter to Sir Harford Jones, urging him to proceed to Persia with the least possible delay. But he very soon revoked those orders, and addressed to the English envoy stringent communications, desiring him to remain at Bombay.[38] Malcolm had reached Calcutta in the interval; and set forth, in strong colours, the nature of the influence that had been opposed to his advance, and mapped out a plan of action which, in his estimation, it would now be expedient to adopt. Lord Minto appears to have fallen readily into the views of the military diplomatist; but he failed altogether to cut short the career of Sir Harford Jones. Letters travelled slowly in those days; and before the missive of the Governor-General, ordering his detention, had reached Bombay, the vessel which was to bear the representative of the Court of London to the Persian Gulf had shaken out its sails to the wind.

      On the 14th of October the Mission reached Bushire. Sir Harford Jones set about his work earnestly and conscientiously. He had difficulties to contend against of no common order, and it must be admitted that he faced them manfully. He found the Persian authorities but too well disposed to arrogance and insolence; and he met their pompous impertinence with a blustering bravery, which may have been wanting in dignity, but was not without effect. He bullied and blasphemed, and, after a series of not very becoming scenes, made his way to Teheran, where he was graciously received by the Shah. The ‘chapter of accidents’ had worked mightily in his favour. The reign of Gallic influence was at an end. Our enemies had overreached themselves, and been caught in their own toils. Before Napoleon and the Czar had thrown themselves into each other’s arms at Tilsit, it had been the policy of the French to persuade the Persian Court that the aggressive designs of Russia could be successfully counteracted only by a power at enmity with that state; and now Napoleon boasted that he and the Emperor were “invariablement unis pour la paix comme pour la guerre.”

      Skilfully taking advantage of this, Sir Harford Jones ever as he advanced inculcated the doctrine which had emanated in the first instance from the French embassy, and found every one he addressed most willing to accept it. There was, fortunately for us, a galling fact ever present to the minds of the Persian ministers to convince them of the truth of the assertion that it was not by the friends, but by the enemies of Russia that their interests were to be best promoted. The French had undertaken to secure the evacuation of Georgia; but still the Russian eagles were planted on Georgian soil. The star of Napoleon’s destiny was no longer on the ascendant. The “Sepoy General,” whom he had once derided, was tearing his battalions to pieces in the Spanish peninsula. Moreover, the French had lost ground at Teheran, in their personal as in their political relations. They had not accommodated themselves to the manners of the Persian Court, nor conciliated, by a courteous and considerate demeanour, the good-will of their new allies. They were many degrees less popular than the English, and their influence melted away at the approach of the British envoy. The Shah, too, had by this time, not improbably, become suspicious of the designs of the French. It was urged with some force that if the French invaded India they would not leave Persia alone. Mahomed Shereef Khan, who was sent by Nussur-oolah-Khan to General Malcolm just before his departure from Bushire, to repeat the friendly assurances of the Persian Government, very sagaciously observed, “If the French march an army to India, will they not make themselves masters of Persia as a necessary prelude to further conquests, and who is to oppose them after they have been received as friends? But our king,” continued the old man, “dreams of the Russians. He sees them in Aderbijan, and within a short distance of the capital, and, despairing of his own strength, he is ready to make any sacrifice to obtain a temporary relief from his excessive fear. In short,” he concluded, whilst strong emotion proved his sincerity, “affairs have come to that state that I thank my God I am an old man, and have a chance of dying before I see the disgrace and ruin of my country.”[39] Had Malcolm remained a little longer at Bushire, he would have seen all these dreams of French assistance pass away from the imaginations of the Persian Court, and might, under the force of altered circumstances, have carried everything before him.

      When Sir Harford Jones reached the Persian capital, General Gardanne had withdrawn; and there was little difficulty in arranging preliminaries of a treaty satisfactory alike to the Courts of Teheran and St. James’s. The work was not done in a very seemly manner; but it was not less serviceable when done, for the manner of its doing. Perhaps there is not another such chapter as this in the entire history of English diplomacy. Jones had left Bombay under the impression that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of Lord Minto; but he had not been long in Persia СКАЧАТЬ