Affairs of State | Page 7

had already crossed
the Indus, and was encamped at Shikarpore, when he was joined by Mr
William Hay Macnaghten, of the Company's Civil Service, the high
functionary who had been gazetted as 'Envoy and Minister on the part
of the Government of India at the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk.'
Durand pronounces the selection an unhappy one, 'for Macnaghten,
long accustomed to irresponsible office, inexperienced in men, and
ignorant of the country and people of Afghanistan, was, though an
erudite Arabic scholar, neither practised in the field of Asiatic intrigue
nor a man of action. His ambition was, however, great, and the
expedition, holding out the promise of distinction and honours, had met
with his strenuous advocacy.' Macnaghten was one of the three men
who chiefly inspired Lord Auckland with the policy to which he had
committed himself. He was the negotiator of the tripartite treaty. He
was now on his way toward a region wherein he was to concern himself
in strange adventures, the outcome of which was to darken his
reputation, consign him to a sudden cruel death, bring awful ruin on the
enterprise he had fostered, and inflict incalculable damage on British
prestige in India.
Marching through Bhawulpore and Northern Scinde, without
noteworthy incident save heavy losses of draught cattle, Cotton's army
reached Roree, the point at which the Indus was to be crossed, in the
third week of January 1839. Here a delay was encountered. The Scinde
Ameers were, with reason, angered by the unjust and exacting terms
which Pottinger had been instructed to enforce on them. They had been
virtually independent of Afghanistan for nearly half a century; there
was now masterfully demanded of them quarter of a million sterling in
name of back tribute, and this in the face of the fact that they held a

solemn release by Shah Soojah of all past and future claims. When they
demurred to this, and to other exactions, they were peremptorily told
that 'neither the ready power to crush and annihilate them, nor the will
to call it into action, was wanting if it appeared requisite, however
remotely, for the safety and integrity of the Anglo-Indian empire and
frontier.'
It was little wonder that the Ameers were reluctant to fall in with terms
advanced so arrogantly. Keane marched up the right bank of the Indus
to within a couple of marches of Hyderabad, and having heard of the
rejection by the Ameers of Pottinger's terms, and of the gathering of
some 20,000 armed Belooches about the capital, he called for the
co-operation of part of the Bengal column in a movement on
Hyderabad. Cotton started on his march down the left bank, on January
Jeth, with 5600 men. Under menaces so ominous the unfortunate
Ameers succumbed. Cotton returned to Roree; the Bengal column
crossed the Indus, and on February 20th its headquarters reached
Shikarpore. Ten days later, Cotton, leading the advance, was in Dadur,
at the foot of the Bolan Pass, having suffered heavily in transport
animals almost from the start. Supplies were scarce in a region so
barren, but with a month's partial food on his beasts of burden he
quitted Dadur March 10th, got safely, if toilsomely, through the Bolan,
and on 26th reached Quetta, where he was to halt for orders. Shah
Soojah and Keane followed, their troops suffering not a little from
scarcity of supplies and loss of animals.
Keane's error in detaining Cotton at Quetta until he should arrive
proved itself in the semi-starvation to which the troops of the Bengal
column were reduced. The Khan of Khelat, whether from disaffection
or inability, left unfulfilled his promise to supply grain, and the result
of the quarrel which Burnes picked with him was that he shunned
coming in and paying homage to Shah Soojah, for which default he
was to suffer cruel and unjustifiable ruin. The sepoys were put on half,
the camp followers on quarter rations, and the force for eleven days had
been idly consuming the waning supplies, when at length, on April 6th,
Keane came into camp, having already formally assumed the command
of the whole army, and made certain alterations in its organisation and
subsidiary commands. There still remained to be traversed 147 miles
before Candahar should be reached, and the dreaded Kojuk Pass had

still to be penetrated.
Keane was a soldier who had gained a reputation for courage in Egypt
and the Peninsula. He was indebted to the acuteness of his engineer and
the valour of his troops, for the peerage conferred on him for Ghuznee,
and it cannot be said that during his command in Afghanistan he
disclosed any marked military aptitude. But he had sufficient
perception to recognise that he had brought the Bengal column to the
verge of starvation in Quetta, and sufficient common sense to