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When Broadfoot represented the inconvenience with which imperfect information as to the objects of the expedition was fraught, Macnaghten lost his temper, and told Broadfoot that, if he thought Monteath's movement likely to bring on an attack, 'he need not go, he was not wanted'; whereupon Broadfoot declined to listen to such language, and made his bow.
While Macnaghten was writing the letter which has just been quoted, Brigadier Shelton, who, about the New Year, had reached Jellalabad with a brigade from British India in relief of the force which was withdrawing with Cotton, was contending with an outbreak of the wild and lawless clans of the Khyber.
During these years of school Havelock had many battles of Napoleon's to study, and we may be sure that each one in its turn was thoroughly discussed with the friends who afterwards became celebrated in many ways the historians, Grote and Thirlwall, Eastlake the painter, Yates the actor, and Macnaghten, afterwards murdered at Cabul, while Havelock was with the force on the way to relieve him.
England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery; great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten. At the recent Delhi Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin.
Detecting the double-dealing, Macnaghten urged on Lord Auckland the annexation of Herat to Shah Soojah's dominions, but was instructed to condone Kamran's duplicity, and try to bribe him higher.
Pollock determined to 'set a mark' on Cabul to commemorate the retribution which the British had exacted. He spared the Balla Hissar, and abstained from laying the city in ruins, contenting himself with the destruction of the principal bazaar, through which the heads of Macnaghten and Burnes had been paraded, and in which their mangled bodies had been exposed.
Macnaghten was naturally much depressed by the news communicated by Pottinger, and realised that the Afghan masses already encompassing the position on the Cabul plain would certainly be increased by bands from the Kohistan and Nijrao, flushed already with their Charikar success.
Macnaghten had squandered more gold on Herat than the fee-simple of the principality was worth, and to no purpose; he left that state just as he found it, treacherous, insolent, greedy and independent.
The Dost's emissary to the allied camp was informed that 'an honourable asylum' in British India was at the service of his brother; an offer which Jubbar Khan declined in his name without thanks. Before he left to share the fortunes of the Dost, the Sirdar is reported to have asked Macnaghten, 'If Shah Soojah is really our king, what need has he of your army and name?
But it is improbable that the murder of Macnaghten was actually included in their scheme of action. Their intention seems to have been to seize him as a hostage, with intent thus to secure the evacuation of Afghanistan and the restoration of Dost Mahomed. The ill-fated Envoy's expressions on his way to the rendezvous indicate his unhinged state of mind.
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