At this conference Sher Ali began by unburdening himself of his grievances, complaining to Lord Mayo of the manner in which his two elder brothers had each in his turn been recognized as Amir, and dwelling on the one-sided nature of the treaty made with his father, by which the British Government only bound itself to abstain from interfering with Afghanistan, while the Amir was to be 'the friend of the friends and the enemy of the enemies of the Honourable East India Company.' His Highness then proceeded to make known his wants, which were that he and his lineal descendants on the throne that he had won 'by his own good sword' should be acknowledged as the de jure sovereigns of Afghanistan; that a treaty offensive and defensive should be made with him; and that he should be given a fixed subsidy in the form of an annual payment.
It was in regard to the first of these three demands that Sher Ali was most persistent. He explained repeatedly and at some length that to acknowledge the Ruler pro tempore and de facto was to invite competition for a throne, and excite the hopes of all sorts of candidates; but that if the British Government would recognize him and his dynasty, there was nothing he would not do in order to evince his gratitude.
These requests, the Amir was informed, were inadmissible. There could be no treaty, no fixed subsidy, no dynastic pledges. He was further told that we were prepared to discourage his rivals, to give him warm countenance and support, and such material assistance as we considered absolutely necessary for his immediate wants, if he, on his part, would undertake to do all he could to maintain peace on our frontier and to comply with our wishes in matters connected with trade.
As an earnest of our goodwill, the Amir was given the second £60,000 promised him by Sir John Lawrence, besides a considerable supply of arms and [ammunition],[6] and was made happy by a promise that European officers should not be required to reside in any of his cities. Before the conference took place, Lord Mayo had contemplated British agents being sent to Kabul in order to obtain accurate information regarding events in Central Asia, but on discovering how vehemently opposed Sher Ali was to such an arrangement, he gave him this promise. Saiyad Nur Mahomed, the Minister who accompanied the Amir, though equally averse to European agents, admitted that 'the day might come when the Russians would arrive, and the Amir would be glad, not only of British officers as agents, but of arms and troops to back them.'
One request which the Amir made towards the close of the meeting the Viceroy agreed to, which was that we should call Persia to account for her alleged encroachments on the debatable ground of Sistan. This, which seemed but an unimportant matter at the time, was one of the chief causes of Sher Ali's subsequent estrangement; for the committee of arbitration which inquired into it decided against the Amir, who never forgave what he considered our unfriendly action in discountenancing his claims.
The Umballa conference was, on the whole, successful, in that Sher Ali returned to his own country much gratified at the splendour of his reception, and a firm personal friend of Lord Mayo, whose fine presence and genial manner had quite won the Amir's heart, although he had not succeeded in getting from him everything he had demanded.
CHAPTER [XXXIX.]
1869
We spent a very quiet year at Simla. My wife was far from strong, and we had another great sorrow in the death of a baby boy three weeks after his birth.