History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ straitened, and his dignity greatly offended, by the paltry character of the presents of which Burnes was the bearer. No one ignorant of the childish eagerness with which Oriental Princes examine the ceremonial gifts presented to them by foreign potentates, and the importance which they attach to the value of these presents, as indications of a greater or less degree of friendship and respect on the part of the donor, can appreciate the mortification of Dost Mahomed on discovering that the British Government, of whose immense resources and boundless liberality he had so exalted a notion, had sent him nothing but a few trumpery toys. Burnes had been directed to “procure from Bombay such articles as would be required to be given in presents to the different chiefs.” And it had been characteristically added: “They ought not to be of a costly nature, but should be chosen particularly with a view to exhibit the superiority of British manufacturers.” Accordingly the envoy had provided himself with a pistol and a telescope for Dost Mahomed, and a few trifles for the inmates of the Zenana—such as pins, needles, and play-things.[214] The costliness of the presents lavished upon Shah Soojah, when the Mission under Mountstuart Elphinstone had entered Afghanistan, was still a tradition throughout the country. The Ameer was disappointed. He thought that the niggardliness of the British Government, in this instance portended no good. Nor was he mistaken. He soon found that the intention to give little was manifest in all the proceedings of the Mission.

      It has been said that the Ameer asked more than could reasonably be granted; that he had no right to look for the restoration of Peshawur, as that tract of country, since the dismemberment of the Douranee Empire, had fallen to the share of Sultan Mahomed. It is very true that the country had once been governed by Sultan Mahomed. Now to have re-established him at Peshawur would have been to have paved the way for the march of Runjeet Singh’s army to Caubul. So thought Dost Mahomed. It was better to submit quietly to the unassisted enmity of the Maharajah, than to have an insidious enemy on the frontier, by whose agency Runjeet Singh might have accomplished that which he could not have achieved alone. It was the treachery of Sultan Mahomed that had lost Peshawur to the Afghans. It was the personal energy, the martial prowess, of Dost Mahomed that had secured the supremacy of the Barukzyes in Afghanistan; and as Sultan Mahomed Khan wanted the ability, or the honesty, to hold his own at Peshawur, it was but natural and fitting that the chief of the Barukzyes should endeavour to enter into arrangements better calculated to preserve the integrity of the Afghan frontier. He desired, in the first instance, the absolute possession of Peshawur on his own account. He subsequently consented to hold it, conjointly with Sultan Mahomed, in vassalage to Runjeet Singh. Had the British Government endeavoured to effect an amicable arrangement between the Ameer and the Maharajah, there is no room to doubt that Dost Mahomed would have rejected all overtures from the westward, and proved to us a firm and faithful ally. But, instead of this, we offered him nothing but our sympathy; and Dost Mahomed, with all respect for the British Government, looked for something more substantial than mere meaningless words.

      That his conduct throughout the long negotiations with Burnes was characterised by an entire singleness of purpose and straightforwardness of action is not to be maintained; but it may with truth be said that it evinced somewhat less than the ordinary amount of Afghan duplicity and deceit. Singleness and straightforwardness do not flourish in the near neighbourhood either of Eastern or Western diplomacy; and perhaps it is not wise, on our own account, to look too closely into these matters. The wonder is, not that the Ameer was so deceitful, so tortuous, so arrogant, and so exacting, but that he was so sincere, so straightforward, so patient, and so moderate. He might have possessed all these qualities in much scantier measure, and yet have been a very respectable Afghan chief.

      It was, however, decreed that Dost Mahomed was a hostile chief; and the policy of the British Government soon made him one. Had Burnes been left to obey the dictates of his own reason and to use the light of his own experience, he would have conciliated both the Candahar Sirdars and the Caubul Ameer, and raised up an effective bulwark in Afghanistan against Persian invasion and Russian intrigue. We refused to detach Kohun Dil Khan from the Persian alliance, and we deliberately drove Dost Mahomed Khan into it. In fact, our policy, at this time, seems to have been directed to the creation of those very difficulties to encounter which the British Government launched into the Afghan war.

      Unfortunately, at this time, Lord Auckland was separated from his Council. He was on his way to that pleasant hill Sanitarium, at Simlah, where our Governors-General, surrounded by irresponsible advisers, settle the destinies of empires without the aid of their legitimate fellow-counsellors, and which has been the cradle of more political insanity than any place within the limits of Hindostan. Just as Mahomed Shah was beginning to open his batteries upon Herat, and Captain Burnes was entering Caubul, Lord Auckland, taking with him three civilians, all men of ability and repute—Mr. William Macnaghten, Mr. Henry Torrens, and Mr. John Colvin—turned his back upon Calcutta.

      Mr. Macnaghten was at this time chief secretary to Government. He had originally entered the service of the East India Company in the year 1809, as a cadet of cavalry on the Madras establishment; and whilst yet a boy acquired considerable reputation by the extent of his acquirements as an Oriental linguist. Transferred in 1814 to the Bengal civil service, he landed at Calcutta as the bearer of the highest testimonials from the government under which he had served; and soon justified by his distinguished scholarship in the college of Fort William the praises and recommendations of the authorities of Madras. It was publicly said of the young civilian by Lord Hastings, that “there was not a language taught in the college in which he had not earned the highest distinctions which the Government or the College could bestow.” On leaving college he was appointed an assistant in the office of the Register of the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, or High Court of Appeal; and in 1818 he quitted Calcutta to enter upon the practical duties of the magistracy, but after a few years was recalled to the Presidency and to his old office, and in a little while was at the head of the department in which he had commenced his career. During a period of eight years and a half, Mr. Macnaghten continued to occupy the responsible post of Register of the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, and was only removed thence to accompany Lord William Bentinck, in the capacity of secretary, on the tour which that benevolent statesman was about to commence, at the close of 1830, through the Upper and Western Provinces of India. The objects of this journey were connected entirely with measures of internal reform; but having approached the territories of Runjeet Singh, the Governor-General met the old Sikh chief at Roopur, and there Macnaghten, who had up to this time been almost wholly associated with affairs of domestic administration, graduated in foreign politics, and began to fathom the secrets of the Lahore Durbar. Returning early in 1833 to Calcutta, with his experience greatly enlarged and his judgment matured by the opportunities afforded him on his journey, as well as by his intimate relationship with so enlightened and liberal a statesman as Lord William Bentinck, Macnaghten now took charge of the Secret and Political Department of the Government Secretariat, and remained in that office during the interregnum of Sir Charles Metcalfe, and the first year of Lord Auckland’s administration, until summoned by the latter to accompany him on his tour to the North-Western Provinces.

      Such, briefly narrated, were the antecedents of Macnaghten’s official life. That he was one of the ablest and most assiduous of the many able and assiduous civil servants of the East India Company all men were ready to admit. With a profound knowledge of Oriental languages and Oriental customs, he combined an extensive acquaintance with all the practical details of government, and was scarcely more distinguished as an erudite scholar than as an expert secretary. In his colleague and assistant, Mr. Henry Torrens, there were some points of resemblance to Macnaghten; for the younger officer was also an accomplished linguist and a ready writer, but he was distinguished by a more mercurial temperament and more varied attainments. Perhaps there was not in all the presidencies of India a man—certainly not so young a man—with the lustre of so many accomplishments upon him. The facility with which he acquired every kind of information was scarcely more remarkable than the tenacity with which he retained it. With the languages of the East and the West he was equally familiar. He had read books of all kinds and in all tongues, and the airy grace with which he could throw off a French canzonet was something as perfect of its kind as the military genius with which he could sketch out the plan of a campaign, or the official pomp with which he could inflate a state paper. His gaiety СКАЧАТЬ