[September—October: 1841.]

Aspect of Affairs at Caubul—The King—The Envoy—Burnes—Elphinstone—The English at Caubul—Expenses of the War—Retrenchment of the Subsidies—Risings of the Ghilzyes—Sale’s Brigade—Gatherings in the Kohistan—Sale’s Arrival at Gundamuck—The 1st of November.

Taking advantage of the lull that followed the defeat of the Douranees and the Ghilzyes in Western Afghanistan, let us dwell for a little space on the general condition of affairs at the capital, in this month of September.

The King was in the Balla Hissar. Discontented and unhappy, he complained that he had no real authority; that the English gentlemen were managing the affairs of his kingdom; and that he himself was a mere pageant and a show. He had watched with satisfaction the growth of the difficulties which were besetting the path of his allies, and was not without a hope that their further development would be attended by our withdrawal from so troubled a sphere. It was plain to him that, although deference was outwardly shown to his opinions, and a pretence of consulting his wishes was made by his British advisers, they really held all the power in their hands; and he said, complainingly, to one of them,[74] for whom he entertained no little personal affection, that he “did not understand his position.” The appointment of the new minister, Oosman Khan, in the place of his old and tried servant, Moollah Shikore, had been extremely distasteful to him; and it chafed him to think that a functionary so appointed must necessarily be less eager to fulfil his wishes than those of his European allies. His health, too, was failing at this time; he was nervous and irritable, and Macnaghten thinking that he saw symptoms of approaching dissolution, contemplated the expediency of bringing Prince Timour from Candahar to the capital. “His Majesty,” he wrote to Rawlinson, on the 21st of September, “is ill of a fever, which has been hanging about him for some time, and at his time of life, the issue, to say the least of it, is very doubtful. It seems to be in the highest degree desirable that Shah-zadah Timour should be here in the event of a fatal termination of His Majesty’s illness. The Nizamoodowlah and I have had a serious conversation this morning on the subject. He thinks, and I am disposed to agree with him, that it might be well if the Shah-zadah were to address an areeza to His Majesty, stating how much grieved he is to hear of His Majesty’s illness, the intelligence of which has filled him with so much uneasiness as to incapacitate him for the proper performance of the duties of government, and expressing an earnest desire to kiss the feet of His Majesty, and thereby give relief to his mind.” But the old man rallied, and Macnaghten rejoiced. At such a time, a succession would have been embarrassing and inopportune, for the Envoy was preparing to shake the dust of Afghanistan from his feet for ever.

He was about to receive the reward of a life of successful and appreciated service, and to end his official days in comparative quiet and repose. He was about to escape out of the cares and inquietudes—the difficulties and dangers—the incessant harassing turmoil and excitement of a life of responsibility among a turbulent and discontented people, and to commence a new career of useful and honoured public service, upon a less stormy and tumultuous scene. He had been appointed Governor of Bombay. The same recognition of approved zeal and capacity which had been extended to Malcolm and Elphinstone, had now come to testify the estimation in which Macnaghten’s services were held by his employers. It was a high and flattering mark of confidence, and it was doubly welcome after all the doubts and misgivings engendered in his mind by the implied censures of his immediate superior. The value of the gift, too, was enhanced by the seasonableness of the time at which it was received. Macnaghten looked around him, and saw that “everything was quiet from Dan to Beersheba;” and he rejoiced in the thought that he was about to quit Afghanistan for ever, and to carry with him no burden of anxiety and fear.

Burnes was also at Caubul. He had been there ever since the restoration of the Shah, in a strange unrecognised position, of which it is difficult to give any intelligible account. He used to say, that he was in the “most nondescript of situations.” It appears to have been his mission in Afghanistan to draw a large salary every month, and to give advice that was never taken. This might have satisfied many men. It did not satisfy Burnes. He said that he wanted responsibility; and under Macnaghten he had none. He had no precise duties of any kind; but he watched all that was going on in Afghanistan with a penetrating eye and an understanding brain, and he wrote, in the shape of letters to Macnaghten, long and elaborate papers on the state and prospects of Afghanistan, which his official chief dismissed with a few pencil-notes for the most part of contemptuous dissent. Burnes saw clearly that everything was going wrong. He probed, deeply and searchingly, the great wound of national discontent—a mighty sore that was ever running—and he felt in his inmost soul that the death-throes of such a system could not be very remote. But better days were now beginning to dawn upon him. He had been waiting for Macnaghten’s office, and now, at last, it seemed to be within his reach. A few weeks, and he would be supreme at Caubul; and the great object of his ambition gained.

The command of the troops was in the hands of General Elphinstone—an old officer of the Queen’s service, of good repute, gentlemanly manners, and aristocratic connections. He had succeeded Sir Willoughby Cotton in the early part of the year. But it must have been a wonder to him, as it was to all who knew him, what business he had in such a place. He had no Indian experience of any kind, and he was pressed down by physical infirmities. When Sir Willoughby Cotton intimated his desire, on the plea of ill health, to be relieved from the command of the troops in Afghanistan, there was an officer already in the country to whom their charge might have been safely delegated. But he was not in favour either at the Mission or at the Calcutta Government House. Sir Jasper Nicolls would have placed Nott in command; but there were obstacles to his appointment, at which I have already hinted; and it was deemed expedient to send to Caubul a man of a more ductile nature, with as few opinions of his own as might be, to clash with those of the political chief. So Lord Auckland despatched General Elphinstone to Afghanistan—not in ignorance of his disqualifications, for they were pointed out to him by others—but in spite of a clear perception of them. Whether those who sent the brave old gentleman to India with all his infirmities thick upon him, recommended him for this especial field of service, or whether any notions of routine and the obligations of the roster pressed themselves upon Lord Auckland with irresistible force, I cannot confidently declare; but so inexplicable by any reference to intelligible human motives and actions is an appointment of this kind, that it is impossible not to recognise in such a dispensation a mightier agency than that of man, or to reject the belief that, when Elphinstone went to Caubul, the curse which sate upon our unholy policy was working onward for our overthrow.

Next in rank to General Elphinstone were Sir Robert Sale and Brigadier Shelton—both officers of the Queen’s service, but soldiers of long Indian experience. Each had served with his regiment in the Burmese war; and each had acquired a reputation for the highest personal courage. Sale’s regiment was the 13th Light Infantry. Shelton’s was the 44th.[75] Both of these regiments were now at Caubul. But the 13th was about to return to India, and soon afterwards to great Britain. It had seen many years of Indian service, and had been in Afghanistan since Keane’s army first entered the country. The 44th had come up early in the year, and had done some service in the Naziain valley, near Jellalabad, on the way.

The command of the Shah’s troops was vested in Brigadier Anquetil, a native of one of those lovely islands in the Channel which have sent forth so many brave men to fight our battles by sea and land. He was esteemed a good soldier; and I believe that Macnaghten found him a more pliant colleague than the “alarmist” whom he had supplanted. The controversies between Brigadier Roberts and the Envoy had ended in the departure of the former. His advice had been resented; his warnings had been scouted. His clear insight into the dangers which were beneath our feet had been regarded as idle and imbecile fear; and the unwelcome declarations of his honest convictions as little short of rank mutiny. He had done his duty; he had spoken the truth; and he had paid the inevitable penalty of his unwillingness to make an easy and a prosperous present at the cost of a tumultuous and disastrous future. He had returned in disgrace to the British provinces; but he had left his predictions behind him, and he knew that, sooner or later, History would do him justice.

The main body of the British troops were in the new cantonments. These works had been erected in the course of 1840. They were situated on a piece of low ground open to the Kohistan road. They were extensive and ill defended. They were nearly a mile in extent, and were surrounded by ramparts so little formidable that they might be ridden over.[76] Near the cantonments was the Mission compound, occupying an extensive space, and surrounded by a number of houses and buildings belonging to the officers and retainers of the Mission. There was here, also, a weak attempt at defence; but the walls were beyond measure contemptible; and the whole expanse of building, the entrenched camp and Mission compound together, were so planted, as to be swept on every side by hills, and forts, and villages, and whatever else in such a country could bristle with armed men. No such works were ever known—so wretched in themselves, and so doubly wretched by position. If the object of those who constructed them had been to place our troops at the mercy of an enemy, they could not have been devised more cunningly in furtherance of such an end. They were commanded on every side; and so surrounded with villages, forts, gardens, and other cover for an enemy, that our troops could neither enter nor leave the camp without exposing themselves to a raking fire from some one of these points of attack. And to crown the calamity of the whole, the Commissariat supplies, on which our army depended for its subsistence, were stored in a small fort, not within, but beyond, the cantonments. The communication between the two places was commanded by an empty fort, and by a walled garden, inviting the occupation of an enemy. Human folly seemed to have reached its height in the construction of these works. There stood those great, indefensible cantonments, overawed on every side, a monument of the madness which Providence, for its own ends, had permitted to cloud and bewilder the intelligence of the “greatest military nation of the world.” There it stood, a humiliating spectacle; but except by new-comers, who stood in amazement before the great folly, little account was taken of it. Men’s eyes had become accustomed to the blot.

And whose was this stupendous error? Are we to assign its origin to the professional incapacity of the engineer officers attached to the force; to the ignorance and carelessness of the officers commanding it; or to the wilfulness of the Envoy? Not to the engineers—Durand, who had first held the post, had urged upon the Envoy the necessity of constructing barracks and posting our troops in the Balla Hissar; and Macnaghten, yielding to these solicitations, had overcome the reluctance of the Shah—but the barracks had been afterwards given up to the accommodation of the old king’s harem; and from that time, though Sturt who succeeded Durand, insisted, with equal urgency on the expediency of locating the troops in the Balla Hissar, and strengthening its defences, all hope of securing a strong military position at Caubul was gone. The sheep-folds on the plain were built. When Brigadier Roberts, in the spring of 1840, saw that the work had commenced, and what it was proposed to do, he remonstrated against the plan; and was told that it had been approved by Sir Willoughby Cotton. The Brigadier had been connected with the Building Department in the upper provinces of India, and freighted his remonstrances, therefore, with much professional experience, bearing upon the sanatory as well as upon the defensive aspects of the question; but, although he believed at first that he had made some impression on the Envoy, his protests were disregarded. And so the cantonments had sprung up, such as we have described them; and there, in that late autumn of 1841, they stood, bare and defenceless, as sheep-pens, whilst the wolves were howling around them.[77]

The English had by this time begun to settle themselves down in Caubul. Indeed, from the very commencement, they had done their best, as they ever do, to accommodate themselves to new localities and new circumstances, and had transplanted their habits, and, I fear it must be added, their vices, with great address, to the capital of the Douranee Empire. It was plain that they were making themselves at home in the chief city of the Afghans. There was no sign of an intended departure. They were building and furnishing houses for themselves—laying out gardens—surrounding themselves with the comforts and luxuries of European life. Some had sent for their wives and children. Lady Macnaghten, Lady Sale, and other English women, were domesticated in comfortable houses within the limits of the great folly we had erected on the plain. The English, indeed, had begun to find the place not wholly unendurable. The fine climate braced and exhilarated them. There was no lack of amusement. They rode races; they played at cricket. They got up dramatic entertainments. They went out fishing; they went out shooting. When winter fell upon them, and the heavy frosts covered the lakes with ice, to the infinite astonishment of the Afghans they skimmed over the smooth surface on their skates. There is no want of manliness among the Afghans; but the manliness of the Feringhee strangers quite put them to shame. They did not like us the less for that. The athletic amusements of our people only raised their admiration. But there was something else which filled them with intensest hate.[78]

I am not writing an apology. There are truths which must be spoken. The temptations which are most difficult to withstand, were not withstood by our English officers. The attractions of the women of Caubul they did not know how to resist. The Afghans are very jealous of the honour of their women; and there were things done in Caubul which covered them with shame and roused them to revenge. The inmate of the Mahomedan Zenana was not unwilling to visit the quarters of the Christian stranger. For two long years, now, had this shame been burning itself into the hearts of the Caubulees; and there were some men of note and influence among them who knew themselves to be thus wronged. Complaints were made; but they were made in vain. The scandal was open, undisguised, notorious. Redress was not to be obtained. The evil was not in course of suppression. It went on till it became intolerable; and the injured then began to see that the only remedy was in their own hands. It is enough to state broadly this painful fact. There are many who can fill in with vivid personality all the melancholy details of this chapter of human weakness, and supply a catalogue of the wrongs which were soon to be so fearfully redressed.

Such, dimly traced in its social aspects, was the general condition of things at Caubul in this month of September, 1841. Politically—such was Macnaghten’s conviction—everything was quiet from Dan to Beersheba. The noses of the Douranee Khans had, he said, “been brought to the grindstone;” and the Gooroo and other Ghilzye chiefs were in his safe keeping at Caubul, seemingly contented with their lot. As the month advanced the Envoy continued to write that our prospects were “brightening in every direction,” that everything was “couleur de rose.” It is true that Eldred Pottinger, who after a brief visit to the British provinces had returned to Afghanistan, was not sending in very favourable reports from the Kohistan and the Nijrow country, which were now his new sphere of action; but of these troubles Macnaghten made light account. He believed that Pottinger was an alarmist. It is true, also, that an expedition was going out to Zao, to reduce some turbulent robber tribes; but this necessity he attributed to the indiscretion of one of our own officers, who had needlessly attacked the place with insufficient means, and been compelled to beat a retreat.[79] The expedition, too, as Macnaghten said, was only a “little go;” and immensely popular with our officers, who were zealously volunteering for the sport, as though it had been a battu or a steeple-chase.[80]

The popular expedition into the Zoormut country was completely successful. Macgregor, who accompanied the force in the character of political adviser, found the rebellious forts evacuated. He had only, therefore, to destroy them. The results, however, of the movement were not wholly pacificatory. Pottinger said that the feeling which it engendered in the Kohistan was extremely unfavourable to us. It confirmed, he said, in the minds of the malcontents, “the belief so industriously spread of our difficulties, whilst rumours from Herat and Candahar of invasion, renewed rebellion, and disturbances, were again spread abroad.”[81]

During the early part of October the Kohistanees remained perfectly quiet. But every hour, said Pottinger, “brought rumours of the formation of an extensive conspiracy.” These he at first doubted; but he reported them to the Envoy, and asked for information on the subject. The answer was, that neither Macnaghten nor Burnes could perceive any grounds for suspicion.

In the mean while, the Eastern Ghilzyes were breaking out into revolt.[82] They had the same cause of complaint as the Kohistanees. The money-bag, which had kept them in order, was beginning to fail. It is a moot point whether revenge or avarice is the stronger feeling in the Afghan breast. Both were now arrayed against us. The bayonet and the money-bag were failing to do their work.

The expenses of the occupation of Afghanistan had long been telling fearfully upon the revenues of India. Lord Auckland had been slow to look the intolerable evil of this exhausting drain fairly in the face. But the other members of the Supreme Council had been less slow to address themselves fully to the subject; and the home authorities had written out urgent letters regarding the miserable results of the continued occupation of a country that yielded nothing but strife. Looking at the matter in the most favourable point of view, it was found that the support of Shah Soojah cost the treasury of India at least a million and a quarter a year. The Board of Control, or that fusion of the two authorities of the crown and the company, known as the Secret Committee, had taken, at the close of 1840, a correct and statesmanlike view of the subject, and had written out, that they could see nothing in the continued support of Shah Soojah, who, it was plain, had no hold upon the affections of the people, to compensate for this alarming exhaustion of the financial resources of India, and the necessary injuries inflicted upon the people by such a fearful waste of the revenues of the country.

On the last day of the year they had clearly and emphatically propounded their views of this important question, saying;—“We pronounce our decided opinion that for many years to come, the restored monarchy will have need of a British force, in order to maintain peace in its own territory, and prevent aggression from without. We must add, that to attempt to accomplish this by a small force, or by the mere influence of British Residents, will, in our opinion, be most unwise and frivolous, and that we should prefer the entire abandonment of the country, and a frank confession of complete failure, to any such policy. Even financial considerations justify this view, inasmuch as a strong and adequate military establishment, costly as it must be, will hardly entail so much expense upon you as those repeated revolts and disorders which must arise in an ill-governed, half-subdued country; and which will compel you to make great and sudden efforts to maintain your character, and recover predominance. To whatever quarter we direct our attention, we behold the restored monarchy menaced by dangers, which cannot possibly be encountered by the military means at the disposal of the minister at the Court of Shah Soojah, and we again desire you seriously to consider which of the two alternatives (a speedy retreat from Afghanistan, or a considerable increase of the military force in that country), you may feel it your duty to adopt. We are convinced that you have no middle course to pursue with safety and with honour.” The letter enunciating these views had been scarcely signed when intelligence of the surrender of Dost Mahomed was received in England. But these tidings had caused no change in the opinions of the Secret Committee, and on the 2nd of January, 1841, they had written again to the Supreme Government, saying, “The surrender of Dost Mahomed does not alter the views contained in our late letters, and we hope that advantage will be taken of it to settle affairs in Afghanistan according to those views.”

When these letters reached Calcutta, in the spring of 1841, it had become a matter for the serious consideration of the Indian Government, whether the policy, which had proved so utterly disastrous, should not be openly and boldly abandoned. The question came before the Supreme Council at the end of March.[83] Either by some negligence, or by some juggle, the opinions of the military members of Council were not obtained. Lord Auckland and the civilians decided in favour of the continued occupation of the country, though it was certain that it could only be done at the cost of a million and a quarter a year. But money had already become painfully scarce. It was necessary to recruit the exhausted treasury. There was no other mode of accomplishing this than by opening a new loan. Such a public declaration of the embarrassed condition of the government was distressing to Lord Auckland; but nothing else was to be done. So at the end of March he drew up an advertisement for a five per cent. loan.[84] It is a remarkable instance of that kind of monomaniac blindness which besets some men, under peculiar conditions of existence, that when Macnaghten learned that a new loan had been opened, he asked, “What can this be for?” and spoke of the war—in China?[85]

But the call was responded to but slowly.[86] Money did not come in freely, though it was going out with a freedom perhaps unexampled in the history of Indian finance; and the home authorities still continued to write out, as Sir Jasper Nicolls and others in India were declaring, that it had become necessary either to withdraw altogether from Afghanistan, or to fall back upon the alternative of a large augmentation of the army. As the year advanced, too, other influences were at work to move the Indian Government to consider more and more intently the subject of the continued drain upon the resources of India. Great Britain was on the eve of a change of ministry, which would settle in Downing-street a party of Conservative statesmen, and send to Calcutta one of their number, known to be hostile to the whole policy of the expedition across the Indus; and Macnaghten was already beginning to tremble at the thought of what he called prospectively an “unparalleled atrocity”—but what many would have regarded as an act of wisdom and justice—the withdrawal of the British army from Afghanistan. How strongly the Envoy felt upon this subject, and in what manner he argued against it, may be gathered from a letter which, on the 25th of September, he addressed to the Governor of Agra. Still he continued to report that the whole country was quiet, and insisted that the Shah’s force, aided by one European regiment at Caubul, and another at Candahar, would be sufficient to keep the whole country in order:

......Rumours are rife as to the intentions of the Tories towards this country, when they get into power. If they deprive the Shah altogether of our support, I have no hesitation in saying (and that is saying a great deal) they will commit an unparalleled political atrocity. The consequences would be frightful. The act would not only involve a positive breach of treaty, but it would be a cheat of the first magnitude. Had we left Shah Soojah alone, after seating him on the throne, the case would have been different. He would have adopted the Afghan method of securing his sovereignty. But we insisted upon his acting according to European notions of policy, and we have left all his enemies intact—powerless, only because we are here. In short, we should leave him with all the odium of having called in the aid of foreign infidel auxiliaries, and with none of those safeguards which he himself would have provided for his security. How could we expect him, under such circumstances, to maintain his power? I know that he would not attempt it. He would pack up his all, and return to his asylum in India, the moment our resolution was imparted to him. We have effectually prevented his forming a party for himself. In a few years hence, when the present generation of turbulent intriguers shall have been swept away, the task will be comparatively easy. As it is, the progress we have made towards pacifying, or rather subjugating (for neither the Douranees nor the Ghilzyes were ever before subject to a monarchy), is perfectly wonderful. The Douranee Kings kept these unruly tribes in good humour by leading them to foreign conquest. The Barukzye rulers kept them down by sharing their power with some, and sowing dissensions amongst others, by the most paltry and unjustifiable shifts and expedients, to which the Shah could not, if it were in his nature even, have recourse. Now the whole country is as quiet as one of our Indian chiefships, and more so—but the reaction would be tremendous if the weight of our power was suddenly taken off. There are gangs of robbers here and there which it would be desirable to extirpate; and I had intended to postpone this job till a more favourable opportunity; but you will see, from my official letters, that it has been forced upon me, by Captain Hay’s proceedings, at an earlier period than I anticipated. We are well prepared, however, and the coercion of these brigands will have an excellent effect all over the country. Dost Mahomed not only tolerated them, but went snacks in their spoils. After their dispersion shall have been effected, there will be literally nothing to do except the subjugation of Nijrow. Pottinger has a project for effecting this, without trouble or expense, by marching through their country the troops returning to Hindostan and Jellalabad. I have submitted this to the General; and should it be carried into effect, I shall beg of government to send us no more troops, for they would only be an incumbrance. A million and a quarter per annum is certainly an awful outlay; but if the items were examined, you would find that a full moiety of this is to be laid to the account of Mr. Bell’s proceedings in Upper Sindh, where they have had an army, cui bono? larger than the Army of the Indus. All this profligate expenditure will now cease, and, barring Herat, I am quite certain that the Shah’s force would be ample, with the addition of one European regiment at Caubul and another at Candahar, to keep the entire country in order. I am, too, making great reduction in our political expenditure; and I feel certain that, in a very short time, an outlay of thirty lakhs per annum will cover, and more than cover, all our expenses. The process of macadamization (which, notwithstanding the present lull, I cannot but consider as near at hand) would reduce our outlay to nothing. I should not be surprised to see Colonel Stoddart and Arthur Conolly walking in any fine morning. I am glad you approved of the wig I conveyed to the latter. I am satisfied it adverted from him worse consequences. His enthusiasm, which I found it impossible to repress, is continually leading him into scrapes[87]....

Such, at the close of September, were Macnaghten’s views of our continued occupation of Afghanistan. But, before this, the letters of the Secret Committee, the orders of the Supreme Government, and the portentous shadow of the coming Tory ministry, had roused Macnaghten to a sense of the great fact, that it was necessary to do something to render less startlingly and offensively conspicuous the drain upon the resources of India, which was exhausting the country, and paralysing the energies of its rulers. So it was determined to carry into effect a system of economy, to be applied, wherever it could be applied, to the expenditure of Afghanistan; and, as ordinarily happens, both in the concerns of public and of private life, the retrenchments which were first instituted were those which ought to have been last. Acting in accordance with the known wishes of government, Macnaghten began to retrench the stipends, or subsidies, paid to the chiefs. He knew how distasteful the measure would be; he was apprehensive of its results. But money was wanted, and he was compelled to give it effect.[88]

The blow fell upon all the chiefs about the capital—upon the Ghilzyes, upon the Kohistanees, upon the Caubulees, upon the Momunds, even upon the Kuzzilbashes. Peaceful remonstrance was in vain. So they held secret meetings, and entered into a confederacy to overawe the existing government, binding themselves by oaths to support each other in their efforts to recover what they had lost; or, failing in this, to subvert the system out of which these injurious proceedings had arisen. Foremost in this movement were the Eastern Ghilzyes. Affected by the general retrenchments, they had also particular grievances of their own.[89] They were the first, therefore, to throw off the mask. So they quitted Caubul—occupied the passes on the road to Jellalabad—plundered a valuable cafila—and entirely cut off our communications with the provinces of Hindostan.

Upon this, Humza Khan, the governor of the Ghilzyes, was sent out to bring them back to their allegiance. “Humza Khan,” wrote Macnaghten to Macgregor, on the 2nd of October, “who is at the bottom of the whole conspiracy, has been sent out by his Majesty to bring back the Ghilzye chiefs who have fled; but I have little hope of the success of his mission.”[90] Humza Khan, whose own stipend was included in the general retrenchment, had been commissioned to carry the obnoxious measure into effect; and he had instigated the chiefs to resist it. He was now sent out to quell a disturbance of which he was himself the parent and the nurse.

These movements did not at first much alarm Macnaghten. He was intent upon his departure from Caubul; and he said that the outbreak had happened at a fortunate moment, as his own party and the troops proceeding to the provinces could quell it on their way to India. “You will have heard ere now,” he wrote on the 3rd of October, to Major Rawlinson, “of my appointment to Bombay. I could wish that this most honourable distinction had been withheld a little longer, until I could have pronounced our relations in this country as being entirely satisfactory; but, thanks in a great measure to your zealous co-operation, I may even now say, that every thing is rapidly verging to that happy consummation. No time is fixed for my departure. That will depend upon the instructions I receive from Lord Auckland. Should his Lordship direct me to deliver over my charge to Burnes, there is little or nothing, that I know of, to detain me, and I ought to be in Bombay by the middle of December. I am suffering a little anxiety just now, as the Eastern Ghilzye chiefs have turned Yaghee, in consequence, I believe, of the reduction of their allowances, and their being required to sign an ittezain against robberies. We have sent to bring them back to their allegiance, and I think there will be no difficulty about them, unless the root of the Fussad lies deeper, and they are, as some assert, in league with Mahomed Akbar. In that case, it will be necessary to undertake operations on a larger scale against Nijrow and Tugao, in the latter of which districts the Moofsids (rebels) have taken refuge. They are very kind in breaking out just at the moment most opportune for our purposes. The troops will take them en route to India. To-morrow I hope our expedition will reach the refractory forts of Zao, and teach them a most salutary lesson.”

But after a few days, he began to take a more serious view of the matter; and he urged Macgregor to return with all despatch to Caubul, that he might accompany the expedition he was about to send out against the rebels. But at the same time he wrote to Rawlinson, that he did not apprehend any open opposition; and he never seemed to doubt that the insurrectionary movement would promptly be put down.

Sale’s brigade, which was returning to the provinces, was, it has been seen, to stifle the insurrection en route to Jellalabad. Macnaghten, however, thought of strengthening the force, with a view to the operations against the Ghilzyes, and he wrote to Captain Trevor, who, pending the arrival of Macgregor, was holding the enemy in negotiation, that he believed the General would send out “two eight-inch mortars, two iron nine-pounder guns, Abbott’s battery, the 5th Cavalry, the Sappers and Miners, and the 13th Queen’s, with the 35th and 37th Native Infantry.”[91] But he continued to talk of the “impudence of the rascals,” and expressed his belief that, the insurrection put down, the country would be quieter than ever.[92] On the 9th of October, Colonel Monteith marched from Caubul, with the 35th Native Infantry, a squadron of the 5th Cavalry, two guns of Abbott’s battery under Dawes, and Broadfoot’s Sappers and Miners. That night his camp was attacked at Bootkhak—the first march on the Jellalabad road. On the 10th, therefore, Sale received orders to march at once with the 13th Light Infantry, and on the following day he started to clear the passes. On the 12th, he entered the defile of Khoord-Caubul. The enemy occupied the heights in considerable force, and, in their own peculiar style of warfare, opened a galling fire upon our advancing column. Sale was wounded at the first onset, and Dennie took command of the troops. He spoke with admiration of “the fearless manner in which the men of the 13th, chiefly young soldiers, ascended heights nearly perpendicular under the sharp fire of the insurgents;” and added, that the Sepoys of the 35th, who had fought under him at Bameean, “rivalled and equalled them in steadiness, activity, and intrepidity.”[93] The pass was cleared, and then the 13th retraced its steps to Bootkhak, whilst Monteith, with the 35th and the other details, was left encamped in the Khoord-Caubul valley.

In the mean while, Macgregor had returned from the Zoormut country. The Envoy had known him long, and had abundant confidence in the man. An officer of the Bengal Artillery, who had been a favourite member of Lord Auckland’s personal staff, he had accompanied Macnaghten to Lahore and Loodhianah, on the mission to negotiate the Tripartite treaty, and had subsequently been employed in political superintendence of the country between Caubul and Jellalabad, where, by an admirable union of the vigorous and the conciliatory in his treatment of the tribes, he had won both their respect and their affection. The Envoy now believed that Macgregor would soon restore the country to tranquillity, and was impatient until his return. Macgregor reached Caubul on the 11th of October, and soon started for Monteith’s camp. Macnaghten, who believed that the outbreak was local and accidental, looked with eagerness to the result. He took little heed of what was going on in the Kohistan. Nor did he think that the Douranee Khans, whose “noses he had brought to the grindstone,” were plotting their emancipation from the thraldom of the infidels.

But Pottinger, in the Kohistan, plainly saw the storm that was brewing—plainly saw the dangers and difficulties by which he was surrounded. As the month of October advanced, the attitude of the Kohistanees and the Nijrowees was more and more threatening. Meer Musjedee, the Nijrow chief, a man of a resentful and implacable temper, had been, some time before, described in the newspaper paragraphs of the day as stalking about the country, and sowing broadcast the seeds of rebellion. The measures of the King’s government had long before made these very people, who had risen up against the tyranny of Dost Mahomed, ripe for revolt against the more consummate tyranny of the Shah. And now, in the middle of October, Pottinger saw that the state of things was fast approaching a crisis; so he demanded hostages from the Kohistanee chiefs. To this the Envoy reluctantly consented. “And,” wrote Pottinger, in his official account of these transactions, “I only succeeded in procuring them by the end of the month, when everything betokened a speedy rupture with the Nijrowees.” By this time, indeed, Meer Musjedee had openly raised the standard of revolt, and the people were clustering around it.

Macnaghten thought very lightly of these movements in the Kohistan. Nothing disturbed his faith in the general tranquillity of the country, and the popularity of the double government. He greatly desired the settlement of the Ghilzye question, for there was something palpable and undeniable in such a movement; and he was anxious to set his face towards the provinces of Hindostan. Eagerly, therefore, he looked for intelligence from Macgregor. He had begun, however, to doubt whether so troublesome a business could be settled by peaceful negotiation. “We must thresh the rascals, I fear, after all,” he wrote to Macgregor, on the 17th; “but I don’t think that the troops will be under weigh until the 20th. Is not this provoking? Abbott has made some excuse about his guns being injured. Pray write a circumstantial plan of the best means of surrounding and preventing the escape of the villains.”[94] Abbott was not a man to make excuses of any kind, but the Envoy was becoming impatient. On the 18th, he wrote again: “It has been determined that the Sappers and Miners, the mountain train, and two companies of the 37th Native Infantry, march out to join you to-morrow morning. They will make one march to Khoord-Caubul. The next day I hope you will be joined by the 13th, the 37th, and Abbott’s battery. I hope you will arrange the plan of attack before Sale arrives.”[95] But although Macnaghten was eager to “thresh the rascals,” certain prudential considerations suggested to him that it would only be expedient to punish them as much as could “conveniently” be done. It would not be convenient, at such a time, to exasperate the insurgents too much, and drive them to block up the passes, and plunder everything that came in their way.

In the mean while, Monteith, in his isolated post in the Khoord-Caubul valley, was exposed, if not to some danger, to considerable inconvenience, for the enemy made a night-attack upon his camp, aided by the treachery of the Afghan horsemen, under the Shah’s Meer Akhor, (or Master of the Horse) who admitted the rebels within their lines. One of our officers, Lieutenant Jenkins, and several Sepoys, were killed; and a number of camels carried off by the enemy. Monteith reported the treachery of his Afghan friends, and the Envoy resented his just suspicions. But he was now to be relieved. Sale appeared with two more infantry regiments, with more guns, and more sabres; and after a brief halt, for want of carriage, which much tried the patience of the Envoy, the whole swept on to Tezeen. Here the force halted for some days, and Macgregor busied himself in negotiations with the enemy. Macnaghten had instructed him to accommodate matters, if it could be done without any loss of honour; and Macgregor was candid enough to acknowledge that the insurrection of the Ghilzyes had been brought about by “harsh and unjust” measures of our own. So he opened a communication with the rebel chiefs; and, being known to most of them, consented to a personal interview. So Macgregor met the chiefs. There was a long and animated discussion. They demanded that their salaries should be restored to their former footing, and that they should not be held responsible for robberies committed beyond their respective boundaries. To these demands Macgregor consented. But they demanded also that Shool Mahomed, who had been removed, as a rebel, from the chiefship of their tribe, should be re-instated; and this point Macgregor resolutely refused to concede, in the belief that such concession would compromise the honour of the Government. The chiefs yielded, and Macgregor returned to camp. It was supposed that the Ghilzye affair had been “patched up after a fashion;” not, perhaps, without some loss of dignity, but with as much vigour as was convenient at the time. The chiefs sent in their agents to remain with Macgregor, ostensibly to aid him in the re-establishment of the police, and post stations on the road; and Macnaghten was able to report that the affair was settled.

He thought, however, that the terms granted to the rebels were too favourable; and the King was dissatisfied with them; but the Envoy replied that it was the treachery of the Shah’s own people that had paralysed the efforts of our negotiators. Indeed, it was known that people about the Court had left Caubul for the purpose of joining in a night-attack upon our troops. Still Macnaghten could not believe that there was any wide-spread feeling of disaffection among the chiefs and the people of Caubul; nor when Pottinger sent in gloomy reports from the Kohistan, could he bring himself to think that they were anything but the creations of a too excitable brain. “Pottinger writes,” he said,[96] “as if he were about to be invaded by the Nijrowees, but I imagine that there is little ground for this alarm, and that at all events the fellows will sneak into their holes again when they hear that the Ghilzyes are quiet.” This was written on the 26th of October. On the 29th he wrote again, saying, “I trust I have at last got Pottinger into a pacific mood, though I tremble when I open any of his letters, lest I should find that he has got to loggerheads with some of his neighbours. In the present excited state of men’s minds, a row in any quarter would be widely infectious, and we are not in a condition to stand much baiting.”

Meanwhile, Macgregor had learnt the value of his treaty. From Tezeen to Gundamuck the agents of the Ghilzye chiefs were in our camp; but there was some hard fighting for the brigade. The enemy mustered in force, and attacked our column; and the old excuse was made, that it was owing to no faithlessness on the part of the chiefs, but to their inability to control the tribes. It was a terrible country for a baggage-encumbered force to toil through, in the face of an active enemy. Jugdulluck was gained with little opposition; but, on the next march, it was seen that the heights were bristling with armed men, and a heavy fire was poured in from all the salient points, on which, with the instincts of the mountaineer, they had posted themselves, with such terrible effect. Sale threw out his flanking parties, and the light troops, skirmishing well up the hill sides, dislodged the enemy, whilst a party under Captain Wilkinson, pushing through the defile, found that the main outlet had not been guarded, and that the passage was clear. The march was resumed; but the enemy were not yet weary of the contest. Reappearing in great numbers, they fell furiously upon our rear-guard, and, for a time, our people, thus suddenly assailed, were in a state of terrible disorder. The energetic efforts of our officers brought back our men to a sense of their duty, and restored the confidence, which, for a little space, had forsaken the young soldiers. Broadfoot, Backhouse, and Fenwick, are said to have rallied and re-animated them. But the loss that fell upon them was heavy—more than a hundred men were killed and wounded; and among them was Captain Wyndham, of the 35th, who fell like a brave soldier in the unequal fight.[97]

Sale halted at Gundamuck. Macnaghten heard of the loss sustained between Jugdulluck and Soorkhab, but wrote to Macgregor, on the 1st of November, that he “hoped the business last reported was the expiring effort of the rebels;” and that the party would have dispersed, and thannahs been re-established. To Major Rawlinson he wrote on the same day, and congratulated him on the tranquil appearance that affairs had assumed in the direction of Candahar. It was now the very day that he had fixed upon for his departure from Caubul; and still he did not doubt for a moment that his emancipation was close at hand.