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Updated: May 31, 2025
'It would, he pleaded, 'be an act of downright dishonesty to desert His Majesty before he has found the means of taking root in the soil to which we have transplanted him. While he wrote, Macnaghten must have experienced a sudden thrill of optimism or of self-delusion, for he continued: 'All things considered, the present tranquillity of this country is to my mind perfectly miraculous.
Macnaghten had objected to this retrenchment, pointing out that the stipends to the chiefs were simply compensation for the abandonment by them of their immemorial practice of highway robbery, but he yielded to pressure, called to Cabul the chiefs in its vicinity, and informed them that thenceforth their subsidies would be reduced.
One of the four officers with Macnaghten was George Lawrence, a brother-in-law of Nat Barton; a distinguished man, and the father of five totally unprovided children. He is a prisoner, if not since murdered. Macnaghten I do not pity; he was the prime author of the whole mad War. But Burnes; and the women; and our regiments! India, however, I feel sure, is safe."
Food prospects, however, did not improve at Candahar, and leaving a strong garrison there as well, curious to say, as the siege train which with arduous labour had been brought up the passes, Keane began the march to Cabul on June 27th. He had supplies only sufficient to carry his army thither on half rations. Macnaghten had lavished money so freely that the treasury chest was all but empty.
'Whether, writes Kaye, 'he died on the spot, or whether he was slain by the infuriated ghazees, is not very clearly known; but the fanatics threw themselves on the prostrate body and hacked it with their knives. There is no doubt that the head of the unfortunate Macnaghten was paraded in triumph through the streets of Cabul, and that the mangled trunk, after being dragged about the city, was hung up in the great bazaar.
But the indifference, vacillation and delay of the British authorities greatly encouraged its rapid development. Macnaghten at first 'did not think much of it. Shelton was ordered into the Balla Hissar, countermanded, a second time ordered, and again instructed to halt for orders.
And so 'as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away. Macnaghten engaged himself in a welter of internal and external intrigue, his mood swinging from singular complacency to a disquietude that sometimes approached despondency.
Macnaghten professed the belief, and perhaps may have deluded himself into it, that Candahar had received the Shah with enthusiasm. He was sanguine that the march to Cabul would be unopposed, and he urged on Keane, who was wholly dependent on the Envoy for political information, to move forward at once, lightening the difficulties of the march by leaving the Bombay troops at Candahar.
But unquestionably there was a comparative although short-lived lull in the overt hostility of the Afghan peoples against Shah Soojah and his foreign supporters; and Macnaghten characteristically announced that 'the country was quiet from Dan to Beersheba. To one of his correspondents he wrote: 'From Mookoor to the Khyber Pass, all is content and tranquillity; and wherever we Europeans go, we are received with respect, attention and welcome.
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.
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