History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ feeling, however, was but short-lived. It soon appeared that the intentions of the British Government, as reported to have been set forth by Mr. M’Neill, had been overstated; and again the chiefs began to bethink themselves of the advantages of a Russian alliance. Many meetings were held, at which the terms to be offered and accepted were warmly debated. At all of these Pottinger was present. Sometimes he was received and listened to with respect; at others he was treated with marked discourtesy. Now the value of the British alliance outweighed that of the Russian in the estimation of the chiefs; now it was held of far lighter account; and as the scale of their opinions turned, so varied with intelligible capriciousness their bearing towards the English officer. A man of temper and firmness, he was little disconcerted. The whole assembly might be against him; but he was not to be overawed.

      On the evening of the 27th of May, Pottinger sought a private interview with Yar Mahomed. Telling the Wuzeer that his conduct towards the Persians had caused him to be suspected by the British ambassador, he insisted upon the necessity of acting decidedly upon two points—Kamran, he said, must never submit to be called the servant of Persia; nor must he on any account admit the interference of the Russians. Yar Mahomed assented to these conditions—declared that he would never sacrifice the independence of Herat, and, finally, with Pottinger’s approval, despatched a letter into the Persian camp, intimating that “he agreed to the suppression of slavery, and would aid in its extinction; that he would release from bondage, and send back the people of Jam and Bakhurs if possible, and he would try to make the Soonee Hazarehs serve Persia; that he would pay a yearly present after the current year, and would also give his son and one of the King’s sons as hostages. Persia should, on her part, restore Ghorian, and when his son joined the Persian camp, his brother, Shere Mahomed Khan, should be sent back, and that Mahomed Shah should give them an order for five or six thousand kurwars of grain on the Governor of Khorassan.” “If these terms be not accepted,” it was added, “nothing but the possession of Herat will satisfy you.”

      Pottinger had no easy part to play, at the best; but now his difficulties began to thicken around him. He could only hope to counteract Russian influence by impressing Yar Mahomed with a conviction that the British Government would do great things for Herat. But on the 29th of May he received instructions from Mr. M’Neill on no account to commit the government by any offers of aid to Herat as he had received no authority to make them. Startled and embarrassed by these injunctions, for, seeing that without such promises Yar Mahomed would have accepted the mediation of Russia, he had already committed the government, Pottinger went at once to the Tukht-i-pool, where the chiefs were assembled, and honestly stated that in his anxiety to bring affairs to a satisfactory adjustment, he had exceeded his powers. Exasperated by this announcement, the chiefs broke out into violent reproaches against Pottinger, M’Neill, and the whole British nation, and then began to discuss the advantages of the Russian alliance. Firm in the midst of all this storm of invective, the young British officer declared that he had only spoken the truth—that such were the instructions of the British minister—that he had no power to disobey them; but that a representation to Mr. M’Neill of the disappointment they had occasioned might induce him to depart from this cautious policy. To this the chiefs were induced to listen; and it was finally resolved to await the results of another reference to the British Envoy.[184]

      But the influence of Mr. M’Neill at the Persian Court was now rapidly declining; and his departure was at hand. His position, ever since his arrival in the camp of Mahomed Shah, had been one of no little difficulty and embarrassment. Unhappily, at that time, one of those petty perplexities, which, arising between state and state, often evolve more serious misunderstandings than affairs of far higher moment, was constantly obtruding, in the way of a satisfactory adjustment of differences, an obstruction of a very annoying and irritating kind. A courier of the British minister, Ali Mahomed Beg by name, had been making his way from Herat to Teheran, bearing some letters from Yar Mahomed, Pottinger, and others, to Mr. M’Neill, and escorting some horses, sent by Futteh Mahomed Khan, the Herat agent, as presents to the same officer. Without any interruption he had passed the Persian camp and was within three stages of Meshed, when Berowski recognised the man and officiously reported him at head-quarters. Immediately, horsemen were despatched to carry him to the Persian camp. What followed could not be narrated better or more briefly than in the language of Mr. M’Neill:-“He was forced,” wrote the minister to Lord Palmerston, “to return with them; a part of his clothes were taken from him; the horses which he was bringing for me from Herat were seized; he was dragged to camp, and there placed in custody. He succeeded, however, in making his way to the tent of Colonel Stoddart, and was by that officer conducted to the prime minister, who, after he had been informed by Colonel Stoddart that the man was in the service of this Mission, again placed him in custody, while Hadjee Khan, an officer of the rank of Brigadier in the service of the Shah, not only used offensive language in addressing Colonel Stoddart in presence of the prime minister, but after the messenger had been released by order of his Excellency, seized him again in the midst of the camp; stripped him to search for any letters he might have concealed about his person;[185] took from him Lieutenant Pottinger’s letter, which was sent to the prime minister; used to the messenger the most violent threats and the most disgusting and opprobrious language, and took from him a portion of his accoutrements.”[186]

      This was, doubtless, a grievous insult; and Mr. M’Neill believed that it was intended to be one. It was designed, he thought, “to exhibit to the Afghans and to the Persian army an apparent contempt for the English, with a view to diminish the moral effect which might have been produced on either party, by the general belief that we were opposed to the conquest of Herat by the Persians.” It was an insult for which reparation, if not offered by one state, might be rightfully exacted by the other; and Mr. M’Neill was not a man to sit down tamely under such an outrage as this. But the incident had taken place in October, and now, in May, though the subject had been repeatedly forced upon the attention of Mahomed Shah and his ministers, no fitting reparation had been offered to the British Government. The Persian Government had, indeed, asserted their right to seize, punish, or put to death, without reference to the British minister, the Persian servants in his employment. The breach was thus palpably widening. The Governor of Bushire, too, had used offensive language towards the British Resident in the Persian Gulf; and the redress, which had been sought by Mr. M’Neill, had not been granted by the Persian Government. Then there was another grievance of which the British minister complained. The Persian Government had continued to evade the conclusion of the commercial treaty, which was guaranteed to us in the general treaty of friendship between the two states.

      All these cumulative offences, added to the great subject of complaint—the conduct of Persia towards Herat—made up such an amount of provocation, that Mr. M’Neill felt his position at the Persian Court was little likely to be one of much longer continuance. The Shah had declared that he would raise the siege, if the British minister would afford him a pretext for the retrograde movement, satisfactory in the eyes of his countrymen, by threatening, on the part of his government, to attack Persia if she continued her offensive operations against Herat; but from this promise he had receded, or thrown such difficulties in the way of its fulfilment, as practically to nullify the pledge. Mr. M’Neill massed all his demands upon the Persian Government. The Shah required that he should keep the question of Herat distinct from the others, and, on the British minister refusing to do so on his own responsibility, declared that he would do it himself, by acceding to all the demands except that which related to Herat. “The Shah then,” says Mr. M’Neill, in his report of these proceedings to the Foreign Secretary, “immediately dismissed me, with an assurance that he should adopt that course; but before I had left the area on which the royal tent was pitched, he called after me, that on his agreeing to the other demands, he should expect me to avoid all further discussion of the affairs of Herat, and to order Mr. Pottinger to quit that city. In answer, I represented that I could not tie up the hands of my own government in respect to the question of Herat, and that Mr. Pottinger was not under my orders.”[187]

      There was obviously now little hope of bringing these long-protracted negotiations to a favourable conclusion. The British Mission was fast falling into contempt. The Russians were exalted at the Persian Court. The British were slighted СКАЧАТЬ