History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 1 (of 3)
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Title: History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Author: Sir John William Kaye
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HISTORY OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
by
JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, F.R.S.
Third Edition.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. I.
London:
Wm. H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place,
Publishers to the India Office.
1874.
London.
Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street
and Charing Cross.
Dedication.
IF PUBLIC CLAIMS ALONE WERE TO BE REGARDED, I KNOW NOT TO WHOM I COULD
MORE FITLY INSCRIBE THESE VOLUMES, THAN TO THE OFFICERS OF A REGIMENT,
ON THE ROLLS OF WHICH ARE THE NAMES OF POLLOCK, MACGREGOR, TODD,
SHAKESPEAR, LAWRENCE, ABBOTT, ANDERSON, AND OTHERS, DISTINGUISHED IN
THE ANNALS OF THE AFGHAN WAR; BUT IT IS IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF
SOME OF THE HAPPIEST YEARS OF MY LIFE THAT I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES TO
THE
OFFICERS OF THE BENGAL ARTILLERY.
BLETCHINGLEY,
_Oct. 30, 1851_.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THIRD EDITION.
The present Edition of the “History of the War in Afghanistan” is a
reproduction of the three-volumed Edition of 1857, which was thoroughly
revised, and much improved by the kindly aid of many of the chief
actors in the scenes described. I do not think that I can make it any
better.
Only one alleged error has been brought to my notice since the last
Edition was published. It is stated, in Chapter IV., page 55, that
“Mr. Harford Jones, a civil servant of the Company, who was made a
Baronet for the occasion, was deputed to Teheran to negotiate with the
Ministers of the Shah.” This was first published in 1851. After a lapse
of twenty-three years, I have recently been informed by the son of Sir
Harford Jones, that his father was not made a Baronet in consideration
of prospective but of past services. It is certain that Mr. Harford
Jones rendered good service to the East India Company, but it is
equally certain that His Majesty’s Government were not very prodigal
in their grants of honours to the Company’s servants. The Baronetcy
was created in 1807, when the Persian Mission was under consideration;
but I must admit that there is a difference between coincidences and
consequences—and, therefore, as I cannot establish the fact stated,
I am willing to withdraw the assertion of it, whatever may be my own
convictions.
J. W. K.
ROSE-HILL,
_March 1874_.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The present Edition of the History of the War in Afghanistan has
been thoroughly revised; and several alterations have been made,
which I hope may be fairly regarded also as emendations. Some of the
notes have been abridged; and others, when the importance of their
subject-matter seemed to warrant it, have been incorporated with the
text. I have freely and gratefully availed myself of such information
and such suggestions as have been furnished to me by others since the
first appearance of the Work, whilst my own more recent historical
and biographical researches have enabled me to illustrate more fully
in some places my original conceptions, and in others to modify or to
correct them.
The material corrections, however, are not numerous. As almost every
statement in the book was based upon copious documentary evidence, I
have now, as regards my historical facts, very little to withdraw or to
amend. I think I may, without unreasonable self-congratulation, assert
that few works of contemporary history containing so large a body of
facts have been so little questioned and controverted. The numerous
communications, which I have received alike from friends and strangers,
have contained little but confirmatory or illustrative matter; and, if
they have cast any doubt upon the statements in the Work, it has been
mainly on those advanced by the actors in the events described, and
which therefore have appeared only in a dramatic sense in these pages.
When, however, an opportunity _has_ been afforded me of placing before
the reader any new facts, or counter-statements, which may possibly
cause him to modify his previous opinions, I have always turned them to
account. As I have no other object than that of declaring the truth,
I cannot but rejoice in every added means of contributing to its
completeness.
In this present Edition, the History of the War in Afghanistan is
divided into three Volumes. This is a change in the outer form of the
Work, which may appear to be scarcely worthy of notice; but I believe
it to be an improvement, and a suggestive one. I doubt whether there
is a series of events in all history, which falls more naturally into
three distinct groupes, giving the epic completeness of a beginning,
a middle, and an end to the entire Work. It is true that some very
generous and good-natured people have given me credit for the unity of
design and of construction apparent in this; but in truth all the parts
of the Work fell so naturally into their proper places, that there was
little left for art to accomplish; and I am conscious that I owe to the
nature of my subject the largest part of the praise which has been so
encouragingly bestowed on myself.
I should have nothing more to say in this place, if I did not desire to
express my gratitude to the friends who have taken an interest in this
new edition of my History, and have aided me with verbal corrections
of my text, or suggestions of greater moment. I might not please
them by any more special recognition of their kindness; but there is
one whom such praise and gratitude as mine can no longer reach, and
whom I may therefore name without offence. Among others who were at
the trouble to re-peruse this book, for the purpose of aiding its
revision for the present edition, the appearance of which has been
retarded by accidental circumstances, was the late Sir Robert Harry
Inglis. I believe that this, which he assured me was a labour of love,
was the last literary task which he ever set himself. His final list
of _corrigenda_ was sent to me, indeed, only a few days before the
occurrence of that event which, although there be good and wise and
genial men still among us, has left a gap in society, which cannot
easily be filled by one so good, so wise, and so genial. Of all the
privileges of literature, the greatest, perhaps, is that it makes for
its followers kind and indulgent friends, who sometimes transfer to
the writer the interest awakened by his book. I owe to this Work some
cherished friendships; but none more cherished than that which has now
become both a pleasing and a painful reminiscence.
LONDON,
_January, 1857_.
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.
Circumstances having placed at my disposal a number of very interesting
and important letters and papers, illustrative of the History of the
War in Afghanistan, I undertook to write this Work. There was nothing
that peculiarly qualified me for the task, beyond the fact that I
enjoyed the confidence of some of the chief actors in the events to be
narrated, or—for death had been busy among those actors—their surviving
relatives and friends. I had been in India, it is true, during the
entire period of the War; but I never took even the humblest part in
its stirring scenes, or visited the country in which they were enacted.
It was not, therefore, until I considered that no more competent
person might be disposed to undertake the Work; that the materials
placed in my hands might not in the same number and variety be placed
in the hands of any other writer; and that those best qualified by a
full knowledge of the subject to write the History of the War, were
restrained by the obligations of official position from that fulness
of revelation and freedom of discussion, which a work of this kind
demands—that entered upon the perilous undertaking. The necessities of
the subject have rendered the task peculiarly painful, and, but for the
encouragement I have received in the progress of its execution, alike
from strangers and from friends who have freely placed new materials
in my hands, and expressed a lively interest in my labours, I might
have shrunk from its completion. I now lay before the public the result
of much anxious thought and laborious investigation, confident that,
although the Work might have been done more ably, it could not have
been performed more conscientiously, by another.
I have been walking, as it were, with a torch in my hand over a floor
strewn thickly with gunpowder. There is the chance of an explosion at
every step. I have been treading all along on dangerous ground. But
if I cannot confidently state that I have asserted nothing which I
cannot prove, I can declare my belief that, except upon what I had a
right to consider as good and sufficient authority, I have advanced
absolutely nothing. It will be seen how careful I have been to quote my
authorities. Indeed, I have an uneasy misgiving in my mind that I have
overburdened my Work with quotations from the letters and documents in
my possession. But this has been done with design and deliberation.
It was not sufficient to refer to these letters and documents, for
they were singly accessible only to a few, and collectively, perhaps,
to no one but myself. They have, therefore, been left to speak for
themselves. What the Work has lost by this mode of treatment in
compactness and continuity, it has gained in trustworthiness and
authenticity. If the narrative be less animated, the history is more
genuine. I have had to deal with unpublished materials, and to treat of
very strange events; and I have not thought it sufficient to fuse these
materials into my text, and to leave the reader to fix or not to fix
his faith upon the unsupported assertions of an unknown writer.[1]
I would make another observation regarding the execution of this Work.
The more notorious events of the War, which stand fully revealed in
military despatches and published blue-books, have not been elaborated
with the care, and expanded into the amplitude, which their importance
may seem to demand. These Volumes may be thought, perhaps, rather
deficient in respect of military details. Compelled to condense
somewhere, I have purposely abstained from enlarging upon those
events, which have already found fitting chroniclers. The military
memoir-writers, each one on his own limited field, have arrayed before
us all the strategical operations of the Campaign from the assemblage
of Fane’s army in 1838, to the return of Pollock’s at the close of
1842; but the political history of the War has never been written.
For information on many points of military interest, not sufficiently
dwelt upon in these volumes, I would therefore refer the reader to the
works of Havelock, Hough, Barr, Eyre, Stacy, Neill, and other soldierly
writers. The progress of events in Upper Sindh after the capture of
Khelat, I have not attempted to narrate. The military operations in
that part of the country have found an intelligent annalist in Dr.
Buist.
I need only now, after gratefully acknowledging my obligations to all
who have aided me with original papers, or with information otherwise
conveyed (and I have largely taxed the patience of many during the
progress of this work), offer one more word of apology. I know that my
scholarly Oriental friends will revolt against my spelling of Oriental
names. I have only to bow beneath their correcting hand, and fling
myself upon their mercy. I have written all the names in the old and
vulgar manner, most familiar to the English eye, and, in pronunciation,
to the English ear; and I believe that the majority of readers will
thank me for the barbarism.
BLETCHINGLEY,
_October, 1851_.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.—INTRODUCTION.
[1800-1837.]
CHAPTER I.
[1800-1801.]
PAGE
Shah Zemaun and the Douranee Empire—Threatened Afghan
Invasion—Malcolm’s First Mission to Persia—Country and People
of Afghanistan—Fall of Zemaun Shah 1
CHAPTER II.
[1801-1808.]
The Early Days of Soojah-ool-Moolk—Disastrous Commencement of his
Career—Defeat of Shah Mahmoud—Reign of Shah Soojah—The
Insurrection of Prince Kaysur—Tidings of the British Mission 25
CHAPTER III.
[1801-1808.]
France and Russia in the East—Death of Hadjee Khalil Khan—The
Mission of Condolence—Aga Nebee Khan—Extension of Russian
Dominion in the East—French Diplomacy in Persia—The pacification
of Tilsit—Decline of French influence in Teheran 36
CHAPTER IV.
[1808-1809.]
The Second Mission to Persia—Malcolm’s Visit to Bushire—Failure
of the Embassy—His Return to Calcutta—Mission of Sir Harford
Jones—His Progress and Success 55
CHAPTER V.
[1808-1809.]
The Missions to Lahore and Caubul—The Aggressions of Runjeet
Singh—Mr. Metcalfe at Umritsur—Treaty of 1809—Mr. Elphinstone’s
Mission—Arrival at Peshawur—Reception by Shah Soojah—Withdrawal
of the Mission—Negotiations with the Ameers of Sindh 77
CHAPTER VI.
[1809-1816.]
The Mid-Career of Shah Soojah—His Wanderings and
Misfortunes—Captivity in Cashmere—Imprisonment at Lahore—Robbery
of the Koh-i-noor—Reception of the Shah by the Rajah of
Kistawar—His Escape to the British Territories 97
CHAPTER VII.
[1816-1837.]
Dost Mahomed and the Barukzyes—Early days of Dost Mahomed—The
fall of Futteh Khan—Defeat of Shah Mahmoud—Supremacy of the
Barukzyes—Position of the Empire—Dost Mahomed at
Caubul—Expedition of Shah Soojah—His Defeat—Capture of Peshawur
by the Sikhs 107
CHAPTER VIII.
[1810-1837.]
Later Events in Persia—The Treaty of Goolistan—Arrival of Sir
Gore Ouseley—Mr. Morier and Mr. Ellis—The Definitive Treaty—The
War of 1826-27—The Treaty of Toorkomanchai—Death of Futteh Ali
Shah—Accession of Mahomed Shah—His Projects of Ambition—The
Expedition against Herat 139
BOOK II.
[1835-1838.]
CHAPTER I.
[1835-1837.]
The Commercial Mission to Caubul—Arrival of Lord Auckland—His
Character—Alexander Burnes—His Travels in Central
Asia—Deputation to the Court of Dost Mahomed—Reception by the
Ameer—Negotiations at Caubul—Failure of the Mission 166
CHAPTER II.
[1837-1839.]
The Siege of Herat—Shah Kamran and Yar Mahomed—Return of the
Shah—Eldred Pottinger—Preparations for the Defence—Advance of
the Persian Army—Progress of the Siege—Negotiations for
Peace—Failure of the Attack—The Siege raised 211
CHAPTER III.
[1837-1838.]
Policy of the British-Indian Government—Our Defensive
Operations—Excitement in British India—Proposed Alliance with
Dost Mahomed—Failure of Burnes’s Mission considered—The
claims of the Suddozye Princes—The Tripartite Treaty—Invasion
of Afghanistan determined—Policy of the Movement 300
CHAPTER IV.
[July-October: 1838.]
The Simlah Manifesto—The Simlah Council—Influence of Messrs.
Colvin and Torrens—Views of Captains Burnes and Wade—Opinions
of Sir Henry Fane—The Army of the Indus—The Governor-General’s
Manifesto—Its Policy considered 350
BOOK III.
[1838-1839.]
CHAPTER I.
The Army of the Indus—Gathering at Ferozepore—Resignation of
Sir Henry Fane—Route of the Army—Passage through Bahwulpore—The
Ameers of Sindh—The Hyderabad Question—Passage of the Bolan
Pass—Arrival at Candahar 388
CHAPTER II.
[April-August: 1839.]
Arrival at Candahar—The Shah’s Entry into the City—His
Installation—Nature of his Reception—Behaviour of the
Douranees—The English at Candahar—Mission to Herat—Difficulties
of our Position—Advance to Ghuznee 437
CHAPTER III.
[June-August: 1839.]
The Disunion of the Barukzyes—Prospects of Dost Mahomed—Keane’s
Advance to Ghuznee—Massacre of the Prisoners—Fall of
Ghuznee—Flight of Dost Mahomed—Hadjee Khan, Khaukur—Escape of
Dost Mahomed—Restoration of Shah Soojah—Success of the Campaign 454
APPENDIX 481
THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
BOOK I.—INTRODUCTION.
[1800-1837.]
CHAPTER I.
[1800-1801.]
Shah Zemaun and the Douranee Empire—Threatened Afghan
Invasion—Malcolm’s First Mission to Persia—Country and People of
Afghanistan—Fall of Zemaun Shah.
At the dawn of the present century, Zemaun Shah reigned over the
Douranee Empire. The son of Timour Shah, and the grandson of the
illustrious Ahmed Shah, he had sought, on the death of his father,
the dangerous privilege of ruling a divided and tumultuous people.
Attaining by intrigue and violence what did not rightfully descend to
him by inheritance, he soon began to turn his thoughts towards foreign
conquest, and to meditate the invasion of Hindostan. His talents
were not equal to his ambition, and his success fell far short of
the magnitude of his designs. There was too little security at home
to ensure for him prosperity abroad. And so it happened, that he was
continually marching an army upon the frontier, eager to extend the
Douranee Empire to the banks of the Ganges; and continually retracing
his steps in alarm, lest his own sovereignty should be wrested
from him in his absence. For many years Zemaun Shah’s descent upon
Hindostan kept the British Indian Empire in a chronic state of unrest.
But he never advanced further than Lahore, and then was compelled
precipitately to retire. Starvation threatened his troops; a brotherly
usurper his throne; and he hastened back lest he should find Prince
Mahmoud reigning at Caubul in his stead.
This was in 1797,[2] when Sir John Shore was Governor-General of
India. We smile now at the alarm that was created along the whole
line of country from the Attock to the Hooghly, by the rumoured
approach of this formidable invader. But half a century ago, the
English in India knew little of the resources of the Douranee Empire,
of the national characteristics of the people, of the continually
unsettled state of their political relations, or of the incompetency
of the monarch himself to conduct any great enterprise. Distance and
ignorance magnified the danger: but the apprehensions, which were then
entertained, were not wholly groundless apprehensions. All the enemies
of the British Empire in India had turned their eyes with malicious
expectancy upon Caubul. Out of the rocky defiles of that romantic
country were to stream the deliverers of Islam from the yoke of the
usurping Franks. The blood of the Mahomedan princes of India was at
fever heat. From northern Oude and from southern Mysore had gone forth
invitations to the Afghan monarch. With large promises of aid, in money
and in men, Vizier Ali and Tippoo Sultan had encouraged him to move
down upon Hindostan at the head of an army of true believers. Others,
with whom he could claim no community of creed, extended to him the
hand of fellowship. The Rajah of Jyneghur offered him a lakh of rupees
a day as soon as the grand army should enter his district.[3] We, who
in these times trustingly contemplate the settled tranquillity of the
north-western provinces of India, and remember Zemaun Shah only as the
old blind pensioner of Loodhianah, can hardly estimate aright the real
importance of the threatened movement, or appreciate the apprehensions
which were felt by two governors-general of such different personal
characters as Sir John Shore and Lord Wellesley.[4]
The new century had scarcely dawned upon the English in India, when
the perils which seemed to threaten them from beyond the Indus began
to assume a more complicated and perplexing character. The ambition
of a semi-barbarous monarch and the inflammatory zeal of hordes of
Mussulman fanatics, were sources of danger, which, however alarming,
were at least plain and intelligible. But when it was suspected that
there was intrigue of a more remote and insidious character to be
combated—when intelligence, only too credible, of the active efforts
of French diplomacy in Persia, reached the Calcutta Council-Chamber,
and it was believed that the emissaries of Napoleon were endeavouring
to cement alliances hostile to Great Britain in every quarter of the
Eastern world, the position of affairs in Central Asia was regarded
with increased anxiety, and their management demanded greater wisdom
and address. It was now no longer a question of mere military defence
against the inroads of a single invader. The repeated failures of
Zemaun Shah had, in some degree, mitigated the alarm with which his
movements were dimly traced in Hindostan. The Douranee monarch had
lost something of his importance as an independent enemy; but as the
willing agent of a hostile confederacy, he appeared a more formidable
opponent, and might have become a more successful one. An offensive
alliance between France, Persia, and Caubul, might have rendered the
dangers, which once only seemed to threaten us from the north-west, at
once real and imminent. To secure the friendship of Persia, therefore,
was the great aim of the British Government. It was obvious that,
whilst threatened with invasion from the west, Zemaun Shah could never
conduct to a successful issue an expedition against Hindostan; and that
so long as Persia remained true to Great Britain, there was nothing to
be apprehended from French intrigue in the countries of Central Asia.
It was determined, therefore, to despatch a mission to the Court of the
Persian Shah, and Captain John Malcolm was selected to conduct it.
The choice could not have fallen on a fitter agent. In the fullest
vigour of life, a young man, but not a young soldier—for, born in
that year of heroes which witnessed the nativity of Wellington, of
Napoleon, and of Mehemet Ali, he had entered the service of the Company
at the early age of thirteen—Captain Malcolm brought to the difficult
and responsible duties entrusted to him, extraordinary energy of
mind and activity of body—talents of the most available and useful
character—some experience of native courts and acquaintance with the
Oriental languages. He had been successively military secretary to the
commander-in-chief of Madras, town-major of Fort St. George, assistant
to the Resident at Hyderabad, and commandant of the infantry of the
Nizam’s contingent. When that army took the field in Mysore, and shared
in the operations against Tippoo Sultan, Captain Malcolm accompanied
it in the capacity of political agent, which was virtually the chief
command of the force; and, after the reduction of Seringapatam and the
death of Tippoo, was associated with General Wellesley, Colonel Close,
and Captain Munro,[5] in the commission that was then appointed for the
settlement of the Mysore country.
This was in 1799. In that same year he was selected by Lord Wellesley
to fill the post of envoy to the Court of Persia. With such address had
he acquitted himself in all his antecedent appointments; so great had
been the knowledge of native character, the diplomatic tact, and the
sound understanding he had evinced in all his negotiations; that at an
age when the greater number of his contemporaries were in the discharge
of no higher duties than those entailed by the command of a company of
sepoys, Captain Malcolm was on his way to the presence of the great
defender of Islamism, charged with one of the most important missions
that has ever been despatched by the British-Indian Government to the
Court of a native potentate.
The mission, says Captain Malcom, was “completely successful”—a
declaration repeated more emphatically by Lord Wellesley.[6] But time
and circumstance did more for us than diplomacy. It was the ostensible
object of the mission to instigate the Shah of Persia to move an army
upon Herat, and so to withdraw Shah Zemaun from his threatened invasion
of Hindostan. But the move, which was to do so much for our security
in India, had been made before the British ambassador appeared at the
Persian Court; and the work, which was thus commenced by Futteh Ali,
was completed by Prince Mahmoud.[7] “You may rest assured,” wrote
Captain Malcolm, from Ispahan, in October, 1800, “that Zemaun Shah can
do nothing in India before the setting in of the rains of 1801. He has
not time, even if he had the power for such an attempt; and by the
blessing of God he will for some years to come be too much engaged
in this quarter to think of any other.”[8] But some years to come of
empire he was not destined to see. Even as Malcolm wrote, the days of
his sovereignty were numbered, and the bugbear of Afghan invasion was
passing into tradition.
The envoy was empowered either to offer a subsidy of from three to four
lakhs of rupees for a term of three years, or by a liberal distribution
of presents to the king and his principal ministers, to bribe them
into acquiescence. Malcolm chose the latter course. He threw about
his largesses with an unstinting hand, and everything went smoothly
with him. The farther he advanced into the interior, the greater was
the attention shown to the Mission, for the greater was the renown
of the liberality of the Christian _Elchee_. Every difficulty melted
away beneath the magic touch of British gold.[9] There had been at
the outset some trifling disputes about formalities—about titles and
designations—but these were soon cleared away; and the serious business
of the Mission proceeded in the midst of feasts and formalities to
a satisfactory completion. A commercial and a political treaty were
negotiated at Teheran by Malcolm and Hadjee Ibrahim; and the Shah
stamped their validity by prefixing to each a firman, or mandate, under
the royal seal, calling upon all the officers of the state to perform
its prescribed conditions. Of all the terms proposed by the English
envoy, but one was demurred to by the Persian Court. “And that even,”
writing some years afterwards, he said, “was not rejected.”[10] This
proposal related to the occupation by the English of the islands of
Kishm, Angani, and Khargh (or Kharrack),[11] in the Persian Gulf, on
the expediency of which, though much and ably controverted by others,
Malcolm never ceased to expatiate so long as he had a hand in the game
of Persian diplomacy.
This provision, which was to have been contained in the commercial
treaty, was said to contemplate only commercial objects; but, there
was to be a permission to fortify; and commerce, with an occasional
permission of this kind, had made India a British dependency, and the
Persians were not unreasonably jealous, therefore, of a commencement
which might have had a similar end.
In February, 1801, Captain Malcolm reported that he had accomplished
the object of his mission, and brought his labours to a close. “Whether
with credit or not,” he added in a private letter, “it is the province
of my superiors to judge. I can only say, in self-defence, that I
have done as much as I was able; and no man can do more. I am far
from admiring my own work, or considering it (as termed in one of
the preambles) _a beautiful image in the mirror of perpetuity_. It
is, on the contrary, I know, a very incorrect performance; and I can
hope it to meet with a favourable consideration only on the grounds
of the difficulties I had to encounter in a first negotiation with a
government not two stages removed from a state of barbarism.”[12]
The political treaty, indeed, called for apology; but not on the
grounds indicated in this deprecatory letter. It stipulated that if
ever again the Douranee monarch should be induced to attempt the
invasion of Hindostan, the King of Persia should be bound to lay waste,
with a great army, the country of the Afghans; and conclude no peace
with its ruler that was not accompanied with a solemn engagement to
abstain from all aggressions upon the English. But it was remarkable
chiefly for the bitterness with which it proscribed the French. “Should
an army of the French nation,” it stated, “actuated by design and
deceit, attempt to settle, with a view of establishing themselves on
any of the islands or shores of Persia, a conjoint force shall be
appointed by the two high contracting parties to act in co-operation,
and to destroy and put an end to the foundation of their treason.”
The firman prefixed to this treaty contained a passage addressed to
the rulers and officers of the ports, sea-coasts, and islands of Fars
and Koorgistan, saying, “Should ever any persons of the French nation
attempt to pass your boundaries, or desire to establish themselves
either on the shores or frontiers of the kingdom of Persia, you are
at full liberty to disgrace and slay them.”[13] These proceedings have
been severely censured by French writers, and even English politicians
have declared them to be “an eternal disgrace to our Indian diplomacy.”
But those were days when, even in India, men’s minds were unhinged
and unsettled, and their ideas of right and wrong confounded by the
monstrosities of the French revolution. It would be unjust to view
these measures with the eyes of to-day, or to forget the desperate
evils to which these desperate remedies were applied. It was conceived
that there was a great and pressing danger, and Captain Malcolm was
sent to combat it. But the treaty was never formally ratified; and the
Persian Court practically ignored its obligations as soon as it was
no longer convenient to observe them. The Embassy, however, was not a
fruitless one, even if the only estimated produce were the stores of
information it amassed.
* * * * *
Before the mission of Captain Malcolm to the West, but little was known
in India, and nothing in Great Britain, about the Douranee Empire, the
nature and extent of its resources, the quality of its soldiers, and
the character of its ruler. The information which that officer acquired
was not of a very alarming description. The Douranee Empire which has
since been shorn of some of its fairest provinces, then consisted of
Afghanistan, part of Khorassan, Cashmere, and the Derajat. The Sikh
nation had not then acquired the strength which a few years later
enabled it, under the military directorship of Runjeet Singh, to curb
the pretensions and to mutilate the empire of its dominant neighbour.
That empire extended from Herat in the west, to Cashmere in the east;
from northern Balkh to southern Shikarpoor. Bounded on the north and
east by immense mountain ranges, and on the south and west by vast
tracts of sandy desert, it opposed to external hostility natural
defences of a formidable character. The general aspect of the country
was wild and forbidding; in the imagination of the people haunted
by goules and genii; but not unvaried by spots of gentler beauty in
the valleys and on the plains, where the fields were smiling with
cultivation, and the husbandman might be seen busy at his work.
Few and far between as were the towns, the kingdom was thinly
populated. The people were a race—or a group of races—of hardy,
vigorous mountaineers. The physical character of the country had
stamped itself on the moral conformation of its inhabitants. Brave,
independent, but of a turbulent vindictive character, their very
existence seemed to depend upon a constant succession of internal
feuds. The wisest among them would probably have shaken their heads in
negation of the adage-“Happy the country whose annals are a blank.”
They knew no happiness in anything but strife. It was their delight to
live in a state of chronic warfare. Among such a people civil war has
a natural tendency to perpetuate itself. Blood is always crying aloud
for blood. Revenge was a virtue among them; the heritage of retribution
passed from father to son; and murder became a solemn duty. Living
under a dry, clear, bracing climate, but one subject to considerable
alternations of heat and cold, the people were strong and active; and
as navigable rivers were wanting, and the precipitous nature of the
country forbade the use of wheeled carriages, they were for the most
part good horsemen, and lived much in the saddle. Early trained to the
use of arms, compelled constantly to wear and often to use them in the
ordinary intercourse of life, every man was more or less a soldier or
a bandit. The very shepherds were men of strife. The pastoral and the
predatory character were strangely blended; and the tented cantonments
of the sheep-drivers often bristled into camps of war.
But there was a brighter side to the picture. Of a cheerful, lively
disposition, seemingly but little in accordance with the outward
gravity of their long beards and sober garments, they might be seen in
their villages, at evening tide, playing or dancing like children in
their village squares; or assembling in the Fakir’s gardens, to smoke
and talk, retailing the news gathered in the shops, reciting stories,
and singing their simple Afghan ballads, often expressive of that
tender passion which, among them alone of all Oriental nations, is
worthy of the name of love. Hospitable and generous, they entertained
the stranger without stint, and even his deadliest enemy was safe
beneath the Afghan’s roof. There was a simple courtesy in their manner
which contrasted favourably with the polished insincerity of the
Persians on one side, and the arrogant ferocity of the Rohillas on the
other. Judged by the strict standard of a Christian people, they were
not truthful in word or honest in deed, but, side by side with other
Asiatic nations, their truthfulness and honesty were conspicuous.
Kindly and considerate to their immediate dependents, the higher
classes were followed with loyal zeal and served with devoted fidelity
by the lower; and, perhaps, in no eastern country was less of tyranny
exercised over either the slaves of the household or the inmates of the
zenana. Unlettered were they, but not incurious; and although their
more polished brethren of Persia looked upon them as the Bœotians
of Central Asia, their Spartan simplicity and manliness more than
compensated for the absence of the Attic wit and eloquence of their
western neighbours.
Soldiers, husbandmen, and shepherds, they were described as the very
antithesis of a nation of shopkeepers. The vocation of the tradesman
they despised. To Taujiks, Hindoos, and other aliens, was the business
of selling entrusted, except upon that large scale which entitled the
dealer to be regarded as a merchant, and generally entailed upon him
the necessities of a wandering and adventurous life. The principal
commerce of the country was with the Persian and Russian states. In the
bazaars of Herat, Candahar, and Caubul the manufactures of Ispahan,
Yezd, and Cashan, the spices of India, and the broad-cloths of Russia,
brought by Astrakan and Bokhara, found a ready market. Occasionally,
when the settled state of the country gave encouragement to commercial
enterprise, an adventurous merchant would make his way, through Dera
from Bombay, with a cafila of British goods, for the scarlet cloths
of England were in especial demand to deck the persons of the body
servants of the king. The indigenous products of the country were few,
but important; for the rich shawls of Cashmere and the gaudy chintzes
of Mooltan, exported in large quantities, were in good repute all
over the civilised world.[14] At Herat some velvets and taffetas of
good quality were manufactured, but only for internal consumption;
whilst the assafœtida of that place, the madder of Candahar, and the
indigo of the Derajat,[15] found a market in the Persian cities, and
the dried fruits of the country were in request in all neighbouring
parts. These, a few other drugs of little note, and some iron from the
Hindoo Koosh and the Solimanee range, formed the main staple of Afghan
commerce. Between the large towns there was a constant interchange of
commodities; and long cafilas, or caravans, were ever in motion, from
east to west, and from north to south, toiling across the sandy plains
or struggling through the precipitous defiles, exposed to the attacks
of predatory tribes, who levied their contributions often not without
strife and bloodshed.
Such was the not very flattering picture of the commercial wealth of
the Douranee Empire, which was painted by Captain Malcolm’s informants.
Nor was the military strength of the Empire set forth in any more
striking colours. Distance and ignorance had vastly magnified the true
proportions of that famous military power, which was to have overrun
Hindostan, and driven the white men into the sea. The main strength
of the Afghan army was in the Douranee horse. The Douranee tribes
had been settled in Western Afghanistan by Nadir Shah. He had first
conquered, then taken them into his service, and then parcelled out
amongst them, as his military dependents, the lands which had before
been held, by a motley race of native cultivators. It was the policy
of Ahmed Shah and his successors—a policy which was subsequently
reversed by the Barukzye sirdars—to aggrandise and elevate these
powerful tribes, by heaping upon them privileges and immunities at
the expense of their less favoured countrymen. Upon the misery and
humiliation of others, the Douranee tribes throve and flourished.
The chief offices of the state were divided amongst them; they held
their lands exempt from taxation. The only demand made upon them, in
return for the privileges they enjoyed, was that they should furnish
a certain contingent of troops.[16] It was said to be the principle
of the military tenure by which they held their lands, that for every
plough used in cultivation[17] they should contribute a horseman for
the service of the state. But it does not appear that the integrity of
this system was long preserved. In a little time there ceased to be any
just proportion between the ploughs and the horsemen; and it became
difficult to account for the arbitrary manner in which each of the
different Douranee clans furnished its respective quota of troops.[18]
In the time of Ahmed Shah the Douranee horsemen mustered about 6000
strong. The other western tribes and the Persian stipendiaries together
reached about the same number. In the reign of Timour Shah, the army
was computed at some 40,000 soldiers, almost entirely horsemen;[19] but
no such force had served under Zemaun Shah, and they who had seen in
1799-1800, the muster of his troops near Caubul, and had access to the
returns of the muster-masters, reported that he then assembled only
some ten or twelve thousand men, and all, with the exception of a few
Persian stipendiaries, in the immediate service of the Wuzeer, very
miserably equipped. Even the Kuzzilbashes, when Shah Zemaun took the
field in 1799, refused to accompany the projected expedition, on the
plea that they wanted arms to fight their battles, and money to support
their wives.
Fighting men, indeed, were never wanting in Afghanistan, but money
was wanting to induce them to leave their homes. It was said that
Shah Zemaun might, on any great national enterprise, have led 200,000
men into the field, if he had had money to pay them. But his entire
revenues were not equal to the payment of a very much smaller force.
He was continually being deserted by his soldiery, at critical times,
for want of the sinews of war to retain them. The emptiness of his
treasury, indeed, reduced him to all kinds of shifts and expedients,
such as that of raising the value of the current coin of the realm. But
no devices of this character could confer upon him a really formidable
army. In one important branch he was miserably deficient. The Douranee
artillery consisted of some twelve brass field-pieces and five hundred
zumboorucks, or camel guns. Even these were miserably equipped; the
camels wanted drivers, and the guns were often unserviceable. It was
said by one who visited the encampment of the grand army, under Zemaun
Shah, in 1799-1800, that there were not above 500 good horses in camp,
and that these belonged principally to the King and the Wuzeer. The men
were mounted for the most part on yaboos, or ponies, few of which, at a
liberal valuation, were worth a hundred rupees.
Such was the army with which Zemaun Shah meditated the invasion
of Hindostan. The personal character of the monarch was not more
formidable than the army which he commanded. A scholar more than
a soldier, very strict in the observances of his religion, and an
assiduous reader of the Koran, his way of life, judged by the princely
standard of Central Asia, was sufficiently moral and decorous. Humane
and generous, of a gentle, plastic disposition; very prone to take for
granted the truth of all that was told him; by no means remarkable for
personal activity, and somewhat wanting in courage, he was designed by
nature for a facile puppet in the hands of a crafty Wuzeer. And such
was Zemaun Shah in the expert hands of Wuffadar Khan. It was reported
of him that he took no active part in the management of public affairs;
and that when it was politic that he should make a show of government
and appear at Durbar, what he said was little more than a public
recital of a lesson well learnt in private. He was, indeed, the mere
mouth-piece of the minister—of a worse and more designing man. Content
with the gilded externals of majesty, he went abroad sumptuously
arrayed and magnificently attended; and mighty in all the state papers
of the time was the name of Zemaun Shah. But it was shrewdly suspected
that, had the state of his domestic relations and the military
resources at his command enabled him to take the field, as the invader
of Hindostan, a bribe any day offered to the Wuzeer might have broken
up the Douranee army, and kept the invader quietly at home.
On the whole, he was a popular ruler. The cultivating classes were
happy under his government. It recognised their claims to remuneration
for whatever was taken from them for the service of the state, and
no acts of fraud and oppression were ever committed in his name. The
merchants and traders were secure under his rule. In the midst of
much that was base and unworthy in the character and conduct of the
minister, he had a reputation for fair dealing with these classes,
and they looked up to him for protection. But far otherwise were his
relations with the warlike tribes and the chief people of the empire.
They were not without feelings of loyalty towards the king; but it was
rather affection for his person, than satisfaction with the government
of which he was the head. The grasping character of the minister, who
engrossed to himself all the patronage of the state, rendered him, in
spite of his courteous manners and affable demeanour, obnoxious to the
principal Sirdars; and something of this disaffection began in time to
be directed against the monarch himself, who had too long abandoned
his own better nature to the sinister guidance of the unprincipled and
unpopular Wuzeer.
Like many a monarch, abler and better than himself, Zemaun Shah had
chosen his minister unwisely, and was undone by the choice. When he
entrusted the affairs of his empire to the administration of Wuffadar
Khan, he made the great mistake of his life. A base and designing
man, without any of those commanding qualities which impart something
of dignity and heroism to crime, the Wuzeer bent his sovereign, but
could not bend circumstances to his will. The loyalty of the Douranee
sirdars he could extinguish, but their power he could not break by his
oppressions. Alarmed at their increasing influence, Wuffadar Khan
sought to encompass them in the toils of destruction; but he destroyed
himself and involved his sovereign in the ruin. Prince Mahmoud was
in arms against his royal brother. Exasperated by the conduct of the
minister, the Douranees threw all the weight of their influence into
the scales in favour of the prince. The rebellion which they headed
acquired strength and swelled into a revolution. And then began that
great strife between the royal princes and the Douranee sirdars, which
half a century of continued conflict, now witnessing the supremacy of
the one, now of the other, has scarcely even yet extinguished.
The two principal clans or tribes of the Douranees were the Populzyes
and the Barukzyes. The Suddozye, or Royal race, was one of the branches
of the former. The Bamezye, in which the Wuzeership was vested, but
not by inalienable right, was another branch of the same tribe. Second
in influence to the Populzyes, and greater in extent, was the tribe of
the Barukzyes. To this tribe belonged Futteh Khan. He was the son of
Poyndah Khan, an able statesman and a gallant soldier, whose wisdom in
council and experience in war had long sustained the tottering fortunes
of Timour Shah. On the death of that feeble monarch he had supported
the claims of Zemaun Shah. With as little wisdom as gratitude, that
prince, it has been seen, suffered himself to be cajoled by a man
of less honesty and less ability, and became a tool in the hands of
Wuffadar Khan. The favourite of two monarchs was disgraced; and, from a
powerful friend, became the resolute enemy of the reigning family. He
conspired against the King and the Wuzeer; his designs were detected;
and he perished miserably with his associates in the enterprise of
treason.
Poyndah Khan died, leaving twenty-one sons, of whom Futteh Khan was
the eldest. They are said, after the death of their father, to have
stooped into a cloud of poverty and humiliation, and to have wandered
about begging their bread. But their trials were only for a season.
The Barukzye brothers soon emerged from the night of suffering that
surrounded them. There was no power in the Douranee Empire which
could successfully cope with these resolute, enterprising spirits.
In Afghanistan revenge is a virtue. The sons of Poyndah Khan had
the murder of their father to avenge; and they rested not till the
bloody obligation had been faithfully fulfilled. Futteh Khan had fled
into Persia, and there leagued himself with Prince Mahmoud. Repeated
failure had extinguished the ambition of this restless prince. The
accession of the Barukzye sirdar now inspired him with new courage.
Upheld by the strong arm of the “king-maker,” he determined to strike
another blow for the sovereignty of Caubul. With a few horsemen they
entered Afghanistan, and, raising the standard of revolt, pushed on to
unexpected conquest.
There were not many in Afghanistan, nor many among the disinterested
lookers-on at that fraternal strife, who were inclined to jeopardise
their character for sagacity by predicting the success of the prince.
Everything, indeed, was against him. His treasury was always empty.
His friends were not men of note. With the exception of the Barukzye
sirdars,[20] no chiefs of influence espoused his cause. His followers
were described to Captain Malcolm as men “of low condition and mean
extraction.” But in spite of the slender support which he received,
and the strenuous efforts which were made to destroy him, the successes
which from time to time he achieved, seemed to show that there was
some vitality in his cause. A divinity seemed to hedge him in, and to
protect him from the knife of the assassin. He escaped as though by
a miracle the snares of his enemies, and from every new deliverance
seemed to gather something of prosperity and strength. It was after one
of these marvellous escapes, when the weapons of the Kuzzilbashes[21]
had fallen from their hands, palsied by the mysterious presence of the
blood royal, that Candahar fell before the insurgents. With two or
three thousand horsemen, Mahmoud invested the place for thirty-three
days, at the end of which Futteh Khan, with a handful of resolute men,
escaladed the fort near the Shikarpoor gate, and put the panic-struck
garrison to flight. The Meer Akhoor, or Master of the Horse, fled for
his life. The Shah-zadah Hyder sought sanctuary at the tomb of Ahmed
Shah; and Prince Mahmoud became master of the place.
It is not a peculiarity of Eastern princes alone to shine with a
brighter and steadier light in the hour of adversity than in the
hour of success. The trials of prosperity were too great for Prince
Mahmoud, as they have been for greater men; and he soon began to lose
ground at Candahar. The marvel is, that his fortunes were not utterly
marred by his own folly. It was only by the concurrence of greater
folly elsewhere, that in this conjecture he was saved from ruin. His
impolitic and haughty conduct towards the sirdars early demonstrated
his unfitness for rule, and well-nigh precipitated the enterprise in
which he was engaged into a sea of disastrous failure. There seemed,
indeed, to be only one thing that could sustain him, and that one thing
was wanting. He was as poor as he was unpopular. But the days of Shah
Zemaun’s sovereignty were numbered, and no folly on the part of his
antagonist could arrest the doom that was brooding over him.
At this time Zemaun Shah was on his way towards the borders of
Hindostan. He had advanced as far as Peshawur, when intelligence of
the fall of Candahar reached his camp. It was believed that he had
little actual design of advancing beyond the Sutlej. Partly with a
view of enforcing the payment of the Sindh tribute—partly to overawe
the Sikhs, and partly to abstract his own army from the dangerous
vicinity of Candahar and the corrupting influences to which in such a
neighbourhood it was exposed, he had made this move to the southward.
It was very obvious that, in such a condition of his own empire, all
idea of invading Hindostan was utterly wild and chimerical. If such an
idea had ever been formed, it was now speedily abandoned. All other
considerations gave place to the one necessity of saving his kingdom
from the grasp of his brother. He hastened back to Western Afghanistan;
but an impolitic expedition under the prince Soojah-ool-Moolk, who was
soon destined to play a conspicuous part in the great Central-Asian
drama, had crippled his military resources, and when he retraced his
steps, he found that the strength of Prince Mahmoud had increased
as his own had diminished. He marched against the rebels only to be
defeated. The main body of the royal troops was under the command of
one Ahmed Khan, a chief of the Noorzye tribe. Watching his opportunity,
Futteh Khan seized the person of the Sirdar’s brother, and threatened
to destroy him if the chief refused to come over bodily with his
troops and swell the ranks of the insurgents. The character of the
Barukzye leader certified that this was no idle threat. Ahmed Khan,
already wavering in his loyalty, for the conduct of the Wuzeer had
alienated his heart from the royal cause, at once made his election.
When the troops of Shah Zemaun came up with the advance of the rebel
army, he joined the insurgent force. From that time the cause of the
royalists became hopeless. Disaster followed disaster till its ruin
was complete. The minister and his master fell into the hands of the
enemy. Wuffadar Khan, with his brothers, was put to death. Death, too,
awaited the king—but the man was suffered to live. They doomed him only
to political extinction. There is a cruel, but a sure way of achieving
this in all Mahomedan countries. Between a blind king and a dead king
there is no political difference. The eyes of a conquered monarch
are punctured with a lancet, and he _de facto_ ceases to reign. They
blinded Shah Zemaun, and cast him into prison; and the Douranee Empire
owned Shah Mahmoud as its head.
So fell Zemaun Shah, the once dreaded Afghan monarch, whose threatened
invasion of Hindostan had for years been a ghastly phantom haunting
the Council-Chamber of the British-Indian Government. He survived the
loss of his sight nearly half a century; and as the neglected pensioner
of Loodhianah, to the very few who could rememberer the awe which his
name once inspired, must have presented a curious spectacle of fallen
greatness—an illustration of the mutability of human affairs scarcely
paralleled in the history of the world. He died at last full of years,
empty of honours, his death barely worth a newspaper-record or a
paragraph in a state paper. Scarcely identified in men’s minds with
the Zemaun Shah of the reigns of Sir John Shore and Lord Wellesley, he
lived an appendage, alike in prosperity and adversity, to his younger
brother, Soojah-ool-Moolk. That Soojah had once been reputed and
described as an appendage to Shah Zemaun-“his constant companion at
all times.” They soon came to change places, and in a country where
fraternal strife is the rule and not the exception, it is worthy of
record that those brothers were true to each other to the last.[22]
CHAPTER II.
[1801-1808.]
The Early Days of Soojah-ool-Moolk—Disastrous Commencement of his
Career—Defeat of Shah Mahmoud—Reign of Shah Soojah—The Insurrection of
Prince Kaysur—Tidings of the British Mission.
From the fall of Zemaun Shah we are to date the rise of
Soojah-ool-Moolk. They were brothers by the same father and mother.
At the time of the political extinction of the elder, the younger was
about twenty years of age. He had taken no part in the government; was
but lightly esteemed for courage; and had little place in the thoughts
of the people, except as an appendage of the reigning monarch. In
command of the royal troops, and in charge of the family and property
of the king, whilst Zemaun Shah was striking a last blow for empire
in the West, he had held his post at Peshawur. There he received the
disastrous tidings of the fate that had descended upon his brother
and his prince. He at once proclaimed himself king, began to levy
troops, and in September, 1801, marched upon Caubul with an army of
10,000 men. Victorious at the outset, he did not improve his successes,
and was eventually defeated by the Douranees under Futteh Khan. The
destinies of princes were in the hands of the powerful Barukzye sirdar.
His energies and his influence alone upheld the drooping sovereignty
of Shah Mahmoud. Weak and unprincipled, indolent and rapacious, that
prince had been raised to the throne by Futteh Khan; and, though it
was not in the nature of things that a ruler so feeble and so corrupt
should long retain his hold of the empire, for a while the strong hand
of the minister sustained him in his place.
Soojah-ool-Moolk fled to the fastnesses of the Khybur Pass. In the
winter of 1801 the Ghilzyes broke out into open rebellion against the
Douranee power; but were defeated with great slaughter. The Douranees
returned to Caubul, and erected from the heads of the conquered, a
pyramid of human skulls. In the spring of the following year the same
restless tribe was again in rebellion; and again the energies of
Futteh Khan were put forth for the suppression of the dangerous spirit
of Ghilzye revolt. In March, 1802, the insurgents were a second time
chastised; and, it is said, on the same day, Soojah-ool-Moolk, who had
raised an army in the Khybur and marched upon Peshawur, sustained a
severe defeat at the hands of the Douranee garrison, and was driven
back into the obscurity from which he had fruitlessly emerged.
Thus for a while was tranquillity restored to the Douranee Empire.
Reading and conversing with learned men, and taking council with his
military adherents, Soojah-ool-Moolk, from the time of his defeat,
remained inactive in the Afreedi country. Even there the vigilant
enmity of the Wuzeer tracked the unhappy prince. There was no
security in such retirement. The shadow of Futteh Khan darkened his
resting-place and disturbed his repose. He fled to Shawl; and there,
in the depth of winter and on the verge of starvation, wandered about,
making vain endeavours to subsist himself and a few followers by the
sale of the royal jewels. Among a people little understanding the
worth of such costly articles, purchasers were with difficulty to be
found. In the extremity which then beset him he changed the character
of the pedlar for that of the bandit, and levied money by plundering
caravans, and giving notes of hand for the amount that he raised. In
this manner he collected three lakhs of rupees, and was enabled to
levy troops for an attack upon Candahar. But Providence did not smile
upon his endeavours. He was again repulsed. Again was he involved in a
great ruin; with little hope of extrication by the energy of his own
struggles, or the inherent vitality of his cause.
But in the mean while the sovereignty of Shah Mahmoud was falling to
pieces by itself. He had risen upon the weakness of his predecessor,
and now by his own weakness was he to be cast down. What Shah Zemaun
had done for him, was he now doing for Soojah-ool-Moolk. In the absence
of Futteh Khan, the Kuzzilbashes were suffered to ride roughshod over
the people. The excesses which they committed at Caubul, scattered
the last remnant of popularity which still adhered to the person of
the king. At last an open outbreak occurred between the Sheeas and
the Soonees. The king identified himself with the former; some of his
chief ministers with the latter. In this conjuncture Soojah-ool-Moolk
was sent for to strengthen the hands of the Shah’s opponents. When
he arrived, he found Caubul in a state of siege. Futteh Khan had by
this time returned to aid the royal cause, but too late to regain the
ground that had been lost in his absence. There was an engagement,
which lasted from morning to evening prayer, and at the end of which
Mahmoud was defeated. Futteh Khan fled. Soojah-ool-Moolk entered Caubul
in triumph; and Mahmoud threw himself at his feet.[23] To him, who in
the hour of victory had shown no mercy, mercy was shown in the hour of
defeat. It is to the honour of Shah Soojah that he forbore to secure
the future tranquillity of his empire, by committing the act of cruelty
which had disgraced the accession of the now prostrate Mahmoud. The
eyes of the fallen prince were spared: and years of continued intestine
strife declared how impolitic was the act of mercy.
For from this time, throughout many years, the strife between the royal
brothers was fierce and incessant. In his son Kamran, the ex-King
Mahmoud found a willing ally and an active auxiliary. To the reigning
monarch it was a period of endless inquietude. His resources were
limited, and his qualities were of too negative a character to render
him equal to the demands of such stirring times. He wanted vigour; he
wanted activity; he wanted judgment; and above all, he wanted money. It
is ever the fate of those who have risen, as Soojah rose to monarchy,
to be dragged down by the weight of the obligations incurred and the
promises made in the hour of adversity. The day of reckoning comes
and the dangers of success are as great as the perils of failure. The
Douranee monarch could not meet his engagements without weakening
himself, by making large assignments upon the revenues of different
provinces; and even then many interested friends were turned by
disappointment into open enemies. This was one element of weakness. But
the error of his life was committed when he failed to propitiate the
loyalty of the great Barukzye, Futteh Khan. Upon the accession of Shah
Soojah, that chief had been freely pardoned, and “allowed to salute the
step of the throne.” But the king did not estimate the real value of
the alliance, and, elevating his rival Akrum Khan, refused the moderate
demands of the Barukzye chief. Disappointed and chagrined, Futteh Khan
then deserted the royal standard. He chose his time wisely and well.
The king had set out with an army to overawe Peshawur and Cashmere.
When they had proceeded some way, Futteh Khan, who accompanied him,
excused himself on the plea of some physical infirmity which disabled
him from keeping pace with the royal cortège, and said that he would
join the army, following it by easy stages. Thus, disguising his
defection, he fell in the rear, and as the royal party advanced,
returned to foment a rebellion.
In this distracted country there was at that time another aspirant
to the throne. The son of Zemaun Shah, Prince Kaysur, had set up his
claims to the sovereignty of Caubul. He had been appointed governor of
Candahar by Shah Soojah; and probably would have been satisfied with
this extent of power, if Futteh Khan had not incited him to revolt,
and offered to aid him in his attempts upon the crown. The prince lent
a willing ear to the charmings of the Sirdar; and so it happened that
whilst Shah Soojah was amusing himself on the way to Peshawur-“enjoying
the beautiful scenery and the diversion of hunting,”—his nephew and
the Barukzye chief were raising a large army at Candahar, intent
upon establishing, by force of arms, the claims of the family of his
sightless brother.
This ill-omened intelligence brought the Shah back in haste to his
capital, whence he soon marched towards Candahar to meet the advancing
troops of the prince. And here again, to the treachery of his
opponents, rather than to the valour of his own troops, the Shah owed
his success. On the eve of the expected conflict, the son of Ahmed
Khan, with other Douranee chiefs, deserted to the royal standard.
Disheartened and dismayed, the prince broke up his army, and fled to
Candahar. In the meanwhile, Shah Soojah returned to Caubul to find it
occupied by an insurgent force. According to his own confession, he
was employed for a month in repossessing himself of the capital. The
insurgent prince and the Barukzye chief, during this time, had in some
measure recovered themselves at Candahar, and the king marched again
to the westward. Kaysur fled at his approach; and Futteh Khan betook
himself to Herat, to offer his services to the son of his old master.
The prince was brought back and conducted to the royal presence by Shah
Zemaun and the Mooktor-ood-Dowlah, who besought the forgiveness of the
king on the plea of the youth and inexperience of the offender, and the
evil counsel of the Barukzye sirdar. Against his better judgment, Shah
Soojah forgave him and restored him to the government of Candahar.[24]
The affairs of Candahar being thus settled for a time, Shah Soojah
marched into Sindh to enforce the payment of tribute which had been
due for some years to Caubul. He then returned to his capital, and
after giving his troops a three months’ furlough, began to think of
commencing operations against Kamran, who was again disturbing the
country to the west. In the meanwhile, this prince had marched upon
Candahar, and Kaysur had fled at his approach. This was the second
time the two princes had met as enemies—the second time that the scale
had been turned by the weight of the chief of the Barukzyes. On one
occasion, Futteh Khan had invited Kamran to Candahar, and engaged to
deliver up the city—then suddenly formed an alliance with Kaysur, and,
sword in hand at the head of a small body of Douranees, driven back
the prince with whom he had just before been in close alliance. Now
he forsook the son of Shah Zemaun to unite himself with the heir of
Mahmoud. Forgetful of past treachery, Kamran received the powerful
Barukzye; and they marched together upon Candahar. Kaysur, as I have
said, fled at his approach; and the insurgents took possession of the
city. In the meanwhile, the Persians were advancing upon Herat, and
Shah Soojah was moving up to Candahar. In this critical conjuncture,
Kamran returned in alarm to the former place, and Kaysur joined the
king at the latter. “We again,” says Shah Soojah, “gave him charge
of Candahar, at the request of our queen-mother, and our brother,
Shah Zemaun. On our return to Caubul, Akrum Khan and the other Khans
petitioned us to pardon Futteh Khan, who was now reduced to poverty.
We assented. He was then brought into the presence by Akrum Khan. We
remained some time in Candahar, in the charge of which we left Prince
Zemaun, and sent Kaysur to Caubul.”
Again was it in the power of Shah Soojah to conciliate the great
Barukzye. Again was the opportunity lost. There was something in
the temper of the monarch adverse to the formation of new, and the
retention of old, friendships. Whilst Futteh Khan was again made to
feel the impossibility of any lasting alliance with a prince who could
not appreciate the value of his services, and who neither invited nor
inspired confidence, the chain which bound the Mooktor-ood-Dowlah
to the sovereign was gradually relaxing, and a new danger began to
threaten the latter. When the Shah was absent in the Sindh territory,
the minister flung himself into the arms of Prince Kaysur, and publicly
proclaimed him king. The rebels moved down upon Peshawur, and took
possession of the city. Shah Soojah immediately began to direct his
operations against that place. It was on the 3rd of March, 1808, that
the two armies came into collision. “The sun rising,” says Shah Soojah,
who had halted for six days in the vicinity of Peshawur, hoping that
the rebellious minister might perhaps repent, “we saw the opposite
armies in battle-array. Khojan Mahommed Khan, with a few Khans,
followers from Mooktor-ood-Dowlah’s army, did great deeds of valour,
and at last dispersed our raw soldiers, leaving us alone in the field,
protected by a few faithful Douranees. We still remained on our guard,
when our attendants warned us of the approach of Khojan Mahommed Khan.
We rushed on the traitor sword in hand, and cut through four of the
iron plates of his cuirass. Our chief eunuch, Nekoo Khan, brought his
horse and accoutrements. Mooktor-ood-Dowlah then attacked our force;
but he and his whole race perished. Prince Kaysur fled to Caubul. We
then marched in triumphant pomp to the Balla Hissar of Peshawur.”
The gory head of the minister, borne aloft on a spear, and carried
behind the conqueror, gave _éclat_ to the procession, and declared the
completeness of his victory.
Prince Kaysur, after a single night spent at Caubul, fled into the
hill country; but was brought back to the capital by the emissaries
of the Shah. The experience of past treachery and past ingratitude
had not hardened the monarch’s heart: and he again “pardoned the
manifold offences of his nephew.” In the meanwhile Mahmoud, who had
been joined by Futteh Khan, and had been endeavouring to raise the
sinews of war by plundering caravans, obtained, by the usual process
of treachery, possession of Candahar, and then marched upon Caubul.
Shah Soojah went out to meet him, and Mahmoud, rendered hopeless
by disaffection in his ranks, broke up his camp and fled. The king
then turned his face towards the west, and ordered his camp to be
pitched on the road to Herat. “Hearing of our approach,” he says, “our
brother, Feroz-ood-Deen, then in charge of the fort of Herat, sent
a petition, requesting our orders, proffering the tribute due, and
offering to become security for Mahmoud’s future behaviour. The same
blood flowed in our veins, and we ordered one lakh of rupees to be
paid him yearly from the tribute of Sindh, and conferred on him the
government of Herat.” This done, he proceeded to Caubul, and thence to
Peshawur, where he “received petitions from the Khan of Bahwulpore and
Moozuffur Khan, Suddozye, stating that ambassadors from the Company’s
territories, by name Elphinstone and Strachey, had arrived, and
requested orders.” “We wrote to the ambassadors,” says the Shah, “and
ordered our chiefs to pay them every attention.”
The history of this mission will be embraced in a subsequent chapter.
It is not without some misgivings that I have traced these early annals
of the Douranee Empire.[25] But the chronicle is not without its uses.
It illustrates, in a remarkable manner, both the general character
of Afghan politics, and the extraordinary vicissitudes of the early
career of the man whom thirty years afterwards the British raised
from the dust of exile, and reseated on the throne of his fathers.
The history of the Afghan monarchy is a history of a long series of
revolutions. Seldom has the country rested from strife—seldom has the
sword reposed in the scabbard. The temper of the people has never been
attuned to peace. They are impatient of the restraints of a settled
government, and are continually panting after change. Half-a-century
of turbulance and anarchy has witnessed but little variation in the
national character; and the Afghan of the present day is the same
strange mixture of impetuosity and cunning—of boldness and treachery—of
generosity and selfishness—of kindness and cruelty—as he was when
Zemaun Shah haunted the Council-Chamber of Calcutta with a phantom of
invasion, and the vision was all the more terrible because “the shape
thereof” no one could discern.
CHAPTER III.
[1801-1808.]
France and Russia in the East—Death of Hadjee Khalil Khan—The Mission
of Condolence—Aga Nebee Khan—Extension of Russian Dominion in the
East—French Diplomacy in Persia—The pacification of Tilsit—Decline of
French influence in Teheran.
The intestine wars, which rent and convulsed the Afghan Empire, were a
source of acknowledged security to the British power in the East. From
the time when in the first year of the present century Captain Malcolm
dictated at the Court of Teheran the terms of that early treaty, which
French writers freely condemn, and Englishmen are slow to vindicate,
to the date of the romantic pacification of Tilsit, the politics of
Central Asia excited little interest or alarm in the Council-Chamber of
Calcutta. India had ceased to bestir itself about an Afghan invasion.
Instead of a shadowy enemy from beyond the Indus, the British had
now to face, on the banks of the Jumna, a real and formidable foe.
The genius of the two Wellesleys was called into action to curb the
insolence and crush the power of the Mahrattas; and whilst we were
alternately fighting and negotiating with Scindiah and Holkar, we
scarcely cared to ask who reigned in Afghanistan; or if accident made
us acquainted with the progress of events, viewed with philosophic
unconcern the vicissitudes of the Douranee Empire.
Engaged in the solution of more pressing political questions at
home, Lord Wellesley and his immediate successors bestowed little
thought upon the Persian alliance. Throughout the remaining years of
that nobleman’s administration, one event alone occurred to rouse
the Governor-General to a consideration of the temper of the Court
of Teheran. That event filled him with apprehensions of danger
preposterously incommensurate with its own importance, and ridiculously
falsified by the result. An accident, and a very untoward one, it
occurred at a time when the Indian Government had not yet recovered
from the inquietude engendered by their disturbing dreams of French
and Afghan invasion. The story may be briefly told. On the return of
Captain Malcolm from Persia, one Hadjee Khalil Khan had been despatched
to India to reciprocate assurances of friendship, and to ratify and
interchange the treaty. The mission cost the Hadjee his life. He had
not been long resident in Bombay,[26] when the Persian attendants of
the ambassador and the detachment of Company’s sepoys forming his
escort quarrelled with each other in the courtyard before his house,
and came into deadly collision. The Hadjee went out to quell the
riot, and was struck dead by a chance shot. The intelligence of this
unhappy disaster was brought round to Calcutta by a king’s frigate.
The sensation it created at the Presidency was intense. Every possible
demonstration of sorrow was made by the Supreme Government. Minute guns
were fired from the ramparts of Fort William. All levees and public
dinners at Government-House were suspended. Distant stations caught
the alarm from the Council-Chamber of Calcutta. The minor presidencies
were scarcely less convulsed. Bombay having previously thrown itself
into mourning, instructions for similar observances were sent round
to Madras; and two days after the arrival of the _Chiffone_ it was
announced in the Gazette that Major Malcolm, who was at that time
acting as private secretary to Lord Wellesley, had been directed to
proceed to Bombay, for the purpose of communicating with the relations
of the late Hadjee Khalil Khan, taking with him, as secretary, his
young friend and relative, Lieutenant Pasley, who had accompanied him
on his first mission to Persia. At the same time Mr. Lovett, a civilian
of no long standing, was ordered to proceed immediately to Bushire,
charged with an explanatory letter from Lord Wellesley to the Persian
king, and instructed to offer such verbal explanations as might be
called for by the outraged monarch. For some days nothing was thought
of in Calcutta beyond the circle of this calamitous affair. In other
directions a complete paralysis descended upon the Governor-General
and his advisers. The paramount emergency bewildered the strongest
understandings, and dismayed the stoutest hearts at the Presidency. And
yet it was said, not long afterwards, by the minister of Shiraz, that
“the English might kill ten ambassadors, if they would pay for them at
the same rate.”
Major Malcolm left Calcutta on the 30th of August, and beating down
the Bay of Bengal against the south-west monsoon, reached Masulipatam
on the 19th of September. Taking dawk across the country, he spent a
few days at Hyderabad in the Deccan, transacted some business there,
and then pushed on to Bombay. Reaching that Presidency on the 10th of
October, he flung himself into his work with characteristic energy
and self-reliance. Mr. Lovett, who had none of his activity, followed
slowly behind, and fell sick upon the road. Jonathan Duncan, the most
benevolent of men, was at that time Governor of Bombay, and some
members of the Persian embassy had presumed upon his good-nature to
assume an arrogance of demeanour which it now became Malcolm’s duty
to check. He soon reduced them to reason. Before the end of the month
every difficulty had vanished. Many of the Persians were personally
acquainted with the English diplomatist. All were acquainted with his
character. But above all, it was known that he was the bearer of the
public purse. He came to offer the mourners large presents and handsome
pensions from the Supreme Government, and it is no matter of surprise,
therefore, that he had soon, in his own words, “obtained from them a
confidence which enabled him to set aside all intermediate agents, and
consequently freed him from all intrigues.”[27]
It was arranged that the body of the deceased ambassador should be
put on board at the end of October, and that, a day or two later, the
vessel should set sail for the Persian Gulf. Mr. Pasley was directed
to attend the Hadjee’s remains, and was charged with the immediate
duties of the mission.[28] When the vessel reached Bushire, it was
found that the death of the Hadjee had created little sensation in the
Persian territories, and that before the intelligence was ten days old
it had been well-nigh forgotten. The Resident at Bushire, a Persian
of good family, naturalised in India, and employed by the Company—an
astute diplomatist and a great liar—had thought it necessary to testify
his zeal by circulating a false version of the circumstances attending
the death of the Hadjee, and calumniating the memory of the deceased.
There was no need, indeed, of this. The Persian Government seems to
have regarded the death of the Hadjee with exemplary unconcern; and
marvelled why the English should have made so great a stir about so
small a matter. If a costly British mission could have been extracted
out of the disaster, the Court would have been more than satisfied;
whilst they who were most deeply interested in the event, moved by the
same _sacra fames_, thought rather of turning it to profitable account
than of bewailing the death of their relative and friend.
The brother-in-law of the late envoy lost no time in offering his
services to fill the place of the deceased. The name of this man was
Aga Nebee Khan. He was the son, by a second connexion, of the mistress
of Mr. Douglas, chief of the Bussorah factory, and had been Mr. Jones’s
moonshee, on a monthly salary of thirty rupees. The Hadjee himself had
been a person of no consideration. Half-minister and half-merchant,
he had thought more of trading upon his appointment than of advancing
the interests of the state; and Nebee Khan, who had embarked with him
in his commercial speculations, now lusted to succeed his murdered
relative in his diplomatic office, as well as in the senior partnership
of the mercantile concern. And he succeeded at last. It cost him
time, and it cost him money to accomplish his purpose; but partly
by bribery, partly by cajolery, he eventually secured the object of
his ambition.[29] It was not, however, till three full years had
passed away since the death of the Hadjee, that his brother-in-law
reached Calcutta, “not exactly to fill his relative’s place, but to
exercise the triple functions of minister, merchant, and claimant of
blood-money, which he roundly assessed at twenty lakhs of rupees.”
And in those three years a great change had come over the Supreme
Government of India. A long war, prosecuted with extraordinary vigour,
had exhausted the financial resources of the state. The reign of
India’s most magnificent satrap—the “sultanised” Governor-General—was
at an end. A new ruler had been sent from England to carry out a new
policy; and that policy was fatal to the pretensions of such a man as
Nebee Khan.
He had fallen, indeed, upon evil times. Those were not days when
moneyed compensations were likely to be granted even to ambassadors,
or when there was any greater likelihood of an Indian statesman
embarrassing himself with distant engagements which might compel him
to advance an army into unknown regions, or send a fleet into foreign
seas. So there was nothing but disappointment in store for Nebee Khan.
In the month of October, 1805, the vessel bearing the ambassador sailed
into the harbour of Bombay. He was welcomed with all the formalities
befitting his station, and with every demonstration of respect. But a
series of untoward circumstances, like those which, in the reign of
our second James, delayed the public audience of Lord Castlemaine at
Rome, postponed, for the space of many months, the reception of Nebee
Khan at Calcutta. At length, on the 28th of April, 1806, the ceremony
of presentation took place. Sir George Barlow was then at the head of
the Indian Government. The Governor-General lined the public way with
soldiers, and sent the leading officers of the state to conduct the
merchant-minister to his presence. It was an imposing spectacle, and
a solemn farce. The Persian elchee knew that he had come to Calcutta
not to treat of politics, but of pice; and the English governor, while
publicly honouring the Persian, secretly despised him as a sordid
adventurer, and was bent upon baffling his schemes. At the private
interviews which took place between the British functionaries and Nebee
Khan, there was little mention of political affairs. There was a long
outstanding money account between the parties, and the settlement of
the account-current was the grand object of the mission. The Persian,
who thought that he had only to ask, found that times had changed since
the commencement of the century, and was overwhelmed with dismay when
the British secretary demonstrated to him that he was a debtor to our
government of more than a lakh of rupees. Satisfied with existing
relations of friendship between Persia and Great Britain, and never
at any time disposed to embarrass himself with unnecessary treaties,
Barlow declined to enter into new political negotiations, or to satisfy
the exorbitant personal claims of the representative of the Persian
Court. Nebee Khan left Calcutta a disappointed man. The speculation had
not answered. The investment had been a bad one. He had toiled for four
long years; he had wasted his time and wasted his money only to be told
at last, by an officious secretary, that he owed the British-Indian
Government a lakh and seven thousand rupees. In January, 1807, carrying
back a portfolio, not more full of political than his purse of
financial results, the ambassador left Calcutta. Neither the merchant
nor the minister had played a winning game. Compensation and treaties
were alike refused him; and he went back with empty hands.
In the mean while, the French had succeeded in establishing their
influence at the Court of Teheran.[30] They had long been pushing their
intrigues in that quarter, and now at last were beginning to overcome
the difficulties which had formerly beset them. The Malcolm treaty of
1800 bound the contracting parties to a defensive alliance against
France; but the terms of the treaty had been scarcely adjusted, when
French emissaries endeavoured to shake the fidelity of Persia by
large offers of assistance. The offers were rejected. The French were
told, in emphatic language, that “if Napoleon appeared in person at
Teheran, he would be denied admission to the centre of the universe.”
But, undaunted by these failures, they again returned to tempt the
embarrassed Persians. Every year increased the difficulties of the
Shah, and weakened his reliance on the British. He was beset with
danger, and he wanted aid. The British-Indian Government was either too
busy or too indifferent to aid him. The energetic liberality of the
French contrasted favourably with our supineness; and before the year
1805 had worn to a close, Persia had sought the very alliance and asked
the very aid, which before had been offered and rejected.
The assistance that was sought was assistance against Russia. In
1805, the Shah addressed a letter to Napoleon, then in the very
zenith of his triumphant career, seeking the aid of the great western
conqueror to stem the tide of Russian encroachment. For years had
that formidable northern power been extending its conquests to the
east-wards. Before the English trader had begun to organise armies in
Hindostan, and to swallow up ancient principalities, the grand idea
of founding an Eastern empire had been grasped by the capacious mind
of Peter the Great. Over the space of a century, under emperors and
empresses of varying shades of character, had the same undeviating
course of aggressive policy been pursued by Russia towards her eastern
neighbours. The country which lies between the Black Sea and the
Caspian was the especial object of Muscovite ambition. A portion of it,
occupied by a race of hardy, vigorous mountaineers, still defies the
tyranny of the Czar, and still from time to time, as new efforts are
made to subjugate it, new detachments of Russian troops are buried in
its formidable defiles. But Georgia, after a series of wars, notorious
for the magnitude of the atrocities which disgraced them, had been
wrested from the Persians before the close of the last century, and in
1800 was formally incorporated with the Russian Empire by the Autocrat
Paul.
These encroachments beyond the Caucasus brought Russia and Persia into
a proximity as tempting to the one as it was perilous to the other.
The first few years of the present century were years of incessant and
sanguinary strife. In the Russian Governor-General, Zizianoff, were
combined great personal energy and considerable military skill, with
a certain ferocity of character which seldom allowed him to display
much clemency towards the vanquished. A Georgian by extraction, and
connected by marriage with the princes of that country, he never forgot
the cruelties which had alienated for ever the hearts of the Georgian
people from their old Mahomedan masters. The restless aggressive spirit
of the great Muscovite power was fitly represented by this man. He was
soon actively at work. He entered Daghistan—defeated the Lesghees with
great slaughter—carried Ganja by assault, and massacred the garrison—a
second time defeated the Lesghees, after a sanguinary engagement;
and then returning to Tiflis, addressed the governors of Shamakhee,
Sheesha, and other fortresses to the north of the Aras, threatening
them with the fate of Ganja if they did not make instant submission in
compliance with the orders of the Russian monarch, who had instructed
him not to pause in his career of conquest until he had encamped his
army on the borders of that river.
In the spring of 1804, Abbas Mirza, the heir-apparent to the throne of
Persia, took the field at the head of a formidable army, and marched
down upon Erivan, the capital of Armenia. The governor refused to
abandon his charge, and when the prince prepared to attack him, called
the Russian general to his aid. The result was fatal to the Persian
cause. In the month of July, the army of the Crown-Prince of Persia
and the Russian and Georgian force under Zizianoff, twice encountered
each other, and twice the Persian army was driven back with terrible
loss. On the second occasion the rout was complete. Abbas Mirza lost
everything. Taking refuge in a small fort, he endeavoured to negotiate
terms with Zizianoff; but the Russian general told him haughtily, that
the orders of his sovereign were, that he should occupy all the country
along the Aras River, from Erivan to the borders of the Caspian, and
that he chafed under the instructions which confined his conquests to a
limit so far within the boundaries of his own ambition.
The disasters of the heir-apparent brought the king himself into the
field. Moving down with a large army to the succour of the prince,
he again encountered the Russian forces, but only to see his troops
sustain another defeat. Disheartened by these repeated failures, the
Persians then changed their tactics, and adopting a more predatory
style of warfare, harassed their northern enemy by cutting off his
supplies. The year being then far advanced, Zizianoff drew off his
forces, and prepared to prosecute the war with renewed energy in the
following spring. That spring was his last. An act of the blackest
treachery cut short his victorious career. He was conducting in
person the siege of Badkoo, when the garrison, making overtures of
capitulation, invited the Russian general to a conference for the
settlement of the terms. He went unattended to a tent that had been
pitched for his reception, and was deliberately set upon and slain by
a party of assassins stationed there for the bloody purpose. The King
of Persia, when the tidings reached him, grew wild with delight. In an
ecstasy of joy he published an inflated proclamation, setting forth
that he had achieved a great victory, and slain the celebrated Russian
commander. But other thoughts soon forced themselves upon the king and
his ministers. A black cloud was brooding over them—the retribution
of an outraged nation. A signal chastisement was expected. New armies
were looked for; new encroachments anticipated from the North; new
forfeitures of dominion seemed inevitable—the righteous result of an
act of such atrocious perfidy. Persia felt her weakness, and, in an
extremity which seemed to threaten her very existence, trusted to
foreign European aid to rescue her from the jaws of death.
It was at this time, when threatened with the vengeance of Russia,
that the Persian Court addressed a letter to Napoleon, then in the
full flush of unbroken success, seeking the aid of that powerful
chief. It was at this time, too, that Aga Nebee Khan commenced his
journey to India, and it is probable that if the Indian Government
had shown any disposition to aid the Persian monarch in his efforts
to repel the aggressions of the Muscovite, the French alliance would
have been quietly but effectually relinquished. But the supineness of
England was the opportunity of France. The Indian Government had left
the settlement of the Persian question to the Cabinet of St. James’s,
and the Cabinet had dawdled over it as a matter that might be left to
take care of itself. In this extremity, the Persian monarch forgot the
treaty with the British, or thought that the British, by deserting him
in his need, had absolved him from all obligations to observe it, and
openly flung himself into the arms of the very enemy which that treaty
so truculently proscribed.
In the autumn of 1805, an accredited French agent arrived at Teheran.
The result of the Indian mission was then unknown; and Colonel Romieu
was received with that barren courtesy which almost amounts to
discouragement. It would probably, too, have been so regarded by the
French envoy, had not death cut short his diplomatic career, after a
few days spent at Teheran, and a single audience of the king. But the
following spring beamed more favourably on the diplomacy of France. The
cold indifference of England had been ascertained beyond a doubt, and
the danger of Russian aggressiveness, now sharpened by revenge, was
becoming more and more imminent. All things conspired to favour the
machinations of the French; and they seized the opportunity with vigour
and address. Another envoy appeared upon the scene. Monsieur Jaubert
was received with marked attention and respect. He came to pave the
way for a splendid embassy, which Napoleon proposed to despatch to the
Persian Court. Overjoyed at these assurances of friendship, the king
eagerly grasped the proffered alliance. He was prepared to listen to
any proposal, so that his new allies undertook to co-operate against
his Russian enemies. He would join in an invasion of Hindostan, or,
in concert with the French, amputate any given limb from the body of
the Turkish Empire. There was much promise of aid on either side, and
for a time French counsels were dominant at the Persian capital. Two
years passed away, during which the emissaries of Napoleon, in spite
of accidental hindrances, contrived to gain the confidence of the
Court of Teheran. They declared that England was a fallen country—that
although protected for a time by its insular position, it must fall a
prey to the irresistible power of Napoleon—that, as nothing was to be
expected from its friendship, nothing was to be apprehended from its
enmity; and so, industriously propagating reports to our discredit,
they established themselves on the ruins of British influence, and for
a time their success was complete.
And so it happened, that when the British Governments in London and
Calcutta awoke almost simultaneously to the necessity of “doing
something,” they found a well-appointed French embassy established
at Teheran, under General Gardanne, an officer of high reputation,
whom even hostile diplomatists have delighted to commend; they found
a numerous staff of officers,[31] civil and military, with engineers
and artificers, prepared to instruct and drill the native troops, to
cast cannon, and to strengthen the defences of the Persian cities;
they found French agents, under the protection of duly constituted
_mehmendars_, visiting Gombroon, Bushire, and other places, surveying
the harbours of the gulf, and intriguing with the ambassadors of the
Ameers of Sindh. And it was pretty well ascertained that the invasion
of India by a French and Persian army was one of the objects of the
treaty, which, soon after the arrival of Gardanne at Teheran, was sent
home for the approval of Napoleon.
But a mighty change had, by this time, passed over the politics of
Europe. It was in July, 1807, that on a raft floating upon the bosom of
the River Niemen, near the city of Tilsit, in the kingdom of Prussia,
the Emperor Alexander and Napoleon Buonaparte, after a brief and bloody
campaign, embraced each other like brothers. In the short space of ten
days, fifty thousand of the best French and Russian troops had been
killed or disabled on the field of battle. Yet so little had been the
vantage gained by either party, that it is even to this day a moot
point in history, as it was in the contemporary records of the war,
whether the first peaceful overture was made by the Russian monarch
or the Corsican invader. Both powers eagerly embraced the opportunity
of repose; and in a few days the scene was changed, as by magic,
from one of sanguinary war and overwhelming misery to one of general
cordiality and rejoicing. The French and Russian soldiers, who a few
days before had broken each other’s ranks on the bloody plains of Eylau
and Friedland, now feasted each other with overflowing hospitality,
and toasted each other with noisy delight. Such, indeed, on both sides
was the paroxysm of friendship, that they exchanged uniforms one with
the other, and paraded the public streets of Tilsit in motley costume,
as though the reign of international fraternity had commenced in
that happy July. And whilst the followers of Alexander and Napoleon
were abandoning themselves to convivial pleasures, and the social
affections and kindly charities were in full play, those monarchs were
spending quiet evenings together, discussing their future plans, and
projecting joint schemes of conquest. It was then that they meditated
the invasion of Hindostan by a confederate army uniting on the plains
of Persia. Lucien Buonaparte, the brother of the newly-styled emperor,
was destined for the Teheran mission; and no secret was made of the
intention of the two great European potentates to commence, in the
following spring, a hostile demonstration “contre les possessions de la
Compagnie des Indes.”
But by this time both the British and the Indian Governments had
awakened from the slumbers of indifference in which they had so
long been lulled. They could no longer encourage theories of
non-interference whilst the most formidable powers in Europe were
pushing their conquests and insinuating their intrigues over the
countries and into the courts of Asia. Lord Minto had succeeded Sir
George Barlow as head of the Supreme Government of India. Naturally
inclined, as he was instructed, to carry out a moderate policy, and
to abstain as much as possible from entanglements with native rulers,
he would fain have devoted himself to the details of domestic policy,
and the replenishment of an exhausted exchequer. But the unsettled
state of our European relations compelled him to look beyond the
frontier. What he saw there roused him into action. It is observable
that statesmen trained in the cabinets and courts of Europe have ever
been more sensitively alive to the dangers of invasion from the North
than those whose experience has been gathered in the fields of Indian
diplomacy. Lord Wellesley and Lord Minto were ever tremulous with
intense apprehension of danger from without, whilst Sir John Shore and
Sir George Barlow possessed themselves in comparative confidence and
tranquillity, and, if they were not wholly blind to the peril, at all
events did not exaggerate it. There is a sense of security engendered
by long habit and familiarity with apparent danger, which renders a
man mistrustful of the reality of that which has so often been shown
to be a counterfeit. The inexperience of English statesmen suddenly
transplanted to a new sphere of action, often sees in the most ordinary
political phenomena strange and alarming portents. It is easy to be
wise after the event. We know now that India has never been in any
real danger from French intrigue or French aggressiveness; but Lord
Wellesley and Lord Minto saw with different eyes, and grappled the
shadowy danger as though it were a substantial fact. In those days such
extraordinary events were passing around us, that to assign the limits
of political probability was beyond the reach of human wisdom. The
attrition of great events had rubbed out the line which separates fact
from fiction, and the march of a grand army under one of Napoleon’s
marshals from the banks of the Seine to the banks of the Ganges did not
seem a feat much above the level of the Corsican’s towering career.
Rightly understood, the alliance between the two great continental
powers which seemed to threaten the destruction of the British Empire
in the East, was a source of security to the latter. But in 1807 it
was not so clearly seen that Persia was more easily to be conciliated
by the enemies, than by the friends, of the Russian Autocrat—that
the confederacy of Alexander and Napoleon was fatal to the Persian
monarch’s cherished hopes of the restitution of Georgia, and the
general retrogression of the Russian army; and that, therefore, there
was little prospect of the permanency of French influence at the Court
of Teheran. Forgetful as we were of this, the danger seemed imminent,
and only to be met by the most active measures of defence. To baffle
European intrigue, and to stem the tide of European invasion, it then
appeared to the British Indian Government expedient to enlace in one
great network of diplomacy all the states lying between the frontier
of India and the eastern points of the Russian Empire. Since India had
been threatened with invasion at the close of the last century, the
Afghan power had by disruption ceased to be formidable. We had formerly
endeavoured to protect ourselves against France on the one side, and
Afghanistan on the other, by cementing a friendly alliance with Persia.
It now became our policy, whilst endeavouring to re-establish our
influence in that country, to prepare ourselves for its hostility, and
to employ Afghanistan and Sindh as barriers against encroachments from
the West; and at the same time to increase our security by enlisting
against the French and Persian confederacy the friendly offices of
the Sikhs. That strange new race of men had by this time erected a
formidable power on the banks of the Sutlej, by the mutilation of the
Douranee Empire; and it was seen at once that the friendship of a
people occupying a tract of country so situated, and inspired with a
strong hatred of the Mahomedan faith, must, in such a crisis as had now
arrived, be an object of desirable attainment. Whilst, therefore, every
effort was to be made to wean the Court of Teheran from the French
alliance, preparations were commenced, in anticipation of the possible
failure of the Persian mission, for the despatch of British embassies
to the intervening countries.
The duty of negotiating with the Sikh ruler was entrusted to Mr.
Metcalfe, a civil servant of the Company, who subsequently rose to the
highest place in the government of India, and consummated a life of
public utility in a new sphere of action, as Governor-General of our
North American colonies. Mr. Elphinstone, another civil servant of the
Company, who still lives, amidst the fair hills of Surrey, to look back
with pride and contentment upon a career little less distinguished
than that of his contemporary, was selected to conduct the embassy to
the Court of the Douranee monarch. Captain Seton had been previously
despatched to Sindh; and Colonel Malcolm, who was at that time Resident
at Mysore, was now again ordered to proceed to the Persian Court,
charged with duties which had been rendered doubly difficult by our own
supineness, and the contrasted activity of our more restless Gallic
neighbours.
CHAPTER IV.
[1808-1809.]
The Second Mission to Persia—Malcolm’s Visit to Bushire—Failure of
the Embassy—His Return to Calcutta—Mission of Sir Harford Jones—His
Progress and Success.
When, in the spring of 1808, Colonel Malcolm a second time steered
his course towards the Persian Gulf, another British diplomatist had
started, from another point, upon the same mission. Moved as it were
by one common impulse, the Cabinet of England and the Supreme Council
of India had determined each to despatch an embassy to the Court of
Teheran. A curious and unseemly spectacle was then presented to the
eyes of the world. Two missions, in spirit scarcely less antagonistic
than if they had been despatched by contending powers, started for the
Persian Court; the one from London—the other from Calcutta. The Court
of St. James’s had proposed to assist Persia by mediating with St.
Petersburgh, and Mr. Harford Jones, a civil servant of the Company,
who was made a baronet for the occasion, was deputed to Teheran to
negotiate with the ministers of the Shah. It was originally intended
that he should proceed to Persia, taking the Russian capital in his
route; but the pacification of Tilsit caused a departure from this
design, and Sir Harford Jones sailed for Bombay with the mission on
board one of his Majesty’s ships. He reached that port in the month
of April, 1808, just as the embassy under Brigadier-General Malcolm,
despatched by the Governor-General to the Court of Teheran, was
putting out to sea on its way to the Persian Gulf.[32]
Sir Harford Jones, therefore, rested at Bombay, awaiting the result
of Malcolm’s proceedings. On the 10th of May, the latter reached
Bushire, and on the 18th wrote to Sir George Barlow, who had succeeded
to the governorship of Madras, “I have not only received the most
uncommon attention from all here, but learnt from the best authority
that the accounts of my mission have been received with the greatest
satisfaction at Court. The great progress which the French have made
and are daily making here satisfied me of the necessity of bringing
matters to an early issue. I have a chance of complete victory. I
shall, at all events, ascertain exactly how we stand, and know what
we ought to do; and if I do not awaken the Persian Court from their
delusion, I shall at least excite the jealousy of their new friends. I
send Captain Pasley off to-morrow for Court—ostensibly, with a letter
for the king; but he has secret instructions, and will be able to
make important observations. He is charged with a full declaration of
my sentiments and instructions in an official form, and you will, I
think, when you see that declaration of the whole proceeding, think it
calculated for the object. I have endeavoured to combine moderation
with spirit, and to inform the Persian Court, in language that cannot
irritate, of all the danger of their French connexion. Captain
Pasley will reach Court on the 20th of June, and on the 15th of July
I may expect to be able to give you some satisfactory account of his
success.”[33]
But in this he was over-sanguine. The French envoy had established
himself too securely at Teheran to be driven thence by the appearance
of Malcolm at Bushire. A little too impetuous, perhaps—a little too
dictatorial, that energetic military diplomatist commenced at the
wrong end of his work. He erred in dictating to the Persian Court
the dismissal of the French embassy as a preliminary to further
negotiations, when in reality it was the end and object of his
negotiations. He erred in blurting out all his designs, in unfolding
the scheme of policy he intended to adopt, and so committing himself to
a line of conduct which after-events might have rendered it expedient
to modify or reject. He erred in using the language of intimidation at
a time when he should have sought to inspire confidence and diffuse
good-will among the officers of the Persian Court. These may not have
been the causes of his want of success; but it is certain that he was
completely unsuccessful. The large promises and the prompt movements of
the French contrasted favourably with our more scanty offers and more
dilatory action; and although Malcolm now came laden with presents, and
intending to pave his way to the Persian capital with gold, the British
mission was received with frigid indifference, if not with absolute
disrespect. The despatch of Captain Pasley to the capital was negatived
by the Persian Government. His progress was arrested at Shiraz; and
there, at that provincial town, whilst a French and a Russian 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 before he found that the Indian Government
were bent upon suspending his operations, and, failing in this, were
resolute to thwart him at every turn. They dishonoured his bills and
ignored his proceedings. A totally opposite course of policy had been
determined upon in the Council-Chamber of Calcutta. The proceedings
of Brigadier Malcolm at Bushire had not been viewed with unmixed
approbation by Lord Minto and his council; but he was the employé of
the Indian Government; they had confidence in the general soundness of
his views; and they felt that in the maintenance of their dignity it
was expedient to support him. In no very conciliatory mood of mind had
that eager, energetic officer returned to Calcutta. Chewing the cud of
bitter fancies as he sailed up the Bay of Bengal, he prepared a plan
for the intimidation of Persia, and was prepared with all the details
of it when, on the 22nd of August, he disembarked at Calcutta. There
was no unwillingness in the Council-Chamber to endorse his schemes. It
was agreed that an armament should be fitted out to take possession of
Karrack, an island in the Persian Gulf, or, in the delicate language
of diplomacy, “to form an establishment” there, as “a central position
equally well adapted so obstruct the designs of France against India,
as to assist the King of Persia (in the event of a renewal of the
alliance) against his European enemies.”
These measures were described as “entirely defensive, and intended even
to be amicable.” The command of the force was of course conferred on
Brigadier Malcolm. “I am vested,” he wrote to his friends at Madras,
“with supreme military and political authority and control in the
Gulf, to which, however threatening appearances may be, I proceed
with that species of hope which fills the mind of a man who sees a
great and unexpected opportunity afforded him of proving the extent of
his devotion to the country.”[40] It was to be a very pretty little
army, with a compact little staff, all the details of which, even to
the allowances of its members, were soon drawn up and recorded. An
engineer officer was called in and consulted about the plan of a fort,
with a house for the commandant, quarters for the officers, barracks
for the men, a magazine to contain five hundred barrels of gunpowder,
and everything else complete. The activity of the Brigadier himself
at this time was truly surprising. He drew up elaborate papers of
instructions to himself, to be adopted by the Governor-General. One
of these, covering twenty-six sheets of foolscap, so bewildered Lord
Minto in his pleasant country retreat at Barrackpore, that he could
come to no other conclusion about it than that the greater part had
better be omitted. Every conceivable contingency that could arise out
of the movements of France or Russia, or dispensations of Providence in
Persia, was contemplated and discussed, and instructions were sought or
suggested; but a new series of contingencies occurred to the Brigadier
after he had embarked, and a new shower of _ifs_ was poured forth from
the Sand-heads still further to perplex the government. Lord Minto
had by this time fully made up his mind that the French were coming;
wrote of it, not as a possible event, but as a question merely of
time; and contemplated the probability of contending in Turkey for the
sovereignty of Hindostan.[41] But the French had too much work to do
in Europe to trouble themselves about operations in the remote Asiatic
world.
At the beginning of October, Malcolm started for Bombay, from which
Presidency the details of his army were to be drawn. But before the
vessel on which he had embarked had steered into the black water, he
was recalled, in consequence of the receipt of intelligence of Sir
Harford Jones’s intended departure for Bushire. This was, doubtless,
very perplexing; but Malcolm did not despair. “I am this instant,” he
wrote, on the 5th of October, “recalled to Calcutta in consequence
of advices from Sir Harford, stating his intention of leaving Bombay
on the 11th of September. As it appears possible that he may not be
ready to sail before the 13th, he will, I think, receive a letter from
this government of the 22nd, desiring him to stay; and if that has the
effect of stopping him, the letter of the Supreme Government, dated
the 29th, will probably put an end to the mission.”[42] Vain hope! Sir
Harford Jones was at that time not many days’ sail from Bushire; and
before Malcolm finally quitted Calcutta, had started fairly on his race
to Teheran.
The Supreme Government now more urgently than before addressed
instructions to the nominee of the British Cabinet, ordering him to
retire from Persia. The Council were all agreed upon the subject.
Mr. Lumsden and Mr. Colebrooke, who were Members of Council at the
time, expressed themselves even more strongly on the subject than the
Governor-General. All were certain that Sir Harford Jones must either
fail signally, or disgrace and embarrass the government by a delusive
success. He might be repulsed at Bushire—or baffled at Shiraz—or drawn
into a treaty favourable to the French. In any case, it was assumed
that he was sure to bring discredit on the British Government and the
East India Company. Without asserting that the conduct of the Persian
Court had been such as to call for a declaration of war from the rulers
of British India, it was contended, and not, perhaps, without some
show of reason, that any advances made at such a time would compromise
its dignity, and that the attitude to be assumed should be rather one
of reserve than of solicitation. Both parties were in an embarrassing
position. Whilst Lord Minto was writing letters to Sir Harford Jones,
telling him that if he did not immediately close his mission, all his
proceedings would be publicly repudiated,[43] Sir Harford Jones, as
representative of the sovereign, was repudiating the proceedings of the
Supreme Government of India, and offering to answer with his fortune
and his life for any hostile proceedings on the part of the British,
not provoked by the Persians themselves. The government did its best to
disgrace Sir Harford Jones by dishonouring his bills and ignoring his
proceedings; and Sir Harford Jones lowered the character of the Indian
Government by declaring that it had no authority to revoke his measures
or to nullify his engagements with the Persian Court.
In the mean while, Brigadier Malcolm had sailed down the Bay of Bengal,
and reached Bombay by the first day of December. His instructions
had preceded him; a select force of some two thousand men was ready
to receive his orders; and by the 18th of January the expedition was
prepared, at all points, to take ship for the Gulf, to pounce upon
Karrack, and to strike a great panic into the rebellious heart of
the Persian nation. “But,” says Malcolm, in one of his voluminous
narratives, “the accounts I heard of the great change caused in
the affairs of Europe by the general insurrection of Spain, and
the consequent improbability of Buonaparte making an early attack
upon India, combined with the advance of Sir Harford Jones into
Persia, led me to suspend the sailing of the expedition. My conduct
on that occasion was honoured by approbation, and the expedition
countermanded.” But though the military expedition was countermanded,
the Mission was not. Malcolm, confident that the proceedings of such
a man as Jones, for whom he entertained the profoundest possible
contempt, could be attended only with disastrous failure, determined
to proceed to Persia, in spite of the civilian’s accounts of his
favourable reception. “I have private accounts from Bushire,” he
wrote on Christmas-eve, “which state that Sir Harford Jones is, or
pretends to be, completely confident of a success which every child
with him sees is unattainable through the means he uses. His friends
now believe he will go on in spite of any orders he may receive from
the Governor-General. _I mean to go on too_ (there is, indeed, nothing
in these despatches that can stop me for a moment), so we shall have
a _fine mess_ (as the sailors say) in the Gulf.”[44] Such, indeed,
was the feeling between the two diplomatists, and so little was it
disguised, that the Shah, perceiving plainly the true state of the
case, abused Malcolm before Jones, and Jones before Malcolm, as the
best means, in his opinion, of ingratiating himself with them both.
In March, 1809, the preliminary treaty was interchanged, on the part
of their respective sovereigns, by Sir Harford Jones and Meerza
Sheffee. No treaty before or since was ever interchanged under such
extraordinary and unbecoming circumstances. Meerze Sheffee, the prime
minister of Persia, was an old and infirm man. His age and rank among
his own people had given him a sort of license to speak with an amount
of freedom such as is not tolerated among Europeans in social, much
less in diplomatic converse. There was an intentional indefiniteness
in one of the articles of the treaty, which was to be referred to the
British Government for specific adjustment, and Meerza Sheffee, not
understanding or approving of this, blurted out that the British envoy
designed to “cheat” him. The figure used in the Persian language is
gross and offensive, and the word I have employed but faintly expresses
the force of the insult. Jones had not patience to bear it. He started
up, seized the counterpart treaty lying signed on the carpet before
him, gave it to Mr. Morier, and then turning to the astonished Wuzeer,
told him that he was a stupid old blockhead to dare to use such words
to the representative of the King of England, and that nothing but
respect for the Persian monarch restrained him from knocking out the
old man’s brains against the wall. “Suiting the action to the word, I
then,” says Jones, in his own narrative of his mission, “pushed him
with a slight degree of violence against the wall which was behind him,
kicked over the candles on the floor, left the room in darkness, and
rode home without any one of the Persians daring to impede my passage.”
It is not surprising that, after such a scene as this, the Persians
should have shaken their heads, and said, “By Allah! this Feringhee is
either drunk or mad.”
But, in spite of this and other untoward occurrences, the preliminary
treaty was duly interchanged. It bears date the 12th of March, 1809.
By this treaty, the Shah of Persia, declaring all other engagements
void, covenanting “not to permit any European force whatever to pass
through Persia, either towards India, or towards the ports of that
country.” He further undertook, in the event of the British dominions
in India being attacked or invaded by the Afghans or any other power,
“to afford a force for the protection of the said dominions.” On the
part of the British Government, it was stipulated that, in case any
European force had invaded, or should invade, the territories of the
King of Persia, his Britannic Majesty should afford to the Shah a
force, or, in lieu of it, a subsidy, with warlike ammunition, “such as
guns, muskets, &c., and officers, to the amount that might be to the
advantage of both parties, for the expulsion of the force so invading.”
The general provisions of the treaty were included in this, but the
anticipated arrival of Brigadier Malcolm with a military expedition in
the Persian Gulf rendered it necessary that certain specific articles
should be inserted with especial reference to this movement. It was
provided that the force should on no account possess itself of Karrack
or any other places in the Persian Gulf; but that, unless required by
the Governor-General for the defence of India, it should be held at
the disposal of the Persian shah, the Shah undertaking to receive it
in a friendly manner, and to direct his governors to supply it with
provisions “at the fair prices of the day.” This preliminary treaty
was conveyed by Mr. Morier, accompanied by a Persian ambassador, to
England, where it was duly ratified and exchanged; and Sir Harford
Jones was confirmed in the post of Resident Minister at the Court of
Teheran.
The success of Sir Harford Jones embarrassed the British-Indian
Government even more than did the apprehension of his failure. Lord
Minto and his councillors were sorely perplexed. It was desirable,
as they all acknowledged, that the engagements entered into by the
representative of the Court of England should be completed; but it was
not desirable that the Indian Government should be degraded in the eyes
of the Persian Court. Between their anxiety to accept the thing done
and to disgrace the doer, they were thrown into a state of ludicrous
embarrassment.[45] The resolution, however, at which they arrived was,
under all the circumstances of the case, as reasonable as could be
expected. It was determined to accept Sir Harford Jones’s treaty, and
to leave the dignity of the British-Indian Government to be vindicated
on a future occasion. Perhaps it would have been even better quietly
to have lived down the slight; for it cost a large sum of money to
satisfy the British-Indian Government that it had re-established its
name at the Court of the Persian, and confounded the malignity of
Jones.[46]
This is a curious chapter of diplomatic history. It is one, too,
which has evoked from the partisans of both parties an extraordinary
amount of bitterness. It hardly comes within the proper compass of
this history to narrate the incidents of the ambassadorial war, still
less to comment upon them. But it may be briefly remarked that all
parties were wrong. Mistakes were unquestionably committed by Malcolm,
by Jones, and by the Indian Government. There was an old feud between
the two former, which certainly did not tend to smooth down the
difficulties which had arisen; and the Government of India was not
very patient of the home-born interference with what it conceived to
be its rightful diplomatic prerogative. Jones, though receiving his
credentials from the Crown, was placed in subordination to the local
government, and ought to have obeyed its mandates. That he would have
done so, had he received instructions to withdraw before he had fairly
entered upon his work, it is only just to assume; but having once made
his appearance in Persia as the representative of his sovereign, he
thought that he could not abandon his mission under orders from the
Indian Government without lowering the dignity of the Crown.
He did not commence his expedition to Persia until some time after
Malcolm had retired; and when he went at last, it was under urgent
solicitations from the Governor-General to proceed there without delay.
He cannot, therefore, be charged with indelicacy or precipitancy. He
went only when the coast was clear. That he succeeded better than
Malcolm must be attributed mainly to the “chapter of accidents,” for
he was a man of vastly inferior parts. Malcolm says that it was owing
to his measures that Jones was enabled to advance—that the rumour of
his military preparations overawed the Persian Court—and that all the
rest was done by bribery. That there was at that time little hope
of any mission succeeding without bribery, no man knew better than
Malcolm.[47] But Malcolm could not bribe his way to Teheran in the
spring, because the French were then dominant at Court. Had he waited
till the autumn, the road would have been lubricated for him. One
thing at least is certain. Nothing could have been more fortunate
than the miscarriage of Malcolm’s military expedition. It would have
embarrassed our future proceedings, and entailed a large waste of
public money. As to the question of prerogative, it would be little use
to discuss it. It has been settled long ago. The Crown ministers have
taken into their own hands the appointment of our Persian ambassadors,
and the conduct of all subsequent negotiations with the Persian Court.
Henceforth we shall have to regard the relations subsisting between
Persia and Great Britain as affairs beyond the control of the East
India Company and their representatives, and to look upon the ministers
of the Crown as responsible for all that we have to contemplate in that
quarter of the world.[48]
NOTE TO NEW EDITION (1856).—The arguments with which Malcolm supported
the proposal for the occupation of the island of Karrack, may be
advantageously given in this place, as they are set forth in his own
words in his “Life and Correspondence”:—
_First._ That in the event of an attempt to invade India being made
by an European State, it was impossible to place any dependence on
the efforts of the King of Persia or the Pacha of Baghdad, unless
we possessed the immediate power of punishing their hostility and
treachery.
_Secondly._ That the States of Persia, Eastern Turkey, and Arabia
were, from their actual condition, to be considered less in the
light of regular Governments than as countries full of combustible
materials, which any nation whose interests it promoted, might throw
into a flame.
_Thirdly._ That though the French and Russians might, no doubt, in
their advance, easily conquer those States, in the event of their
opposing their progress, it was their obvious policy to avoid any
contest with the inhabitants of the country through which they passed,
as such must, in its progress, inevitably diminish the resources of
those countries, and thereby increase the difficulty of supporting
their armies—which difficulty formed the chief, if not the sole,
obstacle to their advance.
_Fourthly._ That though it was not to be conceived that the King of
Persia or Pacha of Baghdad would willingly allow any European army to
pass through his country, but there was every ground to expect that
the fear of a greater evil was likely not only to make these rulers
observe a neutrality, but to dispose them to aid the execution of a
plan which they could not resist, and make them desire to indemnify
themselves for submission to a power they dreaded by agreeing to share
in the plunder of weaker States—a line of policy to which it was too
obvious they would be united, and to which their fear, weakness, and
avarice made it probable that they would accede.
_Fifthly._ That under a contemplation of such occurrences, it appeared
of ultimate importance that the English Government should instantly
possess itself of means to throw those States that favoured the
approach of its enemies, into complete confusion and destruction, in
order that it might, by diminishing their resources, increase the
principal natural obstacle that opposed the advance of an European
army, and this system, when that Government had once established a
firm footing and a position situated on the confines of Persia and
Turkey, it could easily pursue, with a very moderate force, and
without any great risk or expenditure.
_Sixthly._ That with an established footing in the Gulf of Persia,
which must soon become the emporium of our commerce, the seat of
our political negotiations, and a dépôt for our military stores,
we should be able to establish a local influence and strength that
would not only exclude other European nations from that quarter, but
enable us to carry on negotiations and military operations with honour
and security to any extent we desired; whereas, without it, we must
continue at the mercy of the fluctuating policy of unsteady, impotent,
and faithless Courts, adopting expensive and useless measures of
defence at every uncertain alarm, and being ultimately obliged either
to abandon the scene altogether, or, when danger actually came, to
incur the most desperate hazard of complete failure by sending a
military expedition which must trust for its subsistence and safety,
to States who were known, not only from the individual character of
their rulers, but from their actual condition and character, to be
undeserving of a moment’s confidence.
_Seventhly._ That there was great danger in any delay, as the plan
recommended could only be expected to be beneficial if adopted when
there was a time to mature it and to organise all our means of defence
before the enemy were too far advanced; otherwise that momentary
irritation which must be excited by its adoption, would only add to
the many other advantages which our want of foresight and attention to
our interests in that quarter had already given to our enemies.
CHAPTER V.
[1808-1809.]
The Missions to Lahore and Caubul—The Aggressions of Runjeet
Singh—Mr. Metcalfe at Umritsur—Treaty of 1809—Mr. Elphinstone’s
Mission—Arrival at Peshawur—Reception by Shah Soojah—Withdrawal of the
Mission—Negotiations with the Ameers of Sindh.
It was while Sir Harford Jones was making his way from Bombay
to Bushire, in the months of September and October, 1808, that
the Missions to Caubul and Lahore set out for their respective
destinations. Since the time when the rumoured approach of an army of
invasion under Zemaun Shah had troubled the hearts of the English in
India, the might of the Douranee rulers had been gradually declining,
as a new power, threatening the integrity of the Afghan dominions,
swelled into bulk and significance, and spread itself over the country
between the Sutlej and the Indus. It was no longer possible to regard
with indifference the growth of this new empire. We had supplanted
the Mahrattas on the banks of the Jumna, and brought ourselves into
proximity with the Sikhs. A group of petty principalities were being
rapidly consolidated into a great empire by the strong hand and
capacious intellect of Runjeet Singh, and it had become apparent to the
British that thenceforth, for good or for evil, the will of the Sikh
ruler must exercise an influence over the councils of the rulers of
Hindostan.
It was part of Lord Minto’s policy at this time, as we have seen,
to include the Lahore chief in the great Anti-Gallican confederacy
with which he had determined to frustrate the magnificent designs of
Napoleon. But the posture of affairs on our northern frontier was such
as to occasion some embarassment in the Council-Chamber of Calcutta.
The military power of the Sikh rajah had been put forth, with almost
unvarying success, for the subjection of the petty principalities
within his reach; and now it appeared that he was desirous of reducing
to a state of vassalage all the chiefs holding the tract of country
which lies between the Sutlej and the Jumna. There was much in this to
perplex and embarrass Lord Minto and his colleagues. It was desirable,
above all things, to maintain a friendly power beyond the frontier;
but whether this were to be done by supporting the Sikh chiefs in
the Cis-Sutlej territories, even at the risk of actual hostilities
with Runjeet Singh, or whether, on the other hand, it were expedient
to sacrifice the petty chieftains to Runjeet’s ambition, and enter
into an offensive and defensive alliance against the Persians and the
French with that prince, were questions which agitated the minds of
our Indian statesmen, and found no very satisfactory solution in the
elaborate minutes which they provoked. Lord Minto, whilst expressing
his natural inclination to assist a weak country against the usurpation
of a powerful neighbour, and fully recognising the principle of
non-interference, so consistently inculcated by the Government at home,
maintained that the emergency of the case was such as to justify a
departure from ordinary rules of conduct, and a violation of general
maxims of policy. The defence of India against the dangers of French
invasion was stated to be the most pressing object of attention, and
entitled to most weight in the deliberations of the state; but it was
doubted whether the alliance with Runjeet Singh would effectually
secure that desirable end,[49] whilst it was certain that the gradual
extension of his dominions would be permanently injurious to British
interests in the East. It was desirable, in a word, to secure his
alliance and to check his presumption at the same time. Any act of
hostility and discourtesy on our part might throw him into the arms of
Holkar and Scindiah, and other native princes; and a confederacy might
be formed against us, that would disturb the peace of India for years.
Starting, however, with the assumption that the French were undeniably
about to invade Hindostan, it was contended by the Governor-General,
that whilst the native princes would be inclined to wait the coming of
the great western liberator, it was our policy to husband our strength
for the grand struggle with our terrible European opponent. “We are,
in reality,” wrote Lord Minto, “only waiting on both sides for a more
convenient time to strike. We know that Holkar and Scindiah, the Rajah
of Bhurtpore, and probably other chiefs, have taken their part, and are
sharpening their weapons in expectation of a concerted signal.”
Thus, oscillating between two courses of policy, and considering the
question solely as one of expediency—that kind of expediency, however,
to which something of dignity is imparted by a great national crisis,
real or supposed—the Governor-General at last came to favour an opinion
that sound policy dictated a strenuous effort on the part of the
British Government to curb the aggressive spirit of the Sikh conqueror,
and to set a limit to his dominions. It was seriously debated by
Lord Minto whether Runjeet should not at once be deprived of all
power to work us mischief; but the recollection of the advantages of
maintaining, if possible, a longer peace, and of the non-interference
system so strenuously enforced upon him by the home authorities,
suggested the expediency of following a more cautious line of policy,
and merely simulating, in the first instance, an intention to oppose a
hostile front to the aggressiveness of the Sikhs. “If it were not found
expedient,” wrote Lord Minto, “ultimately to pursue or to favour these
views, the apprehension alone of so great danger brought home to him,
may be expected to render Runjeet Singh more subservient to our wishes
than any concessions or compliances will ever make him.”
In this conjuncture the Governor-General, harassed and perplexed by
doubts, was fortunate in the personal character of the officer to
whom had been entrusted the conduct of the mission to the Sikh ruler.
Mr. Charles Metcalfe had early recommended himself to the favourable
consideration of Lord Wellesley, who was never slow to recognise in
the junior officers of the state the promise of future eminence.[50]
He had been but a short time in the service, when the Governor-General
placed him in his own Office—that best nursery of Indian statesmen—and
he soon confirmed the expectations that had been formed of his
judgment and intelligence by proving himself, in the camp of the
Commander-in-Chief, and at the Court of Delhi, an officer of equal
courage and sagacity. The estimate which Lord Wellesley had formed of
his talents was accepted by Lord Minto; and in the whole range of the
civil service—a service never wanting in administrative and diplomatic
ability of the highest order—it is probable that he could not now have
found a fitter agent to carry out his policy at Lahore.
On the 1st of September, 1808, Mr. Metcalfe crossed the Sutlej, and on
the 11th of the same month met the Sikh ruler at Kussoor. The conduct
of the Rajah was arbitrary and capricious. At one time courteous and
friendly, at another querulous and arrogant, he now seemed disposed
to enter into our views and to aid our designs; and then, complaining
bitterly of the interference of the British Government, insisted on his
right to occupy the country beyond the Jumna. Nor did he confine his
opposition to mere verbal argument, for whilst the British envoy was
still in his camp, he set out to illustrate his views by crossing the
river, seizing Furreedkote and Umballah, and otherwise overawing the
petty Sikh chiefs between the Sutlej and the Jumna.[51]
On the receipt of this intelligence by the Calcutta Council, it was
debated whether it would be expedient to adopt the more dignified
course of ordering Mr. Metcalfe to withdraw at once from the Sikh camp,
and, regarding the conduct of Runjeet Singh as an outrage against the
British Government, to take measures at once to chastise him;—whether,
as recommended by Mr. Edmonstone, who always brought a sound judgment
to bear upon such questions, and whose opinions were seldom disregarded
by the Governor-General, to limit the negotiations with Runjeet Singh
to defensive measures against the French, leaving the question of
the subjugation of the Cis-Sutlej states for future adjustment;—or
whether it would not be more prudent to direct Mr. Metcalfe to encumber
himself as little as possible with engagements of any kind—to adopt a
cautious and temporising line of policy, so as to admit of frequent
references to Calcutta in the course of his negotiations, and to wait
for anything that might chance to be written down in our favour in
that great “chapter of accidents,” which so often enabled us to solve
the most perplexing questions, and to overcome the most pressing
difficulties.[52]
This was the course finally adopted. On one point, however, the tone
of Government was decided. Runjeet Singh had required the British
Government to pledge itself not to interfere with his aggressions
against Caubul; and Mr. Metcalfe was now informed, that “were the Rajah
to conclude engagements with the British Government in the true spirit
of unanimity and confidence, we could not accede to any proposition
upon the part of Caubul injurious to his interests: uncombined with
such engagements, that question (of his aggressions against the Caubul
territories) cannot possibly form an article of agreement between
this government and the Rajah of Lahore; and on this ground the
discussion of it may be properly rejected. At the same time, if the
occasion should arise, you may inform the Rajah that Mr. Elphinstone
is not authorised to conclude with the State of Caubul any engagements
injurious to his interests. You will be careful, however, as you have
hitherto been, to avoid any pledge on the part of government which
might preclude any future engagements with the State of Caubul on that
subject.” And whilst Mr. Metcalfe was carrying out this temporising
policy inculcated by the Calcutta council, troops were pushed forward
to the frontier to watch the movements of the Punjabee chief. A body
of King’s and Company’s troops, under General St. Leger, and another
under Colonel Ochterlony, composed entirely of native regiments, were
posted in the neighbourhood of Loodhianah, ready, at a moment’s notice,
to take the field against the followers of Nanuk. Vested with political
authority, the latter officer, on the 9th of February, 1809, issued
a proclamation calling upon the Sikh ruler to withdraw his troops
to the further side of the Sutlej, and placing all the Cis-Sutlej
principalities under the protection of the British Government. It was
plain that we were no longer to be tampered with, and that there was
nothing left to Runjeet Singh but to yield a reluctant compliance to
our terms.
Up to this time the primary object of the British Government had been
the establishment of such an alliance with the rulers of the Punjab,
as might ensure a strenuous conjoint opposition to an European army
advancing from the West. But those were days when a constant succession
of great changes in the European world necessarily induced a shifting
policy on the part of our Indian statesmen. It was difficult to
keep pace with the mutations which were passing over the political
horizon—difficult to keep a distant mission supplied with instructions
which were not likely to become totally useless before they could be
brought into effective operation. With Mr. Metcalfe at Umritsur it was
comparatively easy to communicate. He had been ordered to temporise—to
do nothing in a hurry; and he had succeeded so well as to protract his
negotiations until the spring of 1809. The delay was most advantageous
to British interests. The “chapter of accidents” worked mightily
in our favour. The war with Napoleon had now been carried into the
Spanish peninsula, and it demanded all the energies of the Emperor
to maintain his position in Europe. The necessity of anti-Gallican
alliances in India became less and less urgent. The value of Sikh
friendship dwindled rapidly down, and the pretensions of the Sikh ruler
naturally descended with it. The sight of a formidable British force
on the frontier—the intelligence of the European successes of the
great “Sepoy General” who, a few years before, on the plains of Berar,
had given the Mahrattas a foretaste of the quality of his military
skill[53]—the declining influence of the French in Central Asia,—and
more than all, perhaps, the wonderful firmness and courage of the young
English diplomatist—suggested to the wily Sikh Rajah the expediency of
ceasing to tamper with us, and of forming at once a friendly alliance
with the British.[54] He was now in a temper to accede to the terms
proposed to him by the British diplomatist; and accordingly, on the
25th of April, 1809, a treaty was executed by Runjeet Singh in person,
and by Mr. Metcalfe on the part of the British Government, in which
there was no more mention of the French than if the eagles of Napoleon
had never threatened the eastern world. It was stipulated that the
Rajah should retain possession of the territories to the north of the
Sutlej, but should abstain from all encroachments on the possessions
or rights of the chiefs on the left bank of the river. This limitation
was merely a prospective one. It had been intended to deprive Runjeet
of the tracts of country which he had previously occupied to the
south of the Sutlej; and the rough draft of the treaty contained, as
a part of the first article as it now stands, the words, “And on the
other hand, the Rajah renounces all claim to sovereignty over the Sikh
chiefs to the southward of that river, and all right of interference
in their affairs;”[55] but this passage had been subsequently erased
by Lord Minto, and Runjeet Singh was now left in possession of the
tracts he had originally occupied, though restrained from all further
encroachments. The Sikh chiefs between the Sutlej and the Jumna, not
already under the yoke of Runjeet Singh, were taken under British
protection, and on the 5th of May a proclamation was issued declaring
the nature of the connection which was thenceforth to exist between
them and the dominant power on the south of the Jumna.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Elphinstone’s Mission was making its way to
the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk. The envoy had been originally
instructed that he was empowered to receive from the King of Caubul
proposals having for their basis the employment of the power and
resources of that state against the advance of any European army.
He was authorised to express a conviction, as regarded offensive
operations, that in the event of Persia being found decidedly
confederated with the French in their projected expedition to India,
the British Government “would not hesitate to adopt any plan of
hostility against Persia consonant to the views of the King of Caubul.”
But he was cautioned against entering into any permanent arrangement,
or pledging his government to any ulterior line of conduct. Everything
was to be limited to the occasion. It was to be the policy of the envoy
rather to draw the Court of Caubul into solicitations to the British
Government, than to make any spontaneous offers of assistance. And he
was instructed especially to impress upon the mind of the King, that
both as regarded security from without, and the internal safety and
tranquillity of his own dominions, it was above all things the interest
of the Douranee monarch to break up the alliance existing between the
Court of Teheran and those of St. Petersburgh and Paris.
But this alliance was already in a state of dissolution. The spring
of 1809 brought, as we have seen, glad tidings from Europe to the
Anglo-Indian capital, and all fear of a French invasion passed away
from the minds of our rulers. Whilst Mr. Metcalfe was bringing
to a conclusion, irrespective of all reference to the French,
his long-pending negotiations with Lahore, Mr. Elphinstone was
instructed[56] that the important events which had occurred in Europe
would necessarily induce a modification of the course of policy to
be pursued at the Court of Caubul. He was told that it was no longer
necessary to entertain a thought of offensive operations against
Persia, but that the British Government would accede to engagements
of a nature purely defensive against that state, should such a
stipulation appear to be an object of solicitude to the Afghan monarch.
This was merely stated as an admissible course. The Governor-General
declared that he would wish, if possible, to avoid contracting even
defensive engagements with the Court of Caubul; and added, “Should the
contracting those engagements be absolutely required by the King, the
eventual aid to be afforded by us ought to be limited to supplies of
arms, ordnance, and military stores, _rather than of troops_.”[57]
The Mission 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 to the
terms of the instructions given him;” and that, in consequence of these
errors, Captain Seton had been officially recalled, and another envoy
despatched to Sindh to negotiate the terms of a new treaty.
The agent then appointed was Mr. N. H. Smith, who had been filling,
with credit to himself, the office of Resident at Bushire. He was
instructed to annul the former treaty, and to “endeavour to establish
such an intercourse with the chiefs of Sindh as would afford the
means of watching and counteracting the intrigues of the French in
that and the neighbouring States.” It was no easy thing to establish
on a secure basis friendly relations with so many different powers,
if not at open war with one another, in that antagonistic state of
conflicting interests which rendered each principality eager to obtain
the assistance of the British to promote some hostile design against
its neighbour. But partly by open promises, and partly by disguised
threats, our agents at this time succeeded in casting one great network
of diplomacy over all the states from the Jumna to the Caspian Sea.
The Ameers of Sindh coveted nothing so much as assistance against
the Douranee monarch. The British envoy was instructed to refuse all
promises of assistance, but to hint at the possibility of assistance
being given to the paramount State in the event of the tributary
exhibiting any hostility to the British Government. It was distinctly
stated that the object of Mr. Elphinstone’s Mission to Caubul was
exclusively connected with the apprehended invasion of the Persians
and the French; that the affairs of Sindh would not be touched upon by
the Caubul embassy, and that, therefore, the affairs of Caubul could
not with propriety be discussed by the ambassador to Sindh; and it was
adroitly added, that the relations between Caubul and Sindh could only
be taken into consideration by the British Government in the event of
the latter state exhibiting a decided disposition to encourage and
assist the projects of our enemies.
Nor was this the only use made of the conflicting claims of Caubul and
Sindh. It happened, as has been said, that Persia had been intriguing
with the Ameers, and had promised to assist them in the efforts to
cast off the Douranee yoke. The French had favoured and assisted
these intrigues; and Mr. Elphinstone was accordingly instructed to
instigate the resentment of the Afghan monarch against the French and
Persian allies, and to demonstrate to him that the very integrity of
his empire was threatened by the confederacy. It was the policy of the
British-Indian Government to keep Sindh in check by hinting at the
possibility of British assistance rendered to Caubul for its coercion;
and, at the same time, to alarm Caubul by demonstrating the probability
of Sindh being assisted by Persia to shake off the Douranee yoke.
Operating upon the fears of both parties, our diplomatists found little
difficulty in bringing their negotiations to a successful termination.
The Ameers of Sindh entered readily into engagements of general amity,
and especially stipulated never to allow the tribe of the French to
settle in their country. But before these treaties were executed,
France had ceased to be formidable, and Persia had become a friend. The
Sindh and Caubul treaties were directed against exigencies which had
ceased to exist; but they were not without their uses. If the embassies
resulted in nothing else, they gave birth to two standard works on the
countries to which they were despatched; and brought prominently before
the World the names of two servants of the Company, who have lived to
occupy no small space in the world’s regard, and to prove themselves
as well fitted, by nature and education, to act history as to write
it.[64]
CHAPTER VI.
[1809-1816]
The Mid-Career of Shah Soojah—His Wanderings and Misfortunes—Captivity
in Cashmere—Imprisonment at Lahore—Robbery of the Koh-i-noor—Reception
of the Shah by the Rajah of Kistawar—His Escape to the British
Territories.
Before Mr. Elphinstone’s Mission had cleared the limits of the
Douranee Empire, Shah Soojah had given battle to his enemies, and
been disastrously defeated. The month of June, 1809, had not worn to
a close, before it was evident that his cause was hopeless. Still he
did not abandon the contest. Despatching his Zenana, with which was
his blind brother, to Rawul Pindee, he made new efforts to splinter
up his broken fortunes. But sustaining several defeats, and narrowly
escaping, on more than one occasion, with his life, he desisted for a
time from operations, of which every new struggle demonstrated more
painfully the utter fruitlessness. He wanted military genius, and he
wanted the art to inspire confidence and to win affection. Deserted by
the chiefs and the people, he withdrew beyond the frontier, and there
entered upon new preparations for the renewal of the contest under
circumstances more favourable to success. Entertaining and drilling
troops, he spent a year at Rawul Pindee. Some defections from his
brother’s party inspiring him with new hopes, he marched thence to
Peshawur, and took possession of the Balla Hissar, or royal fortress.
But here the treachery of his friends was likely to have proved more
fatal to him than the malice of his enemies. The chiefs on whom he
most relied were bribed over by the Governor of Cashmere to seize the
person of the King. Persuading him, before he commenced the expedition
to Caubul, to send out the horses of his troopers to graze in the
neighbouring villages, and thus stripping him of his only defence, they
escaladed the Balla Hissar, seized the royal person, and carried the
unfortunate monarch to the valley of Cashmere. Here he was offered his
release at the price of the Koh-i-noor; but he refused to surrender
this magnificent appendage to the Crown of Caubul, and rescued it from
the hands of one plunderer only to suffer it to fall into the grip of
another.
It was in 1812 that Shah Soojah was carried off a prisoner to Cashmere.
He appears to have remained there about a year, and, during that time,
to have been treated with little kindness and respect. Mahmoud was then
in comparative quiet and security at Caubul, and, in his good fortune,
seems to have regarded with compassion the fate of his unhappy brother.
“When Shah Mahmoud heard of the way in which we were treated,” writes
the royal autobiographer, “the latent feelings of fraternal affection
were aroused within him, and he immediately sent a force into the
Barukzye country. After plundering the whole tribe of Atta Mahmoud
Khan, he carried men, women, and children into captivity. Finding that
this had not the desired effect, viz., our release from bondage, he
sent a force to Cashmere, under Futteh Khan.” Atta Mahmoud advanced
to give him battle; but his followers deserted to the standard of the
Barukzye Wuzeer, and he fled homewards to Cashmere. Here, threatened
by Futteh Khan, he implored the assistance of his captive. “Seeing
his escape could not be effected without our aid, he came,” says Shah
Soojah, “to our place of confinement, bare-headed, with the Koran in
one hand, a naked sword in the other, and a rope about his neck, and
requested our forgiveness for the sake of the sacred volume.” The
Shah, who, according to his own statements, was never wanting in that
most kingly quality of forgiveness, forgave him on his own account,
and recommended him to make submission to Futteh Khan. The Wuzeer was
advancing upon Cashmere from one direction, and the Sikhs from another;
and it was plain that the rebellious Nazim had nothing before him but
to submit.
I wish to believe Shah Soojah’s history of the amiable fraternal
impulses which dictated the expedition to Cashmere. But it is difficult
to entertain a conviction that it was not directed towards other
objects than the release of the exiled monarch. The result was,
that Atta Mahmoud, the rebellious Nazim, made submission to Futteh
Khan;—that Mokhum Chund, the leader of the Sikh expedition, met the
Douranee minister about the same time, and that both recommended Shah
Soojah to proceed on a visit to Runjeet Singh.[65] The Maharajah, it
soon became very clear, coveted the possession of the great Douranee
diamond. On the second day after Shah Soojah entered Lahore, he was
waited on by an emissary from Runjeet, who demanded the jewel in the
name of his master. The fugitive monarch asked for time to consider
the request, and hinted that, after he had partaken of Runjeet’s
hospitality, he might be in a temper to grant it. On the following
day, the same messenger presented himself again, and received a
similar reply. Runjeet Singh was in no mood to brook this delay.
Determined to possess himself of the Koh-i-noor, he now resorted to
other measures to extort it from the luckless owner. “We then,” says
Shah Soojah, “experienced privations of the necessaries of life, and
sentinels were placed over our dwelling. A month passed in this way.
Confidential servants of Runjeet Singh then waited on us, and inquired
if we wanted ready cash, and would enter into an agreement and treaty
for the above-mentioned jewel. We answered in the affirmative, and
next day, Ram Singh brought 40,000 or 50,000 rupees, and asked again
for the Koh-i-noor, which we promised to procure when some treaty was
agreed upon. Two days after this, Runjeet Singh came in person, and,
after friendly protestations, he stained a paper with safflower, and
swearing by the Grunth of Baba Nanuck and his own sword, he wrote the
following security and compact:—That he delivered over the provinces
of Kote Cumaleeh, Jung Shawl, and Khuleh Noor, to us and our heirs for
ever; also offering assistance in troops and treasure for the purpose
of again recovering our throne. We also agreed, if we should ever
ascend the throne, to consider Runjeet Singh always in the light of an
ally. He then proposed himself that we should exchange turbans, which
is among the Sikhs a pledge of eternal friendship, and we then gave him
the Koh-i-noor.”
Having thus obtained possession of the great diamond, Runjeet Singh,
who at no time of his life had very high ideas of honour, was unwilling
to give up the jagheer which he had promised as the price of it.
Whilst Shah Soojah was still thinking over the non-performance of
the contract, Runjeet invited him to accompany an expedition which
was proceeding under the Maharajah to Peshawur, and held out to him
hopes of the recovery of his lost dominions. The Shah joined Runjeet
at Rotas, and they proceeded together to Rawul Pindee. There the
Maharajah, seeing little chance of success, abandoned the expedition,
and, according to the account given by Shah Soojah, desired him to
proceed onward in the company of Ram Singh. Left alone with that chief,
he was shamelessly plundered by robbers of higher note than the Sikh
chiefs would willingly admit. All thought of proceeding to Peshawur was
now abandoned, and, accompanied by Ram Singh and the heir-apparent,
Shah Soojah returned to Lahore.
At the capital his property was not more secure than on the line of
march. There was something yet left to be plundered, and the plunderers
were of still higher rank. Runjeet Singh stripped the wretched monarch
of everything that was worth taking, and “even after this,” says
Shah Soojah, “he did not perform one of his promises.” Instead of
bestowing new favours upon the man who had yielded up his treasures
so unsparingly, the Maharajah began to heap new indignities upon him.
Spies were set over him, and guards surrounded his dwelling. Five
months passed in this way; and as time advanced, the condition of
the wretched Douranee Prince became more hopeless; his escape from
this wretched thraldom more to be coveted, and yet more difficult
to encompass. He remembered the friendly overtures of the British
Government, and sighed for a peaceful asylum under the shelter of the
wings of the great power beyond the Sutlej. “We thought,” he says,
“of the proffered friendship of the British Government, and hoped for
an asylum in Loodhianah. Several Mussulmans and Hindoos had formerly
offered their services, and we now engaged them and purchased several
of the covered hackeries of the country. Every stratagem was defeated
by the spies, until at last we found that Abdool Hussan had disclosed
our plans to Runjeet Singh. At last, being hopeless, we called Abdool
Hussan and Moollah Jaffier into the presence, and after offering them
bribes, and giving expectations of reward, we bought them to our
purpose; and the members of the seraglio, with their attendants, all
dressed in the costume of the country, found a safe conveyance in the
hackeries above mentioned to the cantonments of Loodhianah. When we
received accounts of their safe arrival, we gave sincere thanks to
Almighty God!”
But his own escape was yet to be effected. Outwitted to this extent,
Runjeet Singh redoubled his precautions, and in no very conciliatory
mood of mind hemmed in the ex-King with guards, and watched him day
and night with the keenest vigilance. “Seven ranges of guards,” says
the royal autobiographer, “were put upon our person, and armed men
with lighted torches watched our bed. When we went as far as the
banks of the river at night, the sentinels upon the ramparts lighted
flambeaux until we returned. Several months passed in this manner,
and our own attendants were with difficulty allowed to come into the
presence. No relief was left but that of our holy religion, and God
alone could give us assistance.” And assistance was given, in the
shape of unwonted resolution and ingenuity. In this critical hour
the resources of the Shah seem to have developed themselves in an
unexampled manner. He foiled all Runjeet’s efforts to secure his
prisoner, and baffled the vigilance of his guards. A few faithful
attendants aided his endeavours, and he escaped from the cruel walls of
Lahore. “We ordered,” he says, “the roof of the apartment containing
our camp equipage to be opened, so as to admit of a person passing
through; apertures were formed by mining through seven other chambers
to the outside of the building.” Everything being thus prepared, the
unhappy King disguised himself as a mendicant, and leaving one of his
attendants to simulate the royal person on his bed, crept through the
fissures in the walls, escaped with two followers into the street, and
emerged thence through the main sewer which ran beneath the city wall.
Outside Lahore he was joined by his remaining followers. He had been
thinking, in confinement, of the blessings of a safe retreat at
Loodhianah; but no sooner did he find himself abroad than he courted
new adventures, and meditated new enterprises. Instead of hastening to
the British provinces, he turned his face towards the hills of Jummoo.
Wandering about in this direction without seemingly any fixed object,
he received friendly overtures from the Rajah of Kistawar, and was
easily persuaded to enter his dominions.
The Rajah went out to meet him, loaded him with kindness, conducted him
to his capital, and made the kingly fugitive happy with rich gifts and
public honours. Offering up sacrifices, and distributing large sums
of money in honour of his royal guest, the Rajah spared nothing that
could soothe the grief or pamper the vanity of the exiled monarch.
But the novelty of this pleasant hospitality soon began to wear away,
and the restless wanderer sighed for a life of more enterprise and
excitement. “Tired of an idle life,” he says, “we laid plans for an
attack on Cashmere.” The Rajah of Kistawar was well pleased with the
project, and placed his troops and his treasury at the command of his
royal guest. The Shah himself, though robbed of all his jewels, had a
lakh of rupees remaining at Lahore, but as soon as he began to possess
himself of it, the Maharajah stretched out his hand, and swept it into
his own treasury. Nothing daunted by this accident, the Kistawar chief,
who was “ready to sacrifice his territory for the weal” of the Shah,
freely supplied the sinews of war; troops were levied, and operations
commenced.
But it was not written in the Shah’s book of life that his enterprises
should result in anything but failure. The outset of the expedition
was marked by some temporary successes; but it closed in disaster and
defeat. The Shah’s levies charged the stockaded positions of the enemy
sword in hand, and were pushing into the heart of the country, when
the same inexorable enemy that has baffled the efforts of the greatest
European states raised its barriers against the advance of the invading
army. “We were only three coss,” relates Shah Soojah, “from Azim Khan’s
camp, with the picturesque city of Cashmere full in view, when the
snow began again to fall, and the storm continued with violence, and
without intermission, for two days. Our Hindostanees were benumbed with
a cold unfelt in their sultry regions; the road to our rear was blocked
up with snow, and the supplies still far distant. For three days our
troops were almost famished, and many Hindostanees died. We could not
advance, and retreat was hazardous. Many lost their hands and feet from
being frost-bitten, before we determined to retreat.”
These calamities, which seemed to strengthen the devotion of the Rajah
of Kistawar to the unfortunate Shah, and which were borne by him with
the most manly fortitude, sobered the fugitive Afghan monarch, and
made him again turn his thoughts longingly towards a tranquil asylum
in the Company’s dominions. At the earnest request of his new friend,
he remained during nine months beneath the hospitable roof of the
Rajah, and then prepared for a journey to Loodhianah.[66] Avoiding the
Lahore territory, lest he should fall into the hands of Runjeet Singh,
willing rather to encounter the eternal snows of the hill regions than
his ruthless enemies on the plains, he tracked along the inhospitable
mountains of Thibet, where for days and days no signs of human life
or vegetation appeared to cheer his heart and encourage his efforts.
“The depth of the eternal snows,” he says, “was immense. Underneath
the large bodies of ice the mountain torrents had formed themselves
channels. The five rivers watering the Punjaub have their rise here
from fountains amid the snows of ages. We passed mountains, the snows
of which varied in colour, and at last reached the confines of Thibet,
after experiencing the extremes of cold, hunger, and fatigue.”
His trials were not yet over. He had still to encounter dangers and
difficulties among the hill tribes. The people of Kulloo insulted and
ill-treated him; but the Rajah came to his relief, and, after a few
days of onward travelling, to the inexpressible joy of the fugitive
monarch the red houses of the British residents at one of our hill
stations appeared in sight. “Our cares and fatigues were now,” says
the Shah, “forgotten, and giving thanks to Almighty God, who, having
freed us from the hands of our enemies, and led us through the snows
and over the trackless mountains, had now safely conducted us to the
land of friends, we passed a night, for the first time, with comfort
and without dread. Signs of civilisation showed themselves as we
proceeded, and we soon entered a fine broad road. A chuprassie from
Captain Ross attended us; the hill ranas paid us every attention; and
we soon reached Loodhianah, where we found our family treated with
marked respect, and enjoying every comfort after their perilous march
from Lahore.”
It was in the month of September, 1816, that Shah Soojah joined his
family at Loodhianah. He sought a resting-place, and he found one
in the British dominions. Two years of quietude and peace were his.
But quietude and peace are afflictions grievous and intolerable to
an Afghan nature. The Shah gratefully acknowledged the friendly
hospitality of the British, but the burden of a life of inactivity
was not to be borne. The Douranee Empire was still rent by intestine
convulsions. The Barukzye sirdars were dominant at Caubul; but their
sovereignty was threatened by Shah Mahmoud and the Princes of Herat,
and not, at that time, professing to conquer for themselves, for the
spirit of legitimacy was not extinct in Afghanistan, they looked abroad
for a royal puppet, and found one at Loodhianah. Azim Khan invited
Shah Soojah to re-assert his claims to the throne; and the Shah, weary
of repose, unwarned by past experience, flung himself into this new
enterprise, only to add another to that long list of failures which it
took nearly a quarter of a century more to render complete.
CHAPTER VII.
[1816-1837.]
Dost Mahomed and the Barukzyes—Early days of Dost Mahomed—The fall of
Futteh Khan—Defeat of Shah Mahmoud—Supremacy of the Barukzyes—Position
of the Empire—Dost Mahomed at Caubul—Expedition of Shah Soojah—His
Defeat—Capture of Peshawur by the Sikhs.
Among the twenty brothers of Futteh Khan was one many years his junior,
whose infancy was wholly disregarded by the great Barukzye Sirdar.
The son of a woman of the Kuzzilbash tribe, looked down upon by the
high-bred Douranee ladies of his father’s household, the boy had begun
life in the degrading office of a sweeper at the sacred cenotaph of
Lamech.[67] Permitted, at a later period, to hold a menial office
about the person of the powerful Wuzeer, he served the great man with
water, or bore his pipe; was very zealous in his ministrations; kept
long and painful vigils; saw everything, heard everything in silence;
bided his time patiently, and when the hour came, trod the stage of
active life as no irresolute novice. A stripling of fourteen, in the
crowded streets of Peshawur in broad day, as the buyers and the sellers
thronged the thoroughfares of the city, he slew one of the enemies of
Futteh Khan, and galloped home to report the achievement to the Wuzeer.
From that time his rise was rapid. The neglected younger brother of
Futteh Khan became the favourite of the powerful chief, and following
the fortunes of the warlike minister, soon took his place among the
chivalry of the Douranee Empire.
The name of this young warrior was Dost Mahomed Khan. Nature seems to
have designed him for a hero of the true Afghan stamp and character.
Of a graceful person, a prepossessing countenance, a bold frank
manner, he was outwardly endowed with all those gifts which most
inspire confidence and attract affection; whilst undoubted courage,
enterprise, activity, somewhat of the recklessness and unscrupulousness
of his race, combined with a more than common measure of intelligence
and sagacity, gave him a command over his fellows and a mastery over
circumstances, which raised him at length to the chief seat in the
empire. His youth was stained with many crimes, which he lived to
deplore. It is the glory of Dost Mahomed that in the vigour of his
years he looked back with contrition upon the excesses of his early
life, and lived down many of the besetting infirmities which had
overshadowed the dawn of his career. The waste of a deserted childhood
and the deficiencies of a neglected education he struggled manfully
to remedy and repair. At the zenith of his reputation there was not,
perhaps, in all Central Asia a chief so remarkable for the exercise of
self-discipline and self-control; but he emerged out of a cloudy morn
of vice, and sunk into a gloomy night of folly.
As the lieutenant of his able and powerful brother, the young Dost
Mahomed Khan displayed in all the contests which rent the Douranee
Empire a daring and heroic spirit, and considerable military address.
Early acquiring the power of handling large bodies of troops, he was
regarded, whilst yet scarcely a man, as a dashing, fearless soldier,
and a leader of good repute. But, in those early days, his scruples
were few; his excesses were many. It was one of those excesses, it is
supposed, which cost the life of Futteh Khan, and built up his own
reputation on the ruin of his distinguished brother.
It was shortly after the retirement of Shah Soojah to the British
possessions that Futteh Khan set out, at the head of an army, to the
western boundary of Afghanistan. Persia had long been encroaching upon
the limits of the Douranee Empire, and it was now to stem the tide
of Kujjar invasion that the Afghan Wuzeer set out for Khorassan. At
this time he was the virtual ruler of the country. Weak, indolent, and
debauched, Shah Mahmoud, retaining the name and the pomp of royalty,
had yielded the actual government of the country into the hands of
Futteh Khan and his brothers. The Princes of the blood royal quailed
before the Barukzye Sirdars. Ferooz-ood-Deen, brother of the reigning
monarch, was at that time governor of Herat. Whether actuated by
motives of personal resentment or ambition, or instigated by Shah
Mahmoud himself, Futteh Khan determined to turn the Persian expedition
to other account, and to throw Herat into the hands of the Barukzyes.
The execution of this design was entrusted to Dost Mahomed. He entered
Herat with his Kohistanee followers as a friend; and when the chiefs
of the city were beyond its gates, in attendance upon the Wuzeer, with
characteristic Afghan treachery and violence he massacred the palace
guards, seized the person of the Prince, spoiled the treasury, and
violated the harem. Setting the crown upon this last act of violence,
he tore the jewelled waistband from the person of the royal wife of one
of the royal Princes.[68] The outraged lady is said to have sent her
profaned garment to Prince Kamran, and to have drawn from him an oath
that he would avenge the injury. He was true to his vow. The blow was
struck; but it fell not on the perpetrator of the outrage: it fell upon
Futteh Khan.
Dost Mahomed had fled for safety to Cashmere. The Wuzeer, returning
from the Persian expedition, fell into the hands of Prince Kamran,
who punctured his eyes with the point of a dagger.[69] What followed
is well known. Enraged by so gross an outrage on a member of the
Suddozye family, alarmed at the growing power of the Barukzyes, and
further irritated by the resolute refusal of Futteh Khan to betray his
brothers, who had effected their escape from Herat, Kamran and his
father, Shah Mahmoud, agreed to put their noble prisoner to death.
They were then on their way from Candahar to Caubul. The ex-minister
was brought into their presence, and again called upon to write to his
brothers, ordering them to surrender themselves to the Shah. Again he
refused, alleging that he was but a poor blind captive; that his career
was run; that he had no longer any influence; and that he could not
consent to betray his brethren. Exasperated by the resolute bearing
of his prisoner, Mahmoud Shah ordered the unfortunate minister—the
king-maker to whom he owed his crown—to be put to death before him;
and there, in the presence of the feeble father and the cruel son,
Futteh Khan was by the attendant courtiers literally hacked to pieces.
His nose, ears, and lips were cut off; his fingers severed from his
hands, his hands from his arms, his arms from his body. Limb followed
limb, and long was the horrid butchery continued before the life of the
victim was extinct. Futteh Khan raised no cry, offered no prayer for
mercy. His fortitude was unshaken to the last. He died as he had lived,
the bravest and most resolute of men—like his noble father, a victim
to the perfidy and ingratitude of princes. The murder of Poyndah Khan
shook the Suddozye dynasty to its base. The assassination of Futteh
Khan soon made it a heap of ruins.[70]
From this time, the rise of Dost Mahomed was rapid. He had the blood
of kindred to avenge. The cruelty and ingratitude of Mahmoud and his
son were now to be signally punished by the brother of the illustrious
sufferer. Azim Khan, who ruled in Cashmere, counselled a course of
forbearance; but Dost Mahomed indignantly rejected the proposal; and
declaring that it would be an eternal disgrace to the Barukzyes not
to chastise the murderers of their chief, swore that he would march
upon Caubul, at the head of an army of retribution. Inclined neither
to enter personally upon so perilous an undertaking, nor to appear, in
such a juncture, wholly supine, Azim Khan presented his brother with
three or four lakhs of rupees to defray the charges of the expedition—a
sum which was exhausted long before the Sirdar neared Caubul. But in
spite of every obstacle, Dost Mahomed reached Koord-Caubul, two marches
from the capital, and there encamped his army.
The youthful son of Kamran, Prince Jehangire, was then the nominal
ruler of Caubul. But the actual administration of affairs was in
the hands of Atta Mahomed. A Sirdar of the Bamezye tribe, a man of
considerable ability, but no match for Dost Mahomed, he was now guilty
of the grand error of underrating such an adversary. He had acted
a conspicuous part in the recent intestine struggles between the
Suddozye brothers; but he had no love for the royal family—none for the
Barukzyes. He it was who had instigated Kamran to the cruel murder of
Futteh Khan, and had with his own hands commenced the inhuman butchery.
Now to advance ambitious projects of his own, he was ready to betray
his masters. Simulating a friendship which he did not feel, he leagued
himself with their enemies, and covenanted to betray the capital into
the hands of the Barukzye Sirdars. But Dost Mahomed and his brethren
had not forgotten the terrible tragedy which had cut short the great
career of the chief of their tribe. In a garden-house which had once
belonged to the murdered minister, they met Atta Mahomed, there to
complete the covenant for the surrender of the city. A signal was
given, when one—the youngest—of the brothers rushed upon the Bamezye
chief, threw him to the ground, and subjected him to the cruel process
which had preceded the murder of Futteh Khan. They spared his life; but
sent him blind and helpless into the world, with the mark of Barukzye
vengeance upon zhim—an object less of compassion than of scorn.
The seizure of the Balla Hissar was now speedily effected. The
Shah-zadah was surrounded by treachery. Young and beautiful, he was
the delight of the women of Caubul; but he had few friends among the
chivalry of the empire. Too weak to distinguish the true from the
false, he was easily betrayed. Persuaded to withdraw himself into
the upper citadel, he left the lower fortress at the mercy of Dost
Mahomed. The Sirdar made the most of the opportunity; ran a mine under
the upper works, and blew up a portion of them. Death stared the
Shah-zadah in the face. The women of Caubul offered up prayers for the
safety of the beautiful Prince. The night was dark; the rain descended
in torrents. To remain in the citadel was to court destruction. Under
cover of the pitchy darkness, it was possible that he might effect his
escape. Attended by a few followers, he made the effort, and succeeded.
He fled to Ghuzni, and was saved.
Dost Mahomed was now in possession of Caubul. But threatened from two
different quarters, his tenure was most insecure. Shah Mahmoud and
Prince Kamran were marching down from Herat, and Azim Khan was coming
from Cashmere to assert his claims, as the representative of the
Barukzye family. But the spirit of legitimacy was not wholly extinct in
Afghanistan. The Barukzyes did not profess to conquer for themselves.
It was necessary to put forward some scion of the royal family, and
to fight and conquer in his name. Dost Mahomed proclaimed Sultan Ali,
whilst Azim Khan invited Shah Soojah to emerge from the obscurity of
Loodhianah and re-assert his claims to the throne.[71]
Weary of retirement and inactivity, the Shah consented, and an
expedition was planned. But the covenant was but of short duration. The
contracting parties fell out upon the road, and, instead of fighting
a common enemy, got up a battle among themselves. The Shah, who
never lived to grow wiser, gave himself such airs, and asserted such
ridiculous pretentions, that Azim Khan deserted his new master, and let
loose his troops upon the royal cortège. Defeated in the conflict which
ensued,[72] Shah Soojah fled to the Khybur hills, and thence betook
himself to Sindh. Another puppet being called for, Prince Ayoob, for
want of a better, was elevated to that dignity, and the new friends set
out for Caubul.
In the meanwhile the royal army, which had marched from Herat under
Shah Mahmoud and Prince Kamran approached the capital of Afghanistan.
Unprepared to receive so formidable an enemy, weak in numbers, and
ill-supplied with money and materials, Dost Mahomed could not, with
any hope of success, have given battle to Mahmoud’s forces. The danger
was imminent. The royal troops were within six miles of the capital.
Dost Mahomed and his followers prepared for flight. With the bridles
of their horses in their hands, they stood waiting the approach of the
enemy. But their fears were groundless. A flight ensued; but it was not
Dost Mahomed’s, but Mahmoud’s army that fled. At the very threshold
of victory, the Suddozye Prince, either believing that there was
treachery in his ranks, or apprehending that the Barukzyes would seize
Herat in his absence, turned suddenly back, and flung himself into the
arms of defeat.
The Barukzyes were now dominant throughout Afghanistan. The
sovereignty, indeed, of Azim Khan’s puppet, Ayoob, was proclaimed;
but, Herat alone excepted, the country was in reality parcelled out
among the Barukzye brothers. By them the superior claims of Azim Khan
were generally acknowledged. Caubul, therefore, fell to his share.
Dost Mahomed took possession of Ghuzni. Pur Dil Khan, Kohan Dil Khan,
and their brothers, occupied Candahar. Jubbar Khan, a brother of Dost
Mahomed, was put in charge of the Ghilji country. Sultan Mahomed
and his brothers succeeded to the government of Peshawur, and the
Shah-zadah Sultan Ali, Dost Mahomed’s puppet, sunk quietly into the
insignificance of private life.
But this did not last long. Shah Soojah had begun again to dream of
sovereignty. He was organising an army at Shikarpoor. Against this
force marched Azim Khan, accompanied by the new King, Ayoob. Recalled
to the capital by the intrigues of Dost Mahomed, and delayed by one
of those complicated plots which display at once the recklessness and
the treachery of the Afghan character,[73] the Wuzeer was compelled
for a while to postpone the southern expedition. The internal strife
subsided, the march was renewned, and Azim Khan moved down on
Shikarpoor. But the army of Shah Soojah melted away at his approach.
Then Azim Khan planned an expedition against the Sikhs. He had no
fear of Runjeet Singh, whom he had once beaten in battle. Dost
Mahomed accompanied his brother, and they marched upon the frontier,
by Jellalabad and the Karapa Pass. But the watchful eye of Runjeet
was upon them, and he at once took measures for their discomfiture.
He well knew the character of the Barukzye brothers—knew them to be
avaricious, ambitious, treacherous; the hand of each against his
brethren. He thought bribery better than battle, and sent agents to
tamper with Sultan Mahomed and the other Peshawur chiefs. Hoping to
be enabled, in the end, to throw off the supremacy of Azim Khan, they
gladly listened to his overtures. Dost Mahomed received intelligence of
the plot, and signified his willingness to join the confederacy. His
offer was accepted. This important accession to his party communicated
new courage to Runjeet Singh. Everything was soon in train. Azim Khan
was at Minchini with his treasure and his Harem, neither of which, in
so troubled a state of affairs, could he venture to abandon. Sultan
Mahomed wrote to him from the Sikh camp that there was a design upon
both. The intelligence filled the Sirdar with grief and consternation.
He beheld plainly the treachery of his brothers, shed many bitter
tears, looked with fear and trembling into the future; saw disgrace on
one side, the sacrifice of his armies and treasure on the other; now
resolved to march down upon the enemy, now to break up his encampment
and retire. Night closed in upon him whilst in this state of painful
agitation and perplexity. Rumours of a disastrous something soon
spread through the whole camp. What it was, few could declare beyond
the Sirdar’s own tent; but his followers lost confidence in their
chief. They knew that some evil had befallen him; that he had lost
heart; that his spirit was broken. The nameless fear seized upon the
whole army, and morning dawned upon the wreck of a once formidable
force. His troops had deserted him, and he prepared to follow, with his
treasure and his Harem, to Jellalabad. Runjeet Singh entered Peshawur
in triumph; but thought it more prudent to divide the territory between
Dost Mahomed and Sultan Mahomed, than to occupy it on his own account,
and rule in his own name. The division was accordingly made. In the
mean while Azim Khan, disappointed and broken-spirited, was seized with
a violent disorder, the effect of anxiety and sorrow, and never quitted
the bed of sickness until he was carried to the tomb.[74]
This was in 1823. The death of Azim Khan precipitated the downfal of
the Suddozye monarchy, and raised Dost Mahomed to the chief seat in the
Douranee Empire. The last wretched remnant of legitimacy was now about
to perish by the innate force of its own corruption. The royal puppet,
Ayoob, and his son attempted to seize the property of the deceased
minister. Tidings of this design reached Candahar, and Shere Dil Khan,
with a party of Barukzye adherents, hastened to Caubul to rescue the
wealth of his brother and to chastise the spoliators. The Prince was
murdered in the presence of his father, and the unhappy King carried
off a prisoner to that ill-omened garden-house of Futteh Khan, which
had witnessed the destruction of another who had done still fouler
wrong to the grea
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