CHAPTER I.
The Army of the Indus—Gathering at Ferozepore—Resignation of Sir Henry Fane—Route of the Army—Passage through Bahwulpore—The Ameers of Sindh—The Hyderabad Question—Passage of the Bolan Pass—Arrival at Candahar.
The army destined for the occupation of Afghanistan assembled at Ferozepore, on the north-western frontier of the British dominions, in the latter part of the month of November. It had been agreed that the expedition across the Indus should be inaugurated by a grand ceremonial meeting between Lord Auckland and Runjeet Singh;[270] and that the troops of the two nations should be paraded before the illustrious personages then reciprocating hospitalities and interchanging marks of friendship and respect.
The Governor-General reached Ferozepore on the 27th of November. The Commander-in-Chief and the infantry of the Army of the Indus had arrived a day or two before; and on the following day the main body of the cavalry and artillery took up their ground on the plain.[271] On the 29th,[272] the first meeting between Lord Auckland and Runjeet Singh took place amidst a scene of indescribable uproar and confusion. The camp of the Governor-General was pitched at the distance of some four miles from the river Gharra. In the centre of a wide street of tents were those set apart for the purposes of the Durbar. A noble guard of honour lined the way, as amidst the roar of artillery and the clang of military music, Runjeet Singh, escorted by the English secretaries and some of the principal political and military officers in camp, rode up, in the centre of a line of elephants to the Durbar tent. The Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief came forth to meet them. Then came the crush of the two lines of elephants, urged forward by the goads of their drivers, and meeting with a terrific shock—the clangour of a tumultuous crowd of Sikh horsemen and foot-men—a rush of English officers eager to see the show; and presently, amidst such tumult and such noise as had seldom before been seen or heard, the elephants of the Governor-General and the Maharajah were brought side by side, and Lord Auckland, in his uniform of diplomatic blue, was seen to take a bundle of crimson cloth out of the Sikh howdah, and it was known that the lion of the Punjab was then seated on the elephant of the English ruler. In a minute the little, tottering, one-eyed man, who had founded a vast empire on the banks of the fabulous rivers of the Macedonian conquests, was leaning over the side of the howdah, shaking hands with the principal officers of the British camp, as their elephants were wheeled up beside him. Then the huge phalanx of elephants was set in motion again. There was a rush towards the Durbar tent; the English and the Sikh cortège were mixed up together in one great mass of animal life. Such was the crush—such was the struggle—that many of the attendant Sikhs believed that there was a design to destroy their old decrepit chief, and “began to blow their matches and grasp their weapons with an air of mingled distrust and ferocity.”[273] But in time a passage was made, and the imbecile little old man was to be seen tottering into the Durbar tent, supported on one side by the Governor-General, and on the other by Sir Henry Fane, whose fine manly proportions and length of limb, as he forced his way through the crowd, presented a strange contrast to the puny dimensions of the Sikh chieftain who leant upon his arm.
In the gorgeous tent of the Governor-General, the ladies of Lord Auckland’s family, and of the principal military and political officers, were seated, ready to receive his Highness. The customary formalities were gone through, and civilities interchanged; and then the Maharajah was conducted into an inner chamber, where the presents intended for his reception were laid out in costly and curious array. Here, a picture of Queen Victoria, from the easel of Miss Eden, whose felicitous pencil has rendered the European eye familiar with the persons of many of the principal Sikh chieftains who graced the Ferozepore gathering, was presented to Runjeet Singh. Sir Willoughby Cotton bore it, with becoming reverence, into the tent, and as he presented it to the Maharajah, who bowed before it, the guns of the camel battery roared forth a royal salute. Then Runjeet was escorted to another tent, where specimens of British ordnance, caparisoned elephants, and horses of noble figure, stood ready for his Highness’s acceptance. All these were inspected with due expressions of admiration and a becoming interchange of courtesies; and then, amidst an uproar of hurras, a crash of military music, and another scene of indescribable confusion, Runjeet Singh ascended his elephant and turned his back upon the British camp.[274]
On the following day, Lord Auckland returned the visit of Runjeet Singh. It was said by one present on this occasion, that the Sikhs “shone down the English.”[275] The camp of the Maharajah was on the other side of the river; and there, amidst a scene of Oriental splendour, difficult to describe or imagine, the great Sikh chieftain received the representative of the British nation. The splendid costumes of the Sikh Sirdars—the gorgeous trappings of their horses—the glittering steel casques and corslets of chain armour—the scarlet and yellow dresses—the tents of crimson and gold—made up a show of Eastern magnificence equally grand and picturesque. As the Maharajah saluted the Governor-General, the familiar notes of the national anthem arose from the instruments of a Sikh band, and the guns of the Khalsa poured forth their noisy welcome. In the splendid Durbar tent of the ruler of the Punjab, the British Statesman and British General, after the due formalities had been observed and some conversation had been carried on through the medium of interpreters, were regaled with an unseemly display of dancing girls, and the antics of some male buffoons. The evening entertainments were still less decorous. It was a melancholy thing to see the open exhibition, even on this great public occasion, of all those low vices which were destroying the life, and damning the reputation, of one in whom were some of the elements of heroism—who, indeed, but for these degrading sensualities, would have been really one of the greatest, as he was one of the most remarkable, men of modern times.
Then came a grand display of the military resources of the two nations. On one day the British force was manœuvred by Sir Henry Fane; and on another the Sikh troops were exercised by the Sirdars. The consummate skill with which the British chief attacked an imaginary enemy was equalled by the gallantry with which he defeated it. He fought, indeed, a great battle on the plain, and only wanted another army in his front to render his victory a complete one. The Sikh Sirdars were contented with less elaborate movements; but what their troops were ordered to do they did readily and well, and military critics in the British camp admitted that their allies made no contemptible show of the tactics which they had learnt from their French instructors.[276]
Runjeet Singh returned to Lahore, and the Governor-General followed him, on a complimentary visit, to the Sikh capital; whilst the British troops prepared to cross the frontier in furtherance of the objects mapped out in the great Simlah manifesto. But there was no longer a Persian army to be encountered at Herat—no longer a Russian force in the background. The expedition had lost half its popularity with the army; and the force that was to take the field had been shorn of a portion of its original dimensions. On the 27th of November it had been publicly announced by the Commander-in-Chief, “that circumstances in the countries west of the Indus had so greatly changed since the assembly of the army for service, that the Governor-General had deemed that it was not requisite to send forward the whole force; but that a part only would be equal to effecting the future objects in view.” It had become the duty therefore of the Commander-in-Chief to determine what regiments should cross the Indus, and what should remain in Hindostan. Sir Henry Fane had selected for service the corps whose efficiency, on his recent tour of inspection, had been most clearly demonstrated; and now that it devolved upon him to dash the hopes of some of those regiments, unwilling to make an invidious choice, he had decided the difficult question by lot. Instead of two divisions, the Bengal army was now to consist of one, under the command of Sir Willoughby Cotton. The brigades of infantry commanded by Colonels Denniss and Paul were to be left behind;[277] the Irregular Cavalry, under that fine old veteran, Colonel Skinner, of the Local Horse, were to share the same fate; and the artillery force, greatly reduced in strength, now lost its Brigadier (Colonel Graham), and was ordered to go forward under Major Pew, who had organised the camel battery, and had joined the brigade in command of that experimental section of the ordnance corps. Nor were these the only changes which the intelligence of the defeat of Mahomed Shah had wrought upon the Bengal force. Sir Henry Fane, as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, had determined to take command in person of the forces assembled for the expedition across the frontier. The assemblage of regiments ordered upon this service was to be called “The Army of the Indus.” Both the extent of the force, and the objects of the expedition, seemed to demand the supervision of the chief military authority in the country. But now that the force had been greatly reduced, and the objects of the campaign had dwindled down into a measure of interference with the internal government of an independent country, Sir Henry Fane had no ambition to command such a force, or to identify himself with such an expedition. There was no want of physical energy or mental vigour in the man, but his health was failing him at this time; and it was expedient that he should altogether escape from the fiery climate of the Eastern world. He determined, therefore, to resign the command of the expedition into other hands, and to set his face towards his native land.
Sir John Keane, the Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army, was coming round from the western presidency, in command of the Bombay division, which was to be conveyed by water from that port to Kurrachee. On the junction of the two divisions, the chief command would fall into his hands. In Sir Henry Fane the Bengal army had unbounded confidence. They knew him to be a strict, but a good officer. They may have thought that he made of too much account external forms and appearances, better suited to the mild, cloudy atmosphere of Great Britain, than to the fiery skies of Hindostan. But they admired the energy of his character; the decision of his judgment; the promptitude of all his actions. The initial measures which had been entrusted to him had been carried out with remarkable ability. There was a coolness in all that he did; a clearness in all that he said; which inspired with unlimited confidence the officers with whom he was associated. They knew that he had the welfare of the army at heart;—that their safety and honour could not be confided to one less likely to abuse the trust. It was with no common regret, therefore, that they saw him yield into other hands the command of the Army of the Indus. Of Sir John Keane they knew little, and what little they did know did not fill them with any very eager desire to place themselves under his command.
Such was the position of affairs at the commencement of December. The Bengal army, then encamped at Ferozepore, consisted of about 9500 men of all arms. The levy that had been raised for the immediate service of Shah Soojah was then passing through Ferozepore. It comprised two regiments of cavalry; four regiments of infantry; and a troop of horse artillery—in all about 6000 men. It had marched from Loodhianah on the 15th of November, under the command of Major-General Simpson; and was now about, on the 2nd of December, to commence its progress across the frontier. On the 10th of the same month the Bengal division was to break ground from Ferozepore.
The line of march to be followed by the invading army ran, in a south-westerly direction, through the territories of Bahwulpore, and thence crossed, near Subzulkote, the frontier of Sindh, striking down to the banks of the Indus, and crossing the river at Bukkur. It then took a north-westerly course, passing through Shikarpoor, Bhag, and Dadur to the mouth of the Bolan Pass; thence through the pass to Quettah, and from Quettah through the Kojuck, to Candahar. A glance at any map of the countries on the two sides of the Indus will satisfy the reader at once that this was a strangely devious route from Ferozepore to Candahar. The army was about to traverse two sides of a triangle, instead of shaping its course along the third.
But it was hardly a subject for after-consideration, when the tripartite treaty had been signed, what route should be taken by the army destined for the restoration of Shah Soojah to his old dominions. It had from the first been intended that the Shah should proceed through the Sindh country, whilst Runjeet’s troops were advancing through the Khybur Pass. It was not, indeed, a geographical but a political question. It was necessary that the army should proceed through Sindh, for Runjeet Singh did not will that it should traverse the Punjab; and the Ameers were to be coerced.
It had been determined, in the first instance, that twenty lakhs of rupees should be paid by the Ameers of Sindh, as ransom-money, for Shikarpoor. Runjeet, as has been seen, asked for more than a moiety of the money, which it was proposed to divide equally between him and Shah Soojah; and, as it was not deemed expedient by the British Government to gratify Runjeet’s cupidity at the expense of the King, it was determined that the amount demanded from the Ameers should be increased, and that Runjeet should receive fifteen instead of ten lakhs, without injury to the claims of his ally. But there seemed to be some doubt whether the Ameers would consent to pay the money thus appropriated to others’ uses. The Shikarpoor question, indeed, required some definite settlement by Shah Soojah himself; and as Shah Soojah was to proceed through Sindh, for the purpose of bringing the Ameers to a proper understanding of their duties, it was necessary that the British army that escorted him should march by the same route.
That the Ameers should have demurred to the payment of the money claimed by an exile of thirty years’ standing would, under any circumstances, have been a result of the demand, exciting no surprise in the mind of any reasonable being on one side of the Indus or on the other. But that, having already received a formal release from the Shah, they should have objected to the revival of an abandoned claim, is something so natural and so intelligible that it would have been a miracle if they had not resisted the demand. Colonel Pottinger saw this at once: he saw the injustice of the whole proceeding; and he wrote to the Supreme Government: “The question of a money-payment by the Ameers of Sindh to Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk is, in my humble opinion, rendered very puzzling by two releases written in Korans, and sealed and signed by his Majesty, which they have produced. Their argument now is, that they are sure the Governor-General does not intend to make them pay again for what they have already bought and obtained, in the most binding way, a receipt in full.”[278]
Injustice ever begets injustice. It was determined by the Simlah Council that Shah Soojah and the Army of the Indus should be sent through the country of the Ameers. To accomplish this, it was necessary that, in the first instance, an existing treaty should be set aside. When the Ameers consented to open the navigation of the Indus, it was expressly stipulated that no military stores should be conveyed along the river. But as soon as ever Lord Auckland had resolved to erect a friendly power in Afghanistan, and to march a British army across the Indus, it became necessary to tear this prohibitory treaty to shreds, and to trample down the scruples of the Ameers. “Whilst the present exigency lasts,” it was intimated to Colonel Pottinger, “you may apprise the Ameers that the article of the treaty with them, prohibiting the using of the Indus for the conveyance of military stores, must necessarily be suspended during the course of operations undertaken for the permanent establishment of security to all those who are a party to the treaty.” And that there might be no miscomprehension of the general course of policy, which the Governor-General desired to pursue towards the Ameers, a letter was addressed to Colonel Pottinger, stating that “he (the Governor-General) deems it hardly necessary to remind you that in the important crisis at which we are arrived, we cannot permit our enemies to occupy the seat of power: the interests at stake are too great to admit of hesitation in our proceedings; and not only they who have shown a disposition to favour our adversaries, but they who display an unwillingness to aid us in the just and necessary[279] undertaking in which we are engaged, must be displaced, and give way to others on whose friendship and co-operation we may be able implicitly to rely.” This was the dragooning system now to be carried out in Sindh. Sensible of the injustice of such proceedings, and the discreditable breach of faith that they involved, Colonel Pottinger did his best to soften down these intimations; but still the naked fact remained, that if the Ameers of Sindh displayed any unwillingness to co-operate with the parties to a treaty under which they were to be fined a quarter of a million of money, they were at once to be dragooned into submission and deprived of their possessions, at the point of our bayonets and the muzzles of our guns.[280]
The system now to be adopted was one of universal intimidation and coercion. Along the whole line of country which the armies were to traverse, the will and pleasure of the British Government was to be the only principle of action recognisable in all our transactions with the weaker States, which were now to be dragooned into prompt obedience. Their co-operation was not to be sought, but demanded. Anything short of hearty acquiescence was to be interpreted into a national offence. The Khan of Bahwulpore and the Ameers of Sindh were ordered not only to suffer the passage of our troops through their dominions but also to supply them on their way. The former had ever been regarded as one of the staunchest friends of the British Government; but when he was called upon to collect camels and to place supplies at the different stages for the use of the army, the work was carried on with obvious reluctance. It was found necessary to remind the Khan of his “obligations” and “responsibilities.” His officers affected to believe that the British force would not march, and, whilst laying in supplies for the Shah’s troops, hesitated to make an effort in behalf of our supporting columns. The “obstinacy and perversity”—the “duplicity and equivocation”—the “neglectful, if not reckless conduct of the Bahwulpore authorities,” was severely commented upon by our political officers;[281] and it was apprehended that the march of the army would be delayed by the misguided conduct of our respectable ally.
The reluctance of the Bahwulpore authorities was soon overcome; but the demands made upon the forbearance of the Ameers of Sindh were of a more oppressive and irritating character. The Bahwul Khan has ever been held up to admiration as the most consistently friendly of all the allies of the British Government; but the expedition was distasteful to him and his people, and the real feeling broke out in the beginning, though, after a while, it was suppressed. It is not strange, therefore, that the Talpoor Ameers, of whom so much more was demanded, should have co-operated somewhat unwillingly in a measure which had openly exacted from them a large amount of treasure, and was not unlikely in the end to deprive them of all that they possessed. Interpreted into homely English, the language now to be addressed to these unhappy Princes was simply, “Your money or your life.” Colonel Pottinger was the agent employed, in the first instance, to dictate terms to the Court of Hyderabad; but he was too clear-headed and too high-minded a man not to perceive the injustice of the course prescribed by his government, and to feel painfully unwilling to pursue it. The instructions he had received, divested of the specious outside dress of diplomatic phraseology, and rendered in plain English by Colonel Pottinger himself, were truly of a startling character. The British agent was directed to tell the Ameers that “the day they connected themselves with any other power than England would be the last of their independence, if not of their rule.” “Neither,” it was added, “the ready power to crush and annihilate them, nor the will to call it into action, were wanting, if it appeared requisite, however remotely, for the safety or integrity of the Anglo-Indian Empire or frontier.” The Ameers were known to be weak; and they were believed to be wealthy. Their money was to be taken; their country to be occupied; their treaties to be set aside at the point of the bayonet—but amidst a shower of hypocritical expressions of friendship and good-will.
Whilst Colonel Pottinger, not without some scruples, was enclosing the Ameers of Lower Sindh in the toils of his diplomacy, Captain Burnes, who by this time had reaped the reward of his services in knighthood and a lieutenant-colonelcy, was proceeding to operate upon the Princes of Beloochistan. Originally sent upon a mission to Mehrab Khan of Khelat, he had turned aside, however, to negotiate with the Ameers of Khyrpore, in Upper Sindh, and had found them more tractable than the Hyderabad Princes in Colonel Pottinger’s hands. It was deemed expedient that the British troops should cross the Indus at Bukkur, and Burnes was instructed to obtain the temporary cession of the island. The fortress stands on a rock, dividing the river into two channels. Apprehending that the incursion of British troops into their country would be followed by acts of territorial spoliation, the Ameers of Khyrpore, whilst expressing in general terms their willingness to co-operate with our government, expressly stipulated that the forts on either bank of the river were to be untouched. But as Bukkur stood on neither bank, but on an island, it appeared to the British diplomatist that the wording of the memorandum actually placed the fortress in his hands. Ashamed, however, of such an exhibition of legal acuteness, he declared that he had no intention to take advantage of such a reading of the document; he cited it merely as an instance of the manner in which very cunning people sometimes overreach themselves. There was no need, indeed, to look for flaws in a state paper, when the Army of the Indus was assembling to help itself to what it liked. The Ameers were told that, whatever might be their dislike to the march of our troops through Sindh, “the Sindhian who hoped to stop the approach of the British army might as well seek to dam up the Indus at Bukkur.” The fiat had gone forth, an army was to march, and it was now on the road.
There was every reason why the restoration of Shah Soojah, who was famous for the extravagance of his pretensions in the direction of Sindh, should have been viewed with apprehension and alarm by the Talpoor Ameers. But the matter now began to wear a much more formidable aspect. The British Government had not only announced its intention to assist the long-exiled monarch in his attempt to regain his crown, but had encouraged him to assert long dormant claims, and had announced its intention to march an army into the country of the Ameers, to plant a subsidiary force there, to compel the Princes of Sindh to pay for it, to knock down and set up the Princes themselves at discretion, to take possession of any part of the country that might be wanted for our own purposes—in fact, to treat Sindh and Beloochistan in all respects as though they were petty principalities of our own. That the Ameers thus struggling in our grasp, conscious of their inability openly to resist oppression, should have writhed and twisted, and endeavoured to extricate themselves by the guile which might succeed, rather than by the strength which could not, was only to follow the universal law of nature in all such contests between the weak and the strong. Macnaghten complained, some time afterwards, that no civilised beings had ever been treated so badly as were the British by the Princes of Sindh. If it were so, it was only because no civilised beings had ever before committed themselves to acts of such gross provocation. Throughout the entire period of British connection with Afghanistan, a strange moral blindness clouded the visions of our statesmen: they saw only the natural, the inevitable results of their own measures, and forgot that those measures were the dragon’s teeth from which sprung up the armed men. The Ameers of Sindh viewed all our proceedings at this time with mingled terror and indignation. Our conduct was calculated to alarm and incense them to the extremest point of fear and irritation; and yet we talked of their childish distrust and their unprovoked hostility.
The Ameers of Sindh were told that, whether they were friendly or unfriendly to the movement, the British army would cross the Indus when and where our government directed, and do whatsoever our government pleased—that resistance on their part would be not only useless, but insane, as it would bring down inevitable destruction on the head of all who stood up to oppose us. From that time these unhappy Princes felt that they ruled only by sufferance of the British. They knew their helplessness, and if at any time they thought of open resistance, the idea was speedily abandoned. Two British armies were bearing down upon their dominions—the one from Upper India; the other from the Sea. Burnes and the Commissariat officers were in advance, laying in supplies for the consumption of the invading force, and threatening with heavy penalties all who refused to co-operate with them. It would be difficult to conceive anything more distressing and more irritating; and yet we expected the Ameers to open their arms and to lay down their treasures at our feet.
The Bengal army moved from Ferozepore on the 10th of December.[282] Availing themselves of the water-carriage, they moved down parallel to the river. The sick, the hospital stores, and a portion of our Commissariat supplies were forwarded on boats, which were subsequently to be used for the bridging of the Indus. The force consisted of about 9500 men and 38,000 camp-followers. Some 30,000 camels accompanied the army.[283] There was an immense assemblage of baggage. Sir Henry Fane had exhorted the officers of the Army of the Indus not to encumber themselves with large establishments and unnecessary equipages; but there is a natural disposition on the part of Englishmen, in all quarters of the globe, to carry their comforts with them. It requires a vast deal of exhortation to induce officers to move lightly equipped. The more difficult the country into which they are sent—the more barbarous the inhabitants—the more trying the climate—the greater is their anxiety to surround themselves with the comforts which remote countries and uncivilised people cannot supply, and which ungenial climates render more indispensable. In the turmoil of actual war, all these light matters may be forgotten; but a long, a wearisome, and unexciting march through a difficult but uninteresting country, tries the patience even of the best of soldiers, and fills him with unappeasable yearnings after the comforts which make endurable the tedium of barrack or cantonment life. It is natural that with the prospect of such a march before him, he should not be entirely forgetful of the pleasures of the mess-table, or regardless of the less social delights of the pleasant volume and the solacing pipe. Clean linen, too, is a luxury which a civilised man, without any imputation upon his soldierly qualities, may, in moderation, desire to enjoy. The rudeness and barrenness of the country compel him to supply himself at the commencement of his journey with everything that he will require in the course of it; and the exigencies of the climate necessarily increase the extent of these requirements. The expedition across the Indus had been prospectively described as a “grand military promenade;” and if such were the opinion of some of the highest authorities, it is not strange that officers of inferior rank should have endorsed it, and hastened to act upon the suggestion it conveyed. And so marched the Army of the Indus, accompanied by thousands upon thousands of baggage-laden camels and other beasts of burden, spreading themselves for miles and miles over the country, and making up with the multitudinous followers of the camp one of those immense moving cities, which are only to be seen when an Indian army takes the field, and streams into an enemy’s country.
It was clear, bright, invigorating weather—the glorious cold season of Northern India—when the army of the Indus entered the territories of Bahwul Khan. Nature seemed to smile on the expedition, and circumstance to favour its progress. There was a fine open country before them; they moved along a good road;[284] supplies were abundant everywhere. The coyness of the Bahwulpore authorities, which had threatened to delay the initial march of the army, had yielded in good time, and at every stage Mackeson and Gordon had laid up in depôt stores of grain, and fodder, and firewood, for the consumption of man and beast.[285] Officers and soldiers were in the highest spirits. “These,” it was said by one who accompanied the army on the staff of its commander, and has chronicled all its operations,[286] “were the halcyon days of the movements of this force.” To the greater number who now crossed the frontier this was their virgin campaign. The excitement was as novel as it was inspiriting. They might be about to meet mighty armies and to subdue great principalities; or they might only be entering upon a “grand military promenade.” Still in that bright December weather the very march through a strange country, with all that great and motley assemblage, was something joyous and animating. The army was in fine health, full of heart, and overflowing with spirits. It seemed as if an expedition so auspiciously commenced must be one great triumph to the end.
There was but one thing to detract from the general prosperity of the opening campaign. Desertion was going on apace—not from the ranks of the fighting men, but from the mass of officers’ servants, camel drivers, and camp-followers which streamed out from the rear of the army. The cattle, too, were falling sick and dying by the way-side. The provisions with which they were supplied were not good, and dysentery broke out among them. Many were carried off by their owners, who shrunk from the long and trying journey before them; and it soon became manifest that the most formidable enemy with which the advancing army would have to contend, would be a scarcity of carriage and supplies.
Even in those early days the voice of complaint was not wholly silent;[287] but when the army began to make its toilsome way through Sindh and Beloochistan, there were few in its ranks who did not look back with regret to the march through Bahwulpore, when all their wants had been supplied in a manner which they were little likely to see again. It was on the 29th of December that the head-quarters of the army reached the capital of Bahwul Khan’s country. Sir Henry Fane, who had been proceeding down the river by water, landed from his boats, and held a Durbar on the following day; and on the 31st returned the visit of state which the Khan had paid him.[288] On the first day of the new year the army broke ground again, and set out for the frontier of Sindh.
On the 14th of January, the head-quarters of the Army of the Indus entered the Sindh territory near Subzulkote. On the preceding day, Sir Alexander Burnes had joined the British camp; and though he had obtained by his negotiations the cession of Bukkur to the British Government,[289] for such time as it might seem expedient to us to retain it, and had thus secured the peaceful passage of the Indus, the report which he made of the general feeling of the Sindhians was not very encouraging. It was plain that our armed passage through the country of the Ameers was extremely distasteful to them; and that if they did not break out into acts of open hostility, their conduct towards us was likely to be marked by subterfuges, evasions, and deceit of every possible kind.
And presently it began to be suspected that the temper of at least some of the Talpoor Princes was such, that a hostile demonstration against them was little likely to be avoided. The Hyderabad Ameers had assumed an attitude of defiance. They had insulted and outraged Colonel Pottinger, and were now collecting troops for the defence of their capital. Sir John Keane, with the Bombay army, had landed at Vikkur at the end of November, and, after a long and mortifying delay, had made his way on to Tattah. Having come by sea, he was necessarily without carriage. He had relied upon the friendly feelings of the Sindh rulers; but the Sindh rulers were not disposed to do anything for him, but everything against him. They regarded the British General as an enemy, and threw every obstacle in his way. Sir John Keane was compelled, therefore, to remain in inactivity on the banks of the river until the 24th of December. A supply of carriage from Cutch, by no means adequate to the wants of the force, but most welcome at such a time, came opportunely to release Sir John Keane from this local bondage, and the Bombay column then commenced its march into Sindh. Proceeding up the right bank of the Indus to Tattah, and thence to Jerruk, he awaited at the latter place the result of the negotiations which were going on at Hyderabad. Captain Outram and Lieutenant Eastwick had been despatched to the Court of the Ameers with Lord Auckland’s ultimatum; and Keane with the Bombay column, was now, at the end of January, awaiting the result.
Surrounded by his own contingent, Shah Soojah had proceeded in advance of the Bengal column; and his force had crossed the Indus, in very creditable order, before the end of the third week of January. Shikarpoor had been fixed upon as the place of rendezvous. There the force was now encamped, and there the Envoy and Minister joined the suite of the Douranee monarch.
Cotton was to have crossed the Indus at Rohree, which lies opposite to the fort of Bukkur. Some delay had taken place in the cession of the fortress; for the Bengal column had arrived on the banks of the river before the treaty with the Ameer of Khyrpore, by which it was to be ceded, had arrived with the ratification of the Governor-General; and after its arrival, some further delay was occasioned, either by the mistrust or by the guile of the Sindh ruler. He was not ignorant of the state of affairs at Hyderabad. He knew, or suspected, that there was a likelihood of a large portion of the Bengal column being detached, and he was eager to temporise. Something might be written down in the chapter of accidents, that might enable him to retain possession of Bukkur; or something might be gained by the detention of Cotton’s troops. It was not, therefore, till the 29th of January that the British flag waved from the fort of Bukkur—and even when the detachment of troops, which was to receive possession, crossed the river, opposition seemed so probable, that some powder-bags, wherewith to blow in the gates of the fort, were stowed away in one of the boats.
The military authorities now determined to despatch the greater part of the Bengal column down the left bank of the Indus to co-operate with Sir John Keane against Hyderabad. Burnes entirely approved of the movement.[290] It does not appear that Keane had then made any requisition for more troops.[291] The two columns, indeed, were entirely ignorant of each other’s operations. Thus early the want of an intelligence-department was painfully apparent; but up to the last day of our connection with Afghanistan nothing was done, nor has anything been done in more recent wars, to remedy the admitted evil. Down the left bank of the Indus went Cotton with his troops, glorying in the prospect before them. The treasures of Hyderabad seemed to lie at their feet. Never was there a more popular movement. The troops pushed on in the highest spirits, eager for the affray—confident of success. An unanticipated harvest of honour—an unexpected promise of abundant prize-money was within their reach. A march of a few days would bring them under the walls of Hyderabad, to humble the pride of the Ameers, and to gather up their accumulated wealth.
But there was one man then on the borders of the Indus to whom this movement down the left bank of the river was a source of unmixed dissatisfaction. Mr. Macnaghten, who, under the title of Envoy-and-Minister at the Court of Shah Soojah, had been appointed political director of the campaign, viewed with alarm the departure of Sir Willoughby Cotton from Rohree, just as it was hoped that the Bengal column was about to cross to the right bank of the river. The Shah, with his contingent, was at Shikarpoor. Macnaghten had joined the royal camp. The King and the Envoy were alike eager to push on to Candahar; but, deserted by the Bengal troops, they were compelled to remain in a state of absolute paralysis. Seldom has any public functionary been surrounded by more embarrassing circumstances than those which, at this time, beset Macnaghten. At the very outset of the campaign there was a probability of the civil and military authorities being brought into perilous collision. The Envoy looked aghast at the movement upon Hyderabad, for he believed it involved an entire sacrifice of the legitimate objects of the campaign. It appeared to him, in this conjuncture, to be plainly his duty, as the representative of the British-Indian Government, to take upon himself the responsibility of preventing the march for the restoration of Shah Soojah from being converted into a campaign in Sindh. Yet to no man could the assertion of such authority be more painful than to one of Macnaghten’s temper and habits. It was certain that the military chiefs would resent his interference, and that the whole army would be against him. But he turned his face steadfastly towards Candahar; and determined to arrest the progress of the Bengal column on its march to the Sindh capital.
In what light this diversion was viewed by him, and for what reasons he deprecated it, Macnaghten’s letters, written at this time, indicate with sufficient distinctness; and it is just, therefore, that in a matter which has entailed some odium upon him, he should be suffered to speak for himself:
“The Governor-General,” he wrote to Burnes, “never seems to have contemplated the diversion of the army of the Indus from its original purpose, except on emergency. No such emergency appears to have arisen. We are utterly ignorant of the state of affairs below. It is hardly possible to conceive that matters should not have been settled, unless under the very improbable supposition that Sir J. Keane should be waiting for reinforcements, or that a suspension of hostilities may have been agreed upon, pending the receipt of further instructions from the Governor-General. In the first place it may be presumed that the Bombay reserve will reach Sir John Keane long ere Sir Willoughby Cotton can do so. In the latter case, it is probable that the suggestions with which I have this day furnished Colonel Pottinger, will bring matters to an amicable conclusion. As far as I have learnt the motives of Sir W. C.’s movement down the left bank of the Indus, it was with a view of creating a diversion, and never with any intention of actually proceeding all the way to Hyderabad. The effect of the movement whatever it may have been, must have been already produced. At all events, by crossing to this side of the river, the effect will rather be heightened than lessened; while, if the force should not be required further, it might be all ready to proceed at the proper season to its original destination in Afghanistan. I should hope in less than ten days from this date to receive a reply from Colonel Pottinger; and, in the mean time, the boats might be got ready to proceed with the troops downwards, should their services be required. Thus no time would be lost. But, as in that case there could be little hope of the return of the troops to proceed this season into Afghanistan, I would strongly urge that a force, to the extent specified in the second paragraph of this letter (one European regiment, one Native cavalry, a troop of horse artillery, with a suitable battering train), with a sufficiency of carriage-cattle for itself and Shah Soojah’s army, should be directed to proceed to Shikarpoor. With such a force I am clearly of opinion that the views of the Governor-General, in regard to Afghanistan, could be carried into effect during the present season. The consequences of losing a whole season are not to be foreseen.”[292]
In another letter he wrote to the Governor-General—and the passage has an additional interest, as affording, for the first time, a glimpse of the unreasonable character of Shah Soojah, and the extent to which his Majesty’s peculiarities heightened the difficulties of Macnaghten’s position:
We should not, I think, on any account, lose the season for advancing upon Candahar. With our European regiment, some more artillery, a couple of Native regiments, and a small battering train, we might not only occupy Candahar, but relieve Herat; and by money, if we have no disposable troops, make Caubul too hot for Dost Mahomed.
The Shah is very solicitous about future operations, and, I am sorry to say, talks foolishly every time I see him on the subject of his confined territories that are to be—and frequently says it would be much better for him to have remained at Loodhianah. The next time he touches on the subject, I intend to remind him of the verse of Sadi, “If a king conquers seven regions he would still be hankering after another territory.” I have little doubt of being able to bring him into a more reasonable temper of mind. He is much delighted with the four six-pounders presented to him by your Lordship.... I hardly think it probable that 50,000 rupees per mensem will suffice for the Shah’s expenses, but on this point I will write to your Lordship more fully on another occasion.[293]
And again he wrote, soon afterwards, to Mr. Colvin:
I grieve to say that I have no consolation to afford you. Our accounts from every quarter as to what is really passing are most unsatisfactory, and Sir Willoughby Cotton is clearly going on a wild-goose chase. He cannot possibly, I think, be at Hyderabad under twenty-five days from this date, and he seems to be travelling by a route which has no road. He will soon, I fear, find himself in the jungle. If this goes on as it is now doing, what is to become of our Afghan expedition. Burnes’s letters are most unsatisfactory.[294]
He had hardly despatched the letter from which this last passage is taken, when a communication from the Governor-General was put into his hands, and it became more than ever obvious from its contents, that Lord Auckland’s first wish was, that the Bengal column should accompany Shah Soojah and his contingent as expeditiously as possible to Candahar. Fortified by these advices, Macnaghten, on the following day, wrote, in emphatic language to Sir Willoughby Cotton, in virtue of the power vested in him by the Governor-General, requiring that military chief to furnish him with a force sufficient to enable him to give effect to his Lordship’s plans in Afghanistan:
“I have already urged,” he added, “in the strongest terms, your crossing over to this side of the river with your whole force. Of Sir John Keane’s army there can be no apprehension. His Excellency will always be able to keep up his communication with the sea, whilst your presence on this side would enable us to establish a strong post at the extremity of the Sindh territories, and ensure the safety of the supplies for the Army of the Indus in its advance into Afghanistan. The Ameers cannot for any length of time keep up an army—they must be reduced to act on the defensive, and then the result could hardly be doubtful. Dangerous as the experiment might be, it would, in my opinion, be infinitely better that we should let loose fifteen or twenty thousand of Runjeet Singh’s troops (who would march down upon Hyderabad in a very short space of time), than that the grand enterprise of restoring Shah Soojah to the throne of Caubul and Candahar should be postponed for an entire season. By such a postponement it might be frustrated altogether.”
Thus were the military and political authorities brought into a state of undisguised antagonism. Circumstances, however, had already occurred to unravel the web of difficulty that had been cast around them. The progress of the Bengal column towards Hyderabad was arrested by the receipt of intelligence to the effect that the Ameers, awed by impending danger, had submitted to the demands of the British Government. Outram and Eastwick had been from the 20th of January to the 4th of February at Hyderabad negotiating with them, and after much reasonable doubt of the issue had received their submission.[295] They had consented to pay the money which had been required from them, and it was believed that it would soon be paid.[296] They had consented to the terms of a stringent treaty, which had been fastened upon them by the British authorities, and agreed to pay annually three lakhs of rupees for the support of a British subsidiary force in their dominions. Cotton was, therefore, instructed to halt his division; and on the very 7th of February on which Macnaghten had written and despatched the letter which I have above quoted, the hopes of the Bengal column were dashed by the announcement that Hyderabad and its treasures were no longer lying at their feet. The Ameers paid an instalment of the tribute-money, and Cotton, to the great joy of the Envoy, but to the extreme disappointment of his troops, retraced his steps to Rohree, and prepared to effect the passage of the river, whilst Keane, with the Bombay column, moved up along the right bank of the Indus, and saw, through the dusty atmosphere of Lower Sindh, the palace and the city where was stored the gathered wealth which was to have enriched his army.
Halting for some days opposite Hyderabad,[297] the Bombay troops received intelligence to the effect that the Reserve which had been sent to their assistance from the Presidency had arrived at Kurachee, under Brigadier Valiant. The 40th Queen’s Regiment formed a portion of this brigade. It had been brought from Bombay in a seventy-four gun-ship—the Wellesley—and Admiral Sir Frederick Maitland was on board. In the position which affairs had assumed in Lower Sindh, it seemed desirable that the English should possess themselves of the fort of Kurachee; so the Admiral summoned it to surrender. The answer of the Commandant was a gallant one. “I am a Beloochee,” he said, “and I will die first.” With characteristic mendacity the Sindhian boatmen in the harbour declared that the place was prepared to withstand a siege, and that one of the Ameers had come down with an army of 3000 men. The English sailor had now an answer to give as gallant as that of the Beloochee chief. “The more the better,” he said; “we shall have the first trial of them.” Everything was soon ready for the attack. But British humanity again interposed, and Maitland a second time summoned the garrison to surrender. The reply was a word of defiance, and a shot from the fort. Then was heard by the garrison that which had never been heard there before, and of which they had no conception—a broadside from an English man-of-war. The Wellesley’s guns did their work in less than an hour, and the British colours soon floated over the place. The garrison had consisted of only some twenty men.[298]
On the 20th of February, Sir Willoughby Cotton, with the head-quarters of his force, arrived at Shikarpoor. On the morning of that day the General and the Envoy were for some time in conference with each other. The discussion was a long and a stormy one. The General seems to have anticipated the interference of Macnaghten, and to have resented it before it took any really offensive shape. The two officers looked on each other with suspicion. The General leapt hastily to the conclusion that the civilian was determined to overrule his military authority; and the Envoy, on the other side, thought that the soldier regarded him, the King and the King’s army, with something very like contempt. Macnaghten wanted carriage for the Shah’s force, and asked for 1000 camels. Sir Willoughby resented this as an act of interference; accused the Envoy of wishing to assume the command of the army, and declared that he knew no superior authority but that of Sir John Keane. At this, and at subsequent meetings, the Envoy urged that he had no intention of interfering with the military movements of the General, but that if he thought it for the good of the service that Shah Soojah should be left behind, the matter must be referred for the decision of the Governor-General. In the evening they met at dinner in the Envoy’s tent. The meal was not over when important despatches from the Governor-General were placed in Macnaghten’s hands. In the Envoy’s private tent they were read and discussed. Burnes and Todd were present at the conference. Late at night the General and the Envoy parted “very good friends,”[299]
It was decreed that the Bengal column should at once move in advance. On the following day it was manœuvred in presence of the King. The parching heats of Sindh, and the evil effects of a failing Commissariat, had not then begun to impair our army; and, in full health and fine condition, the troops moved before the well-pleased Shah. On the 23rd, Sir Willoughby Cotton began to put his force again in motion. But the Shah’s contingent remained halted at Shikarpoor. There was not carriage sufficient for its advance.
The difficulties of the march now began to obtrude themselves. Between Sukkur and Shikarpoor the camels had dropped down dead by scores. But there was a worse tract of country in advance. The officers looked at their maps, and traced with dismay the vast expanse of sandy desert, where no green pasture met the eye, and no sound of water spoke to the ear. But the season was favorable. Escaping the arid and pestilential blasts of April and May, and the noxious exhalations of the four succeeding months, the column advanced into Cutch-Gundawa. The hard, salt-mixed sand, crackled under their horses’ feet as the General and his staff crossed the desert, on a fine bright night of early March—so cool that only, when in a full gallop, the riders ceased to long for the warmth of their cloaks.[300] The distance from Shikarpoor to Dadur is 146 miles. It was accomplished by the Bengal column in sixteen painful marches. Water and forage were so scarce that the cattle suffered terribly on the way. The camels fell dead by scores on the desert; and further on the Beloochee robbers carried them off with appalling dexterity. When the column reached a cultivated tract of country, the green crops were used as forage for the horses. The ryots were liberally paid on the spot; but the agents of the Beloochee chiefs often plundered the unhappy cultivators of the money that had been paid to them, even in front of the British camp.
It was on the 10th of March that the Bengal column reached Dadur, which lies at the mouth of the Bolan Pass. Whatever doubts may before have been entertained regarding the provisionary prospects of the Army of the Indus, they were now painfully set at rest. Major Leech had been long endeavouring to collect supplies for the army at this place; but, in spite of all his zeal and all his ability, he had signally failed. Mehrab Khan of Khelat, under whose dominion lay the provinces through which the army was now passing, had thrown every impediment in the way of the collection of grain for our advancing troops. The prospect, therefore, before them was anything but an encouraging one. At Dadur they found themselves, on the 10th of March, with a month’s supplies on their beasts of burden. Cotton saw that there was little chance of collecting more; so he determined to push on with all possible despatch.
On the 16th he resumed his march; and entered the Bolan Pass. Burnes had gone on in advance with a party under Major Cureton, to secure a safe passage for the column; and had been completely successful. The Beloochee authorities rendered him all the aid in their power;[301] and when Cotton appeared with his troops on a clear, still morning, at the mouth of the defile, there was little likelihood of any obstacle being opposed to his free progress. But the baggage-cattle were falling dead by the way-side; the artillery horses were showing painful symptoms of distress. The stream of the Bolan river was tainted by the bodies of the camels that had sunk beneath their loads. The Beloochee freebooters were hovering about, cutting off our couriers, murdering stragglers, carrying off our baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile our men pitched their tents; and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road covered with loose flint stones, surmounting, at first, by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty miles in length. The passage was accomplished in six days. They were days of drear discomfort, but not of danger. A resolute enemy might have wrought mighty havoc among Cotton’s regiments; but the enemies with which now they had to contend were the sharp flint stones which lamed our cattle, the scanty pasturage which destroyed them, and the marauding tribes who carried them off. The way was strewn with baggage—with abandoned tents, and stores; and luxuries which, a few weeks afterwards, would have fetched their weight twice counted in rupees, were left to be trampled down by the cattle in the rear, or carried off by the plunderers about them.
Happy was every man in the force when the army again emerged into the open country. The valley of Shawl lay before them, a favoured spot in a country of little favour. The clear crisp climate braced the European frame; and over the wide plain, bounded by noble mountain-ranges, intersected by many sparkling streams, and dotted with orchards and vineyards, the eye ranged with delight; whilst the well-known carol of the lark, mounting up in the fresh morning air, broke with many home associations charmingly on the English ear.[302] On the 26th of March the Bengal column reached Quettah-“a most miserable mud town, with a small castle on a mound, on which there was a small gun on a rickety carriage.”[303] Here Sir Willoughby Cotton was to halt until further orders. Starvation was beginning to stare his troops in the face.
Seldom has a military commander found himself in the midst of more painful perplexities than those which now surrounded Cotton. It seemed to be equally impossible to stand still or to move forward. His supplies were now so reduced, that even upon famine allowances his troops could not have reached Candahar with provisions for more than a few days in store; and to remain halted at Quettah would necessarily aggravate the evil. There appeared to be no possibility of obtaining supplies. All the provisions stored in Quettah and the surrounding villages would not have fed our army for many days. In this painful conjuncture, Cotton acted with becoming promptitude. He despatched his Adjutant-General to Sir John Keane for orders, whilst Burnes proceeded to Khelat to work upon the fears or the cupidity of Mehrab Khan; and, in the meanwhile, reduced to the scantiest dole the daily supplies meted out to our unfortunate fighting men and our more miserable camp-followers.[304] These privations soon began to tell fearfully upon their health and their spirits. The sufferings of the present were aggravated by the dread of the future; and as men looked at the shrunk frames and sunken cheeks of each other, and in their own feebleness and exhaustion felt what wrecks they had become, their hearts died within them at the thought that a day was coming when even the little that was now doled out to them might be wholly denied.
Burnes hastened to Khelat. He was courteously received. He found Mehrab Khan an able and sagacious man. Suspicious of others, but with more frankness and unreserve in his character than is commonly found in suspicious men, the Khan commented freely on our policy—said, with prophetic truth, that we might restore Shah Soojah to Afghanistan, but that we should not carry the Afghan people with us, and that we should, therefore, fail in the end; and then, after launching into an indignant commentary on the ingratitude of Shah Soojah, for whom he had suffered much and reaped nothing in return, he proceeded to set forth the evils which had resulted to him and his people from the passage of the British army through his dominions.[305] “The English,” he said, “had now come, and by their march through his country, in different directions, destroyed the crops, poor as they were; helped themselves to the water which irrigated the lands, made doubly valuable in this year of scarcity;”-“but he had stood,” he added, “quiescent, and hoped from the English justice, from the Shah justice; hoped that his claims might be regarded in a proper light, and he for ever relieved from the mastery of the Suddozye Kings.” He then spoke freely and fluently of our policy in Central Asia, of the position in which we had placed ourselves at Herat by supporting such a miscreant as Yar Mahomed, and of the failure of our negotiations at Caubul and Candahar. “I might have allied myself,” he said, “with Persia and Russia—but I have seen you safely through the great defile of the Bolan, and yet I am unrewarded.”
Burnes had brought with him the draft of a treaty, which, on the following day, he sent to the Khan. He had made it a condition of all peaceable negotiation with the Beloochee Prince, that he should wait upon Shah Soojah in his camp—a condition which Mehrab Khan disliked and resisted, and from which he could extricate himself only by pleading sickness. The treaty, by which the supremacy of Shah Soojah was distinctly acknowledged, bound the British Government to pay Mehrab Khan a lakh and a half of rupees annually, in return for which the Khan engaged to “use his best endeavours to procure supplies, carriage, and guards to protect provisions and stores going and coming from Shikarpoor, by the route of Rozan, Dadur, the Pass of Bolan, through Shawl to Koochlak, from one frontier to another.”
Mehrab Khan affixed his seal to the treaty. But he disliked the bargain he had made. He was altogether suspicions of Shah Soojah and the Suddozyes. He was by no means certain of the success of the present enterprise. He believed that, by paying homage to the Shah, he would raise up a host of powerful enemies, and plunge himself into a sea of ruin. Striving to allay the apprehensions of the Khan, Burnes made some trifling concessions, which were not without their effect; and then proceeded to press upon him the subject which at that moment was of most immediate importance to British interests—the matter of supplies; and earnestly pointed out the imperative necessity of every possible exertion being made by the Khan to provide them. But it was easier to suggest such provision than to make it. Mehrab Khan said that he would do his best—that he would place men at Burnes’s disposal to proceed to Nooshky and other places, where the crops were nearly ripe (”and,” said Burnes, parenthetically, “he has done so”)—that he would “give grain in Gundava and Cutchee, and if we would send for our stores at Shikarpoor to Dadur, he would actively aid in passing them through the Bolan—that he might also aid us at Moostung in getting a small quantity of grain; but that there was really very little grain at Khelat, or in the country—that he had reduced his escort to wait on the Shah to 1000 men, on account of the scarcity—and that he could not then furnish the grain, but each man must bring his own.” “This intelligence,” wrote Burnes to Macnaghten, “is very distressing in our present position; but my inquiries serve to convince me that there is but a small supply of grain in this country, and none certainly to be given us, without aggravating the present distress of the inhabitants—some of whom are feeding on herbs and grasses gathered in the jungle. It is with some difficulty we have supported ourselves, whilst the small quantities we have procured have been got by stealth. This scarcity is corroborated by a blight in last year’s harvest. Under such circumstances, the only way of turning the Khan to account is in supplying sheep; and here he can and is willing to assist us to a great extent. Probably 10,000 or 15,000 may be procured; and arrangements are now being made for purchasing and sending them down to Shawl.”[306]
In the meanwhile, the Shah’s Contingent and the Bombay division of the Army of the Indus were making their way through Sindh.[307] Greatly straitened for carriage, it had been for some time doubtful whether the whole of the Shah’s army would be able to proceed to Candahar. There had been a disposition on the part of Sir Willoughby Cotton to look with contempt upon the Suddozye levies, and to make the King and his regiments play a part in the coming drama, by no means in accordance with the estimate which Macnaghten had formed of their importance. And now Sir John Keane seemed equally inclined to throw into the background the King, the Envoy, and the Contingent. But Macnaghten had claimed for the Shah a prominent place in the coming operations,[308] and the military chief had yielded to his representations, and even placed at his disposal a number of baggage-cattle which he greatly needed for his own force. Anxious to conciliate the commander of the army, and never unmindful of the public interests, the Envoy gratefully declined the offer.[309] Keane was, at that time, “in a wretched plight for want of cattle,” and the Bengal Commissariat were compelled to supply him largely both with camels and grain.
Sir Willoughby Cotton had suggested to Macnaghten the expediency of a movement upon Khelat; but the Envoy was then little inclined to take the same unfavourable view of the conduct of Mehrab Khan, which Cotton, smarting under the privations to which his force had been subjected, was prone to encourage. “With regard to moving upon Khelat,” he wrote on the 15th of March to the Bengal General, “I am not prepared at present to take upon myself the responsibility of that measure; and I am in great hopes that Sir Alexander Burnes will be able to arrange everything satisfactorily.”[310] The further he advanced, indeed, the more obvious it became that the Khan of Khelat had just grounds of complaint against the English army. Everywhere traces of the devastation—much of it unavoidable devastation—which our advancing columns had left behind them, spoke out intelligibly to him; and he plainly saw how extremely distasteful both our officers and our measures had become to the Beloochees. Pondering these things, he sate down and wrote the following letter to Lord Auckland—a significant letter, which shows how early had burst upon Macnaghten the truth, that only by a liberal expenditure of money was there any hope of reconciling to our operations the chiefs and people beyond the Indus:
Camp Bagh, March 19.
I found the Khelat authorities in the worst possible humour. Our enemies have evidently been tampering with them, and they had good cause for dissatisfaction with us; their crops have been destroyed, and the water intended for the irrigation of their fields has been diverted to the use of our armies. A great portion of these evils was perhaps unavoidable, but little or no effort seems to have been made either to mitigate the calamity or to appease the discontent which has been created by our proceedings. Our officers and our measures are alike unpopular in this country, and I very much fear that Sir A. Burnes may be led, by vague rumours of the Khan’s unfriendly disposition, to recommend offensive operations against him. In what difficulties we might be involved by such a proceeding it would be impossible to foretell. My most strenuous efforts have been day and night directed towards reconciling all persons of influence to our operations; and in this I have been successful; but considerable sums must be expended, not only in remunerating the people for the severe losses they have sustained, but in bribing the authorities. Your Lordship may rely upon it, that I shall not expend one rupee of the public money more than I deem indispensably necessary; but here we are quite at the mercy of the Beloochees. This very day, had they been inimically inclined, they might with the greatest ease have turned an inundation into our camp, which would have swept away our entire force and everything belonging to us. The change in the demeanour of the authorities since yesterday is wonderful. They are now our devoted servants, and the Vizier has promised to write off instantly to his master at Khelat, advising him to give us his entire and unqualified friendship and support. Sir John Keane is in a wretched plight for want of cattle, and I cannot help thinking he has been neglected in a very unwarrantable manner by the Bengal authorities.... I went out myself this morning to see what damage had been done to the crops. The devastation is grievous; but the interest which the people saw me take in their complaints has done more to pacify them than I ever expected. Another source of great dissatisfaction has been the seizure by our troops of different individuals, and even families, on the plea of being robbers. This I have done all in my power to remedy.[311]
More and more sensible, after every march, of the miserable country through which he was passing, and the difficulties which now beset the expedition, Macnaghten was anxious to push on with all possible expedition. But Sir John Keane, who was in the rear with the Bombay column, dreading the assemblage, on the same spot, of so large a body of troops as would be brought together by the junction of the three forces, urged upon him the expediency of halting, whilst his Excellency went forward to ascertain the chances of finding forage and provisions in the Bolan Pass. So the Shah and his Contingent halted for a few days at Bagh,[312] whilst Sir John Keane pushed on with his escort. On the 28th of March, the King, the Minister, and the Commander-in-Chief were all assembled together at Dadur. “Their united camps displayed all the pomp and circumstances of a triple head-quarter.” The passage of the Bolan was accomplished without difficulty, and on the 4th of April, Sir Willoughby Cotton, having ridden out with his staff from Quettah, greeted the General-in-Chief and his companions as they were resting at the entrance to the Shawl Valley, after the fatigues of the passage through the defile. The tidings which he had to communicate were of the gloomiest hue. He reported that his men were on quarter-rations, and that there was every prospect of the army, as it entered Afghanistan, being opposed at every step. Macnaghten, however, more sanguine, was already beginning to think and to write about the means of disposing of the Barukzye Sirdars. On that 4th of April he wrote to the Governor-General a letter, which indicates the tone of his own feelings and of those of the Afghan Prince:
April, 4, 1839.
We are now encamped within ten miles of Shawl. Sir Willoughby came in here this morning, and talks in a most gloomy strain of his prospects. He says he has but twelve days’ supplies, and his men are already on quarter-rations. We cannot reckon on being at Candahar under a fortnight, and it will go hard with us if we cannot get supplied in the meantime from other quarters. Sir Willoughby is a sad croaker; not content with telling me we must all inevitably be starved, he assures me that Shah Soojah is very unpopular in Afghanistan, and that we shall be opposed at every step of our progress. I think I know a little better than this. My accounts from Candahar lead me to believe that the religious excitement is subsiding, and that the Sirdars are only thinking how they can make good terms for themselves; or, failing that, how they may best contrive to effect their escape. It will be as well not to reduce them to desperation; for though they cannot oppose us in the field, yet they make sad havoc with our supplies. Large bands of camel-plunderers kept hovering over our line of march, and it certainly looks as if they had been incited by some one of influence. The mistakes and contretemps which are constantly occurring in our motley camp, require the exercise of much patience and discrimination. The Shah is in good health and spirits; but says he never had so much trouble and bother in his lifetime as he has met with during this campaign. The reason is obvious; the people on former occasions helped themselves to everything they wanted, and no complaint was permitted to approach the sacred person of his Majesty. His opinion of the Afghans as a nation is, I regret to say, extremely low. He declares that they are a pack of dogs, one and all, and, as for the Barukzyes, it is utterly impossible that he can ever place the slightest confidence in any one of that accursed race. We must try and bring him gradually round to entertain a more favorable opinion of his subjects. I cannot yet say how the Barukzye chiefs shall be disposed of, but I am decidedly of opinion that it would be a wise measure to get them quietly out of Afghanistan and pension them, if we can do so at an expense not exceeding a lakh of rupees per annum. If they oppose us and are taken, the Shah must, I imagine, be permitted to do what he likes with them short of putting them to death; and his own human nature is a sufficient security that he will not proceed to extremities.[313]
On the 6th of April, Sir John Keane fixed his head-quarters at Quettah, and assumed the personal command of the army. Reviewing all the circumstances of his position, he came to the determination to push forward with all possible despatch to Candahar. There was no prospect of obtaining supplies through the agency of Mehrab Khan. Already was the Envoy convinced of the treachery of that Prince—already was he beginning to talk about dismembering the Khanate of Khelat, and annexing the provinces of Shawl, Moostung, and Cutchee to the Douranee Empire. On that day he wrote to the Private Secretary of the Governor-General:
Camp Quettah, April 6, 1839.
* * * Sir John Keane has represented to me in the strongest terms the necessity for moving on. The fact is, the troops and followers are nearly in a state of mutiny for food, and the notion of waiting for such a person as Mehrab Khan, who has done his best to starve us, seems utterly preposterous. I trust the Governor-General will see fit to annex the provinces of Shawl, Moostung, and Cutchee to the Shah’s dominions. This would be the place for cantoning a British regiment. It is so cold now that I can hardly hold my pen, and the climate is said to be delightful all the year round. I am certain the annexation could be made without the slightest difficulty.... Now for Candahar. The game is clearly up with the Sirdars. I had a letter from the triumvirate yesterday, brought by Syud Muhun Shah, whom they have sent to treat, or rather to get the best terms for themselves they can. As to opposition, it is quite clear that they look upon that as hopeless, and they have not even the power to retreat. I am unwilling to reduce them to desperation, and shall try and get the Shah to make some provision for them; but he is very loth to do so. Their demands now are extravagant beyond measure; but I do not think that a lakh of rupees per annum, distributed among the three brothers, would be too much for the King to give, if they agreed upon that to sink into the retirement of private life. Notwithstanding all the croaking about Shah Soojah’s want of popularity, feel certain that my prediction will be verified, and that his Majesty will be cordially welcomed by all classes of the people.[314]
On the 7th of April the army resumed its march.[315] On the 9th it was at Hykulzye, a spot rendered famous in the later annals of the war. From this place Macnaghten wrote again to the same correspondent:
Camp Hykulzye, April, 9.
* * * I have reason to believe that the Sirdars of Candahar are at their wit’s end. They make resolutions one day and break them the next. But all accounts concur in reporting that they are abandoned by the priesthood, and that if there is any religious feeling extant, it is all in favour of Shah Soojah. In a fit of desperation the last resolve of Kohun-dil-Khan is stated to be, that he will make a night attack on our camp with about 2000 followers who are still attached to his person. This I fully believe to be fudge. The whole of the force, from Sir W. Cotton downwards, are infected with exaggerated fears relating to the character of the King and the prospects of the campaign. They fancy that they see an enemy in every bush. The Khan of Khelat is our implacable enemy, and Sir J. Keane is burning with revenge. There never was such treatment inflicted upon human beings as we have been subjected to on our progress through the Khan’s country. I will say nothing of Burnes’s negotiations. His instructions were to conciliate, but I think he has adhered too strictly to the letter of them. The Commander-in-Chief is very angry. I would give something to be in Candahar; and there, Inshallah, we shall be in about a week; but, in the meantime, this union of strictly disciplined troops with lawless soldiers is very trying to my patience. With a less tractable king than Shah Soojah the consequences might be fatal. I have references every minute of the day, and we are compelled to tell his Majesty’s people that they must not touch the green crops of the country. This they think very hard, and so I believe does the King, but he has, nevertheless, forbidden them. Supplies are now coming in, but they are yet very dear—2½ seers of flour for a rupee! But this price will, no doubt, daily fall. The great thing is to give people confidence. All the villages in the Khan of Khelat’s territory were deserted at our approach, and not a soul came near us, except with the view of plundering and murdering our followers. The instant we crossed the frontier the scene was entirely changed. The inhabitants remained in their villages, and have manifested the greatest possible confidence in our justice and good faith. Is it possible to conceive that the difference of feeling in the Khelat country has not been brought about by design? * * *
Macnaghten was naturally of a sanguine temperament. Civilians seldom estimate military difficulties aright. It is true that our political difficulties were melting away. The Candahar Sirdars, deserted and betrayed, seemed to have given themselves up to despair, and there was little chance of the progress of our army being disputed by an Afghan force. But the scarcity, which had pressed so severely on our troops, and had nearly destroyed our horses, was not less a reality because no enemy appeared to educe all the disastrous results which were likely to flow from such deterioration of the physique of our army. The army of the Indus surmounted the Kojuck Pass as safely as it had traversed the Bolan. The Shah, with his Contingent, was now in advance, leading the way, as it became him, into his restored dominions; and many of the chiefs and people of Western Afghanistan were flocking to his standard.[316] There were not wanting those who said that, if there had been any prospect of opposition at Candahar, the King and his levies would not have been the first to appear under the walls of the city. But authentic intelligence had reached Macnaghten, to the effect that Kohun-dil-Khan and his brothers had fled from Candahar—that there was no union among the Barukzye brotherhood—and that, if a stand were to be made at all, the battle-field would be nearer the northern capital. The way, indeed, was clear for the entry of the Suddozye monarch; so he pushed on in advance of Sir John Keane and his army, to receive, it was said, the homage of his people. Money had been freely scattered about; and the Afghans had already begun to discover that the gold of the Feringhees was as serviceable as other gold, and that there was an unfailing supply of it. Early in the campaign, Macnaghten had encouraged the conviction that the allegiance of the Afghans was to be bought—that Afghan cupidity would not be proof against British gold. So he opened the treasure-chest; scattered abroad its contents with an ungrudging hand; and commenced a system of corruption which, though seemingly successful at the outset, wrought, in the end, the utter ruin of the policy he had reared.[317]