History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ proceeded through Bekanier, Bahwulpore,[58] and Mooltan; and ever as they went the most marked civility was shown to the British ambassadors. But one thing was wanting to render the feeling towards them a pervading sentiment of universal respect. They had not long crossed the frontier before they discovered that a more liberal display of the facial characteristics of manhood would elevate them greatly in the eyes of a people who are uniformly bearded and moustached.[59] Our officers have ever since carefully abstained from incurring this reproach; and it may be doubted whether, ever again, any hint will be required to stimulate them to encourage an Asiatic development of hair on the lower part of the face.

      I do not intend to trace the progress of the Mission. The story has been told with historical fidelity and graphic distinctness in a book which is still, after the lapse of nearly forty years, the delight of Anglo-Indian readers, and which future generations of writers and cadets will turn to with undiminished interest. On the 25th of February, the Mission entered Peshawur. Crowds of wondering inhabitants came out to gaze at the representatives of the nation which had reduced the great Mogul to a shadow, and seated itself on the throne of Tippoo. Pushing forward with the outstretched neck of eager curiosity, they blocked up the public ways. The royal body-guards rode among the foot passengers; lashed at them with their whips; tilted with their lances at grave spectators sitting quietly in their own balconies; and cleared the way as best they could. But fast as they dispersed the thronging multitude, it closed again around the novel cavalcade. Through this motley crowd of excited inhabitants, the British Mission was with difficulty conducted to a house prepared for them by royal mandate. Seated on rich carpets, fed with sweetmeats, and regaled with sherbet, every attention was paid to the European strangers. The hospitality of the King was profuse. His fortunes were then at a low ebb; but he sent provisions to the Mission for two thousand men, with food for beasts of burden in proportion, and was with difficulty persuaded to adopt a less costly method of testifying his regal cordiality and respect.

      Some dispute about forms of presentation delayed the reception of the English ambassadors. But in a few days everything was arranged for the grand ceremonial to take place on the 5th of March. When the eventful day arrived, they found the King, with that love of outward pomp which clung to him to the last, sitting on a gilded throne, crowned, plumed, and arrayed in costly apparel. The royal person was a blaze of jewellery, conspicuous among which the mighty diamond, the Koh-i-noor, destined in after days to undergo such romantic vicissitudes, glittered in a gorgeous bracelet upon the arm of the Shah. Welcoming the English gentlemen with a graceful cordiality, he expressed a hope that the King of England and all the English nation were well, presented the officers of the embassy with dresses of honour, and then, dismissing all but Mr. Elphinstone and his secretary, proceeded to the business of the interview. Listening attentively to all that was advanced by the British envoy, he professed himself eager to accede to his proposals, and declared that England and Caubul were designed by the Creator to be united by bonds of everlasting friendship. The presents which Mr. Elphinstone had taken with him to Afghanistan were curious and costly; and now that they were exposed to the view of the Shah, he turned upon them a face scintillating with pleasure, and eagerly expressed his delight. His attendants, with a cupidity that there was no attempt to conceal, laid their rapacious hands upon everything that came in their way, and scrambled for the articles which were not especially appropriated by their royal master. Thirty years afterwards, the memory of these splendid gifts raised longing expectations in the minds of the courtiers of Caubul, and caused bitter disappointment and disgust, when Captain Burnes appeared with his pins and needles, and little articles of hardware, such as would have disgraced the wallet of a pedlar of low repute.[60]

      At subsequent interviews the impression made by the Shah upon the minds of the English diplomatists was of a description very favourable to the character of the Afghan ruler. Mr. Elphinstone was surprised to find that the Douranee monarch had so much of the “manners of a gentleman,” and that he could be affable and dignified at the same time. But he had much domestic care to distract him at this epoch, and could not fix his mind intently on foreign politics. His country was in a most unsettled condition. His throne seemed to totter under him. He was endeavouring to collect an army, and was projecting a great military expedition. He hoped to see more of the English gentlemen, he said, in more prosperous times. At present, the best advice that he could give them was that they should retire beyond the frontier. So on the 14th of June the Mission turned its back upon Peshawur, and set out for the provinces of Hindostan.[61]

      Three days after the Mission commenced its homeward journey, the treaty which had been arranged by Mr. Elphinstone was formally signed at Calcutta by Lord Minto. The first article set out with a mis-statement, to the effect that the French and Persians had entered into a confederacy against the State of Caubul. The two contracting parties bound themselves to take active measures to repel this confederacy, the British “holding themselves liable to afford the expenses necessary for the above-mentioned service, to the extent of their ability.” The remaining article decreed eternal friendship between the two States: “The veil of separation shall be lifted up from between them; and they shall in no manner interfere in each other’s countries; and the King of Caubul shall permit no individual of the French to enter his territories.” Three months before these articles were signed Sir Harford Jones had entered into a preliminary treaty with the Persian Court, stipulating that in case of war between Persia and Afghanistan, his Majesty the King of Great Britain should not take any part therein, unless at the desire of both parties. The confederacy of the French and Persians had been entirely broken up, and all the essentials of the Caubul treaty rendered utterly null and useless.

      But before this rapid sketch of the diplomacy of 1808–9 is brought to a close, some mention must be made of another subordinate measure of defence against the possibility of a foreign invasion. The low countries lying on the banks of the river Indus, from its junction with the Punjabee tributaries to the sea, were known as Upper and Lower Sindh. The people inhabiting the former were for the most part Beloochees—a warlike and turbulent race, of far greater physical power and mental energy than their feeble, degraded neighbours, the Sindhians, who occupied the country from Shikarpoor to the mouths of the Indus. The nominal rulers of these provinces were the Talpoor Ameers, but they were either tributary to, or actually dependent upon the Court of Caubul. The dependence, however, was in effect but scantily acknowledged. Often was the tribute to be extracted only by the approach of an army sent for its collection by the Douranee monarch. There was constant strife, indeed, between Sindh and Caubul—the one ever plotting to cast off its allegiance, and the other ever putting forth its strength more closely to rivet the chains.

      In July, 1808, Captain Seton was despatched by the Bombay Government to the Court of the Ameers at Hyderabad. Misunderstanding and exceeding his instructions, he hastily executed a treaty with the State of Sindh, imposing, generally and unconditionally, upon each party an obligation to furnish military aid on the requisition of the other. The mind of the envoy was heavy with thoughts of a French invasion, which seem to have excluded all considerations of internal warfare and intrigue in Central Asia. But the Ameers were at that time intent upon emancipating themselves from the yoke of Caubul, and Captain Seton found that he had committed the British Government to assist the tributary State of Sindh against the Lord Paramount of the country, thereby placing us in direct hostility with the very power whose good offices we were so anxious to conciliate. There was, indeed, a Persian ambassador at that very time resident at the Sindh capital, charged with overtures for the formation of a close alliance between Persia and Sindh subversive of the tributary relations of the latter to the State of Caubul.[62] He was acting, too, as the secret agent of the French; and the Ameers made no secret of the fact, that but for the friendly overtures of the British they would have allied themselves with the Persians and French. They now grasped at the proffered connexion with the Indian Government, believing, or professing to believe, that it entitled them to assistance against the State of Caubul, and industriously propagated a report of the military strength which they had thus acquired. The danger of all this was obvious.[63] Captain Seton’s treaty was accordingly ignored; and Mr. Elphinstone was instructed that, in the event of Shah Soojah remonstrating against Captain Seton’s treaty, he might, without hesitation, apprise the Court of Caubul that the engagements entered into were “totally unauthorised and contrary СКАЧАТЬ