[101] Abbas Meerza gratefully acknowledged the assistance he received from Captain Shee, Mr. Beek, and M. Berowski, the Pole, of whom subsequent mention will be made. At the siege of Koochan a sergeant of the Bombay Horse Artillery, named Washbrook, directed the mortar batteries, which mainly conduced to the reduction of the place.
[102] Nor did he scruple outwardly to evince the relative degrees of respect which he entertained for the two nations in the persons of their representatives. On one occasion, for example, when the Russian envoy, Count Simonich, was returning from an excursion, the foreign minister went out to meet him, but demurred to paying the same compliment to the British ambassador.—[MS. Records.] This incident, however, which created some sensation in the Calcutta Council-Chamber, may have had its source in the private feelings of Meerza Massoud, the foreign minister, who, having long resided at St. Petersburgh, was a mere creature of the Russian State.
[103] Mr. Ellis to Lord Palmerston: Teheran, November 13, 1835.—[Published Papers relating to Persia and Afghanistan.]
[104] The officer whom he proposed to send was Lieutenant Todd, of the Bengal Artillery, who held the local rank of Major in Persia, and who had long been employed in instructing the artillery of the Persian army.
[105] The Russian minister had urged the King to undertake a winter campaign against Herat. But Count Nesselrode always resolutely maintained that Simonich had endeavoured to persuade the Shah not to proceed against Herat at all; and Simonich told the same story in his letters to his own government.
[106] Though we need not seek the causes of this expedition in anything either nearer or more remote than the ambition of the young Shah and the intrigues of the Russian Government, a pretext was put forth by, or for Persia, of a more plausible kind. It was urged that the Heratees had carried off and sold into slavery the subjects of the Persian Shah. There is no doubt of the fact. But it was never put prominently forward by the Shah, who always urged that Herat had no right to be independent. Another pretext, but a weak one, for undertaking the war was also alleged. Hulakoo, son of the Prince of Kerman, after his father was taken and blinded, and Kerman occupied by the Shah’s troops, fled to Herat, and from thence endeavoured to excite disturbances in Kain, Khaf, and Eastern Kerman.
[107] Kamran had threatened Candahar on more than one occasion; and at the end of 1835, Mr. Masson reported to the Supreme Government that the Sirdars of that place, despairing of obtaining any assistance from Dost Mahomed, had sent an emissary to the Bombay Government, offering to cede their country to the British!—[MS. Records.] I merely give this as a report sent down by the English news-writer.
[108] “I share with you,” he wrote to Sir Charles Metcalfe, in September, 1836, “the apprehension of our being at no distant date involved in political, and possibly military operations upon our western frontier; and even since I have been here, more than one event has occurred, which has led me to think that the period of disturbance is nearer than I had either wished or expected. The constitutional restlessness of the old man of Lahore seems to increase with his age. His growing appetite for the treasures and jungles of Sindh—the obvious impolicy of allowing him to extend his dominions in that direction—the importance which is attached to the free navigation of the Indus, most justly I think, and yet perhaps with some exaggeration from its value not having been tried—the advance of the Persians towards Herat, and the link which may in consequence be formed between Indian and European politics,—all lead me to fear that the wish which I have had to confine my administration to objects of commerce, and finance, and improved institutions, and domestic policy, will be far indeed from being accomplished. But as you say, we must fulfil our destiny; and in the mean while I have entreated Runjeet Singh to be quiet, and in regard to his two last requests have refused to give him 50,000 musquets, and am ready to send him a doctor and a dentist.”—[MS. Correspondence.]
[109] Moorcroft seems to have been upheld only by the kindly encouragement of Sir Charles (then Mr.) Metcalfe, who, as Resident at Delhi, took the greatest interest in his enterprise, and afforded him all possible assistance. He attributed the unwillingness of our Government to explore the countries beyond our frontier, to some vague apprehension of alarming the Sikhs. “It is somewhat humiliating,” he wrote to Metcalfe, “that we should know so little of countries which touch upon our frontier; and this in a great measure out of respect for a nation that is as despicable as insolent, whose origin was founded upon rapine, and which exists by acquiring conquests it only retains by depopulating the territory.”—[MS. Correspondence.]
[110] “The greatest apathy,” says Mr. Sterling, “prevailed, and the members of the government could not be roused to take an interest in the subject. The knowledge that I had been in these interesting countries produced no desire for intelligence regarding them, and my reception gave no encouragement for the production of it. Neglect had been preceded by the deprivation of my appointment. I was no longer collector of Agra; that situation had been disposed of nearly two months prior to my reaching the Presidency: my return was deemed hopeless, and my death anticipated.”