August 9th, 1862.
[Sidenote: Withdrawal of vakeel.]
After a good deal of consideration as to how I can, with least risk of getting this Government into trouble, put a spoke into the Dost's wheel in his progress towards Herat, I have despatched to Sir R. Montgomery the telegram of which I enclose a copy. The order sent to our vakeel, desiring him to leave the Ameer's camp, and return to India, if the Dost proceeds to extremities against Herat, will sufficiently show that we discountenance any such proceeding; while at the same time the measure commits us to nothing, gives the Dost no such claim upon us as he would naturally have if we tendered advice to him, and induced him to abandon his own projects in order to follow it, and leaves us free to shape our policy as the shifting current of events may prescribe. I pointed out to you in my letter of July 16, that we are awkwardly situated for interfering with the Ameer. He is our friend, and we said nothing when he was attacked. He has set to work to redress his own injuries, asking us for no aid, and paying his own way. We are quite entitled to say, 'Your hostile advance on Herat has not our approval, and we must show that you are making it without our sanction.' This we do in the most emphatic manner, by withdrawing the only British official who is with him. But I do not like to go farther in the direction of interference. It is impossible to say how matters may terminate in Afghanistan. It is possible that the Ameer may get the whole country into his hands. It is possible that he may come to an understanding with Sultan Jan, who is his connection by marriage. It is very desirable that we should be free to accept the status in quo, whatever it may be.
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To Sir Charles Wood.
Calcutta, September 9th, 1862.
[Sidenote: Lord Canning's policy.]
A doubt naturally suggests itself as to whether the received notion respecting the relations which Canning sought to establish between the native chiefs and the British Government in India be altogether correct, or, (as it perhaps would be more accurate to say) altogether complete—whether, in short, that portion of it which was a policy of circumstance has been duly distinguished from that which was a policy of principle: a doubt by no means unimportant, now that this policy, whatever it be, is crowned by the double aureole of success and death; so that while, on the one hand, it is naturally set up as an example for imitation, on the other, we have not the author to refer to when difficulties arise respecting its application.
[Sidenote: (1) Clemency.]
In approaching the consideration of this very momentous question we must, in the first place, be careful lest we suffer ourselves to draw erroneous conclusions from the warm expressions of gratitude and affection lavished upon Canning by the natives generally. If I were to venture to compare great things with small, I should say that their feelings towards him were due to causes somewhat similar to those which earned for me the good will and confidence of the French Canadians in Canada. Both he and I adopted on some important points views more favourable to the subject races than those which had been entertained by our respective predecessors. So far we established legitimate and substantial claims on their regard. But it was not so much the intrinsic merit of those views, still less was it the extent to which we acted upon them, which won for us the favour of those races; we owed that mainly to the uncompromising hostility, the bitter denunciations, and the unmeasured violence which the promulgation of those views provoked from those who were regarded by them as their oppressors. I used often to say to my Scotch friends in Lower Canada, when they were heaping every indignity upon me, and even resorting to open violence (for there they did not hold their hands off), 'You are playing my game. I want to win the confidence of the French Canadians; but I know the nature of that people: they are touchy and suspicious as races who feel that they are inferior, and believe that they are oppressed; invariably are. By measures of simple justice towards them (and beyond that line I do not intend to proceed an inch), I despair of being able to effect my object; but if you continue for a year to act as you are now acting, denouncing me as your enemy and their friend, and proving the sincerity of your belief by outrage and violence, you will end by convincing them that I am to be trusted, and I shall win the day.'—The result proved the accuracy of this prediction.