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Updated: May 31, 2025
The hope was vain, the evil lay deeper; disaffection to the Shah and hatred to the British power were becoming intensified from day to day, and the aspiration for relief was swelling into a passion. In the days before our advent there had been venality and corruption in public places occasionally, likely enough, as Macnaghten asserted, to an extent all but incredible.
Had they been Soudanese, a statesman might have spoken of them as a people 'rightly struggling to be free'; as it was, the Envoy vituperated them as 'a parcel of ragamuffins, and Wymer's sepoys were held to have 'covered themselves with glory. Macnaghten proceeded to encourage a sense of honour among the tribes by proposing the transfer to another chief, on condition of his seizing and delivering over the inconvenient 'Gooroo, of the share of subsidy of which the latter had been in receipt.
Roberts might have been assailed with better chance of success when his force was dispersed between the Siah Sung camp, the Balla Hissar, and Sherpur, than when concentrated in the strong defensive position against which the Afghans beat in vain. Perhaps the rising ripened faster in 1879 than in 1841 because in the former period no Macnaghten fomented intrigues and scattered gold.
Dost and Envoy rode into Cabul together, and such was the impression the former made on the latter that Macnaghten, who a month before had permitted himself to think of putting a price on 'the fellow's' head, begged now of the Governor-General 'that the Dost be treated more handsomely than was Shah Soojah, who had no claim on us. And then followed a strange confession for the man to make who made the tripartite treaty, and approved the Simla manifesto: 'We had no hand in depriving the Shah of his kingdom, whereas we ejected the Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim.
In doing so he committed a fatal error, and he exceeded his instructions in the concessions which he made. Macnaghten, it was true, had left matters greatly to Macgregor's discretion; and if 'the rebels were very humble, the Envoy was not disposed to be too hard upon them.
The precariousness of the long lines of communications between British India and the army in Afghanistan a source of danger which from the first had disquieted cautious soldiers was making itself seriously felt, and constituted for Macnaghten another cause of solicitude.
Our nation is given to walk in the path of precedent; and in this juncture the authorities had to their hand the most apposite of precedents. Pollock, by destroying the Char bazaar in which had been exposed the mangled remains of Burnes and Macnaghten, set a 'mark' on Cabul the memory of which had lasted for decades.
Shah Soojah, dazzling in coronet, jewelled girdle and bracelets, but with no Koh-i-noor now glittering on his forehead, bestrode a white charger, whose equipments gleamed with gold. By his side rode Macnaghten and Burnes; in the pageant were the principal officers of the British army.
The Dost escaped with difficulty, with the loss of his entire personal equipment. He was once more a fugitive, and the Wali of Khooloom promptly submitted himself to the victors, and pledged himself to aid and harbour the broken chief no more. Macnaghten had been a prey to apprehension while the Dost's attitude was threatening; he was now in a glow of joy and hope.
The terms proffered on November 25th by an Afghan deputation were so humiliating that Macnaghten peremptorily rejected them; and the threat of immediate hostilities unless our people promptly surrendered their arms and withdrew was not carried out.
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