"We shall not fail to communicate to you at an early period our fixed decision upon this subject."
It was not possible to bring this subject before your Majesty's confidential servants before the afternoon of Saturday the 4th. The mail for India, which should have been despatched on the 1st, had been detained till Monday the 6th by the direction of your Majesty's late Ministers, in order to enable your Majesty's present servants to transmit to India and China any orders which it might seem to them to be expedient to issue forthwith. Further delay would have been productive of much mercantile inconvenience, and in India probably of much alarm. In this emergency your Majesty's Ministers thought that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to approve of their exercising at once the power of directing the immediate transmission to India of these Instructions.
Your Majesty must have had frequently before you strong proofs of the deep interest taken by Russia in the affairs of Herat, and your Majesty cannot but be sensible of the difficulty of maintaining in Europe that good understanding with Russia which has such an important bearing upon the general peace, if serious differences should exist between your Majesty and that Power with respect to the States of Central Asia.
But even if the annexation of Herat to the kingdom of Cabul were not to have the effect of endangering the continuance of the good understanding between your Majesty and Russia, still your Majesty will not have failed to observe that the further advance of your Majesty's forces 360 miles into the interior of Central Asia for the purpose of effecting that annexation, could not but render more difficult of accomplishment the original intention of your Majesty, publicly announced to the world, of withdrawing your Majesty's troops from Afghanistan as soon as Shah Sooja should be firmly established upon the throne he owes to your Majesty's aid.
These considerations alone would have led Lord Ellenborough to desire that the execution of the orders given on the 4th of June should at least be delayed until your Majesty's confidential servants had had time to consider maturely the Policy which it might be their duty to advise your Majesty to sanction with respect to the countries on the right bank of the Indus; but financial considerations strengthened this desire, and seemed to render it an imperative duty to endeavour to obtain time for mature reflection before any step should be taken which might seriously affect the tranquillity of Europe, and must necessarily have disastrous effects upon the Administration of India.
INDIAN FINANCES
It appeared that the political and military charges now incurred beyond the Indus amounted to £1,250,000 a year—that the estimate of the expense of the additions made to the Army in India, since April 1838, was £1,138,750 a year, and that the deficit of Indian Revenue in 1839-40 having been £2,425,625, a further deficit of £1,987,000 was expected in 1840-41.
Your Majesty must be too well informed of the many evils consequent upon financial embarrassment, and entertains too deep a natural affection for all your Majesty's subjects, not to desire that in whatever advice your Majesty's confidential servants may tender to your Majesty with respect to the Policy to be observed in Afghanistan, they should have especial regard to the effect which the protracted continuance of military operations in that country, still more any extension of them to a new and distant field, would have upon the Finances of India, and thereby upon the welfare of eighty millions of people who there acknowledge your Majesty's rule.
Footnote 98: President of the Board of Control.
Footnote 99: For the progress of affairs in Afghanistan, see Introductory Notes for 1839-1842. [[1839]; [1840]; [1841]; [1842].]