Affairs of State | Page 3

nor kin to the legitimate dynasty which he displaced. His
father Poyndah Khan was an able statesman and gallant soldier. He left
twenty-one sons, of whom Futteh Khan was the eldest, and Dost
Mahomed one of the youngest. Futteh Khan was the Warwick of
Afghanistan, but the Afghan 'Kingmaker' had no Barnet as the closing
scene of his chequered life. Falling into hostile hands, he was blinded
and scalped. Refusing to betray his brothers, he was leisurely cut to
pieces by the order and in the presence of the monarch whom he had
made. His young brother Dost Mahomed undertook to avenge his death.
After years of varied fortunes the Dost had worsted all his enemies, and
in 1826 he became the ruler of Cabul. Throughout his long reign Dost
Mahomed was a strong and wise ruler. His youth had been neglected
and dissolute. His education was defective, and he had been addicted to
wine. Once seated on the throne, the reformation of our Henry Fifth
was not more thorough than was that of Dost Mahomed. He taught
himself to read and write, studied the Koran, became scrupulously
abstemious, assiduous in affairs, no longer truculent but courteous. He
is said to have made a public acknowledgment of the errors of his
previous life, and a firm profession of reformation; nor did his after life
belie the pledges to which he committed himself. There was a fine
rugged honesty in his nature, and a streak of genuine chivalry;
notwithstanding the despite he suffered at our hands, he had a real
regard for the English, and his loyalty to us was broken only by his
armed support of the Sikhs in the second Punjaub war.
The fallen Shah Soojah, from his asylum in Loodianah, was continually

intriguing for his restoration. His schemes were long inoperative, and it
was not until 1832 that certain arrangements were entered into between
him and the Maharaja Runjeet Singh. To an application on Shah
Soojah's part for countenance and pecuniary aid, the Anglo-Indian
Government replied that to afford him assistance would be inconsistent
with the policy of neutrality which the Government had imposed on
itself; but it unwisely contributed financially toward his undertaking by
granting him four months' pension in advance. Sixteen thousand rupees
formed a scant war fund with which to attempt the recovery of a throne,
but the Shah started on his errand in February 1833. After a successful
contest with the Ameers of Scinde, he marched on Candahar, and
besieged that fortress. Candahar was in extremity when Dost Mahomed,
hurrying from Cabul, relieved it, and joining forces with its defenders,
he defeated and routed Shah Soojah, who fled precipitately, leaving
behind him his artillery and camp equipage, During the Dost's absence
in the south, Runjeet Singh's troops crossed the Attock, occupied the
Afghan province of Peshawur, and drove the Afghans into the Khyber
Pass. No subsequent efforts on Dost Mahomed's part availed to expel
the Sikhs from Peshawur, and suspicious of British connivance with
Runjeet Singh's successful aggression, he took into consideration the
policy of fortifying himself by a counter alliance with Persia. As for
Shah Soojah, he had crept back to his refuge at Loodianah.
Lord Auckland succeeded Lord William Bentinck as Governor-General
of India in March 1836. In reply to Dost Mahomed's letter of
congratulation, his lordship wrote: 'You are aware that it is not the
practice of the British Government to interfere with the affairs of other
independent states;' an abstention which Lord Auckland was soon to
violate. He had brought from England the feeling of disquietude in
regard to the designs of Persia and Russia which the communications
of our envoy in Persia had fostered in the Home Government, but it
would appear that he was wholly undecided what line of action to
pursue. 'Swayed,' says Durand, 'by the vague apprehensions of a remote
danger entertained by others rather than himself,' he despatched to
Afghanistan Captain Burnes on a nominally commercial mission,
which, in fact, was one of political discovery, but without definite
instructions. Burnes, an able but rash and ambitious man, reached
Cabul in September 1837, two months before the Persian army began

the siege of Herat. He had a strong prepossession in favour of the Dost,
whose guest he had already been in 1832, and the policy he favoured
was not the revival of the legitimate dynasty in the person of Shah
Soojah, but the attachment of Dost Mahomed to British interests by
strengthening his throne and affording him British countenance.
Burnes sanguinely believed that he had arrived at Cabul in the nick of
time, for an envoy from the Shah of Persia was already at Candahar,
bearing presents and assurances of support. The Dost made no
concealment to Burnes of his approaches to Persia and Russia, in
despair of