The members of Lord Northbrook's Council were unanimously opposed to both these proposals, but they did not succeed in convincing Lord Salisbury that the measures were undesirable; and on the resignation of Lord Northbrook, the new Viceroy was furnished with special instructions as to the action which Her Majesty's Government considered necessary in consequence of the activity of Russia in Central Asia, and the impossibility of obtaining accurate information of what was going on in and beyond Afghanistan.
The question of the Embassy was dealt with at once; Lord Lytton directed a letter to be sent to the Amir announcing his assumption of the Viceroyalty, and his intention to depute Sir Lewis Pelly to proceed to Kabul for the purpose of discussing certain matters with His Highness.
Difficulties with Sher Ali To this communication a most unsatisfactory reply was received, and a second letter was addressed to the Amir, in which he was informed that, should he still decline to receive the Viceroy's Envoy after deliberately weighing all the considerations commended to his serious attention, the responsibility of the result would rest entirely on the Government of Afghanistan, which would thus alienate itself from the alliance of that Power which was most disposed and best able to befriend it.
This letter was the cause of considerable excitement in Kabul, excitement which ran so high that the necessity for proclaiming a religious war was mooted; and, to complicate matters, the Amir at this time received overtures from General Kauffmann, the Russian Governor-General in Turkestan.
A delay of six weeks occurred before Sher Ali replied to Lord Lytton's letter, and then he altogether ignored the Viceroy's proposal to send a Mission to Kabul, merely suggesting that the British Government should receive an Envoy from him, or that representatives from both countries should meet and hold a conference on the border, or, as another alternative, that the British Native Agent at Kabul should return and discuss affairs with the Viceroy.
The last suggestion was accepted by the Government of India, and the agent (Nawab Ata Mahomed Khan) arrived in Simla early in October. The Nawab gave it as his opinion that the Amir's attitude of estrangement was due to an accumulation of grievances, the chief of which were—the unfavourable arbitration in the Sistan dispute; the want of success of Saiyad Nur Mahomed's mission to India in 1873, when it was the desire of the Amir's heart to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with the British Government; the interposition of Lord Northbrook's Government on behalf of Yakub [Khan];[1] the recent proceedings in [Khelat],[2] which the Amir thought were bringing us objectionably near Kandahar; the transmission of presents through Afghanistan, to his vassal, the Mir of Wakhan, without the Amir's [permission];[3] and, above all, the conviction that our policy was exclusively directed to the furtherance of British interests without any thought for those of Afghanistan.
As regarded the proposed Mission to Kabul, the Envoy said that His Highness objected to it for many reasons. Owing to local fanaticism, he could not insure its safety, and it seemed probable that, though of a temporary nature to begin with, it might only be the thin end of the wedge, ending in the establishment of a permanent Resident, as at the courts of the Native Rulers in India. Furthermore, the Amir conceived that, if he consented to this Mission, the Russians would insist upon their right to send a similar one, and finally, he feared a British Envoy might bring his influence to bear in favour of the release of his son, Yakub Khan, with whom his relations were as strained as ever.
In answer, the Viceroy enumerated the concessions he was prepared to make, and the conditions upon which alone he would consent to them; and this answer the agent was directed to communicate to the Amir.
The concessions were as follows:
(1) That the friends and enemies of either State should be those of the other.