But it is stated in the manifesto itself that the war was undertaken “with the concurrence of the Supreme Council of India.” It would be presumptuous to affirm the absolute untruth of a statement thus publicly made in the face of the world by a nobleman of Lord Auckland’s unquestionable integrity; but so certain is it that the manifesto was not issued with the concurrence of the Supreme Council, that when the document was sent down to Calcutta to take its place among the records of the empire, there issued from the Council-Chamber a respectful remonstrance against the consummation of a measure of such grave importance, without an opportunity being afforded to the counsellors of recording their opinions upon it. The remonstrance went to England, and elicited an assurance to the effect that the Governor-General could have intended no personal slight to the members of the Supreme Council; but those members were far too high-minded to have thought for a moment about the personalities of the case; they thought only of the great national interests at stake, and regretted that they should ever be jeopardised by such disregard of the opinions of the Governor-General’s legitimate advisers. Such a manifesto as this would never have been cradled in Calcutta.
It would not be just, however, to scrutinise the policy of Lord Auckland at this time by the light of our after experience. We know now, that before the Simlah manifesto was issued, the Persians had raised the siege of Herat—that, for all purposes of defence against encroachments from the westward, the expedition to Kurrack, contemptible as it was in itself, had sufficed. We know that the handful of “rotten Hindoos,” as Mahomed Shah subsequently designated them, magnified by report into an immense armament, had caused that monarch to strike his camp before Herat, and march back his baffled army to Teheran. But, on the 1st of October, 1838, Lord Auckland believed, and had good grounds for believing, that the fall of Herat was inevitable. At this time it may have been questioned whether the restoration of Shah Soojah to the sovereignty of the Douranee Empire were the best means of resisting Persian aggression and combating Russian intrigue, but few doubted the propriety of doing something to meet the dangers that threatened us from those sources. Had Herat fallen to the Persian arms, the Barukzye Sirdars, without some intervention on our part, would have prostrated themselves at the feet of the Persian monarch; and Russia would have established an influence in Afghanistan which we should have striven in vain to counteract. There was a real danger, therefore, to be feared. Though the means employed were of doubtful justice and expediency, the end to be accomplished was one of legitimate attainment.
But before the Simlah proclamation had obtained general currency throughout India, authentic intelligence of the retrograde movement of the Persian army had reached the camp of the Governor-General. The tidings which arrived, in the first instance, from various native sources, and had been conveyed to Lord Auckland by the political officers on the frontier, were now officially confirmed. The siege of Herat had been raised. Mahomed Shah had “mounted his horse, Ameerj,” and turned his face towards his own capital. The legitimate object of the expedition across the Indus was gone. All that remained was usurpation and aggression. It was believed, therefore, that the army assembling on the north-western frontier would be broken up; and Shah Soojah and Runjeet Singh left to pursue their own policy, as might seem most expedient to them. The Simlah proclamation had placed the siege of Herat in the foreground as the main cause of the contemplated expedition; and now that the pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan was removed, political consistency seemed to require that the sword should be returned to the scabbard. With no common anxiety, therefore, was the result of this unexpected intelligence from Herat awaited by the regiments which had been warned for active service, and were now in all the excitement of preparation for a long and adventurous march. The disappointment anticipated by many descended only upon a few. On the 8th of November, all doubts were set at rest, and all anxieties removed by the publication of an order by the Governor-General, setting forth that, although the siege of Herat had been raised, the expedition across the Indus would not be abandoned:
ORDERS BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA. SECRET DEPARTMENT.
Camp de Buddee, 8th November.
The Right Honourable the Governor-General of India is pleased to publish, for general information, the subjoined extract of a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Stoddart, dated Herat, the 10th September, 1838, and addressed to the Secretary to the Government of India.
“I have the honour, by direction of her Britannic Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, and the Hon. East India Company’s Envoy at the Court of Persia, to acquaint you, for the information of the Right Hon. the Governor-General of India in Council, that his Majesty the Shah of Persia yesterday raised the siege of this city, and with the whole of the royal camp marched to Sangbust, about twelve miles, on his return to his own dominions. His Majesty proceeds without delay, by Torrbut Sheki Jaum and Meshid, to Teheran.
“This is in fulfilment of his Majesty’s compliance with the demands of the British Government, which I had the honour of delivering on the 12th inst., and of the whole of which his Majesty announced his acceptance on the 14th of August.
“His Majesty Shah Kamran and his Vuzeer, Yar Mahomed Khan, and the whole city, feel sensible of the sincerity of the friendship of the British Government, and Mr. Pottinger and myself fully participate in their gratitude to Providence for the happy event I have now the honour to report.”
In giving publicity to this important intelligence, the Governor-General deems it proper at the same time to notify, that while he regards the relinquishment by the Shah of Persia of his hostile designs upon Herat as a just cause of congratulation to the Government of British India and its allies, he will continue to prosecute with vigour the measures which have been announced, with a view to the substitution of a friendly for a hostile power in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, and to the establishment of a permanent barrier against schemes of aggression upon our north-west frontier.
The Right Hon. the Governor-General is pleased to appoint Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger, of the Bombay Artillery, to be Political Agent at Herat, subject to the orders of the Envoy and Minister at the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk. This appointment is to have effect from the 9th of September last, the date on which the siege of Herat was raised by the Shah of Persia.
In conferring the above appointment upon Lieutenant Pottinger, the Governor-General is glad of the opportunity afforded him of bestowing the high applause which is due to the signal merits of that officer, who was present in Herat during the whole period of its protracted siege, and who, under circumstances of peculiar danger and difficulty, has, by his fortitude, ability, and judgment, honourably sustained the reputation and interests of his country.
By order of the Right Hon. the Governor-General of India,
W. H. Macnaghten,
Secretary to the Government of India, with the
Governor-General.
When the Persian army was before Herat—when the Afghan garrison was on the eve of surrender—when the chiefs of Caubul and Candahar were prostrating themselves at the feet of Mahomed Shah, the expedition for the restoration of Shah Soojah was one of doubtful honesty and doubtful expediency. The retrogression of the Persian army removed it at once from the category of questionable acts. There was no longer any question about it. The failure of Mahomed Shah cut from under the feet of Lord Auckland all ground of justification, and rendered the expedition across the Indus at once a folly and a crime. The tripartite treaty did not pledge the British Government to send a single soldier beyond the frontier. The despatch of a British army into the heart of Afghanistan was no part of the covenant either with Runjeet Singh or Shah Soojah. It was wholly an after thought. When Macnaghten, after his conferences with the Maharajah of the Punjab and the ex-King of Caubul, returned to Simlah to lay the result of his mission before the Governor-General, the British Government had pledged itself only to furnish a handful of European officers to raise and discipline the Shah’s regiments; and so little had any obligation been imposed upon us to surround the ex-King with our battalions, on his restoration to his old dominions, that he himself expressed an eager hope that he would be suffered to advance as an independent prince, and not as a mere puppet in our hands.[268]
To march a British army into Afghanistan was not, therefore, an