[22] Since this passage was written, I have had reason to think that it ought to be accepted with some qualification. In October, 1840, when Dost Mahomed was flitting about the Kohistan, and the greatest anxiety prevailed among our political officers at Caubul, Shah Soojah said to Sir William Macnaghten, just as he was taking leave after an excited conference, “You know I have from the first expressed to you a mean opinion of my own countrymen. If you want further proof, look at that from my own brother.” The Shah then showed Macnaghten an intercepted letter, bearing the seal of Shah Zemaun, to the address of Sultan Mahomed Barukzye, purposing that, as Shah Soojah had made over the country to the infidels, the Barukzyes and the Sikhs united should make him (Shah Zemaun) King of Afghanistan.—[Unpublished Correspondence of Sir W. H. Macnaghten.] This story may seem to be at variance with the statement in the preceding page,—that “between a blind king and a dead king there is no political difference;” but I am acquainted with no Mahomedan law that excludes a blind prince from the throne. The exclusion is based upon the popular assumption that blindness disqualifies a man from managing the affairs of an empire. If, however, in Mahomedan countries, there have been no exceptions to this rule—of which I am doubtful—in the regal line, it is certain that many provincial governments have been in the hands of men who have been deprived of their sight. The case of Shah Allum, the blind King of Delhi, is hardly to the point; for during the years of his darkness, his royalty was only a name.
[23] This was in July, 1803. Shah Soojah’s own account of these transactions, which forms part of the autobiography written by him at Loodhianah in 1826-27, is contained in the following words:-“After our arrival at Kazee, we had scarcely prepared our force, when Futteh Khan’s army appeared; our troops immediately were drawn up in battle array, and an attack made upon them. The battle lasted from the morning to the evening prayer, when the enemy gave way, and retreated in great disorder to the valley Advaz, and then to Kamran’s camp in Candahar, where the drunkenness of the Kuzzilbash soldiery, and the ill-treatment which the Soonee doctors received, soon disgusted all our subjects, who entirely refused to give Kamran assistance. On hearing this we immediately returned to our capital. Shah Mahmoud was so disheartened by the news of our victory, that after swearing on the Koran he would not again be guilty of treachery, he sent some of his principal attendants to request the royal pardon, which we granted; and had him conveyed from the outer to the inner fort with all due respect to his rank. We then entered the Balla Hissar with regal pomp, and seated ourselves on the throne of Caubul.” Mr. Elphinstone says of this “victory,” that “Futteh Khan was at first successful; he routed the party of the enemy which was immediately opposed to him, and was advancing to the city, when the desertion of a great lord to Soojah threw the whole into confusion: his own party then fell off by degrees, till he found himself almost alone, and was compelled to provide for his safety by a precipitate flight. Next morning Shah Soojah entered Caubul in triumph. Mooktor-ood-Dowlah walked on foot by the side of his horse, and many other Douranee ameers followed in his train.”—[Elphinstone’s “Caubul”—Appendix.]
[24] “While in Candahar,” writes Shah Soojah, “we received letters from our beloved brother Shah-zadah Mooktor-ood-Dowlah, requesting Prince Kaysur’s pardon, as his inexperience and the advice of Futteh Khan and other rebels had led him from his duty. Out of respect to our brother we agreed to this. Prince Kaysur being in Dehleh, Shah Zemaun and Mooktor-ood-Dowlah went there and brought him into the presence. Shah Zemaun then requested that we would give him Candahar once more, and became security for his good behaviour in future. We agreed to this in spite of our good judgment.” It was whilst still engaged with the settlement of affairs at Candahar, not after their complete adjustment, and Soojah’s subsequent expedition to Sindh (as stated by Mr. Elphinstone), that ambassadors arrived at Bokhara to negotiate a marriage between the Khan’s daughter and the Shah. “A suitable answer,” says the Shah, “being given to the royal letter, and dresses of honour being given to the ambassadors, we dismissed them with gifts. Our thoughts were then directed to the state of Candahar.” The point is of little importance in Afghan history; and only worth noticing in illustration of the difficulty of determining with precision, the dates of different events, and the order in which they occurred. No two narratives altogether agree—but except where Shah Soojah speaks of his “victories,” we may regard him as a tolerably good authority in all that relates to himself.
[25] The number of Oriental names which it is necessary to introduce—the repetition of incidents, greatly resembling each other, of conquest and re-conquest, of treachery and counter-treachery, of rebellions raised and suppressed—creates a confusion in the mind of the European reader. It is difficult to interest him in these indistinct phantasmagoric transitions. The events, too, which I have narrated have been chronicled before. I have endeavoured, however, to impart some novelty to the recital by following, and sometimes quoting, Shah Soojah’s autobiography, which was not accessible to preceding historians.
[26] Hadjee Khalil Khan reached Bombay on the 21st of May, 1802, and was killed on the 20th of July.
[27] MS. Correspondence.
[28] “I shall send,” wrote Major Malcolm, “Mr. Pasley with the Hadjee’s body, which will not only be considered a high compliment, but be useful in a thousand ways. It will preserve this transaction from the touch of Mr. Manesty and Mr. Jones. It will enable me to convey a correct state of the feeling here on the subject to many respectable Persians, and I shall obtain from Mr. P. a true account of the manner in which the transaction is received in Persia. He will give Lovett information which will secure him from error at the outset, and be of the highest utility to him during his residence in India.”—[MS. Correspondence.] It is not certain, however, that the high compliment here designed was duly appreciated by the Persians. Sir Harford Jones (from whose “touch” the transaction was to be preserved) says that “it seems to have escaped Marquis Wellesley that that which might be considered a compliment at Calcutta, might in Arabia, Turkey, and Persia, be regarded as so improper as almost to become an insult..... The Persian moollahs as well as the Persian merchants at Bagdad, were shocked, and on my applying to old Sulemein Pacha for certain honours to be paid to the corpse, when removed from Bagdad to be carried to Nejeef, he said, ‘Very well: as you desire it to be done, it shall be done: but Hadjee Khalil Khan lived an infidel, and with infidels, and was, therefore, destined to hell; he was, however, murdered by infidels, and so became a shahyde (martyr); but his former friends have robbed him of this chance, by deputing an infidel to attend his corpse to the grave; his fate, therefore, is now fixed, and you may carry him to the devil in any manner you like best.’”—[Sir Harford Jones’s account of the transactions of H. M.’s mission to the Court of Persia, &c. Note vii.] It is curious, but somewhat humiliating, to read the different versions of the same transactions put forth by Jones and Malcolm, and their respective adherents. For example, Sir Harford Jones says that when the Hadjee’s body reached Bagdad, Mr. Day, a Bombay civilian, who had been deputed to accompany it into the interior, took fright at the plague, and abandoned his charge. “Mr. Day’s alarm was so great,” he says, “as to become most tormenting to himself, and most ridiculous and troublesome to us, who had stood the plague the preceding year. I, therefore, re-shipped him for Bussorah as soon as possible, and undertook to receive and execute such wishes as the Khan’s relatives expressed to me.” Now the account given of this matter by one of the gentlemen of Malcolm’s mission, sets forth that “Jones had frightened away Mr. Day by alarming accounts of the plague.”-“On this subject,” it was added, “I need make no remarks to you, who know him so well. This might be improper, and would, I imagine, be perfectly unnecessary.” I have dwelt upon these personal matters at greater length than they deserve, because they illustrate the feelings, on either side, with which Jones and Malcolm, at a later and more important period, were likely each to have regarded the parallel but antagonistic mission of the other to the Persian Court. The bitterness which then overflowed was the accumulated gall of years.
[29] Especial instructions having been given to the British mission to secure the appointment of a man of rank as successor to Khalil Khan, the intrigues of Aga Nebee to obtain the appointment greatly embarrassed our diplomatists in Persia. But it was acknowledged that the aspirant was a man of good temper, good abilities, and more than average respectability. He professed himself to be heart and soul the friend of the English; and, doubtless, was perfectly sincere in his attachment to their wealth and profusion. Like all his countrymen, he was capable of profound dissimulation, and lied without the slightest remorse. Knowing the views of the British functionaries with regard to the succession, he sent through his brother to Mr. Lovett an account of an interview he had had with the Shah, representing that he had urged upon his majesty the propriety of appointing an elchee of high rank as successor to Hadjee Khalil Khan, but that the king had insisted upon appointing him. In the same letter an amusing attempt is made to persuade Mr. Lovett to proceed to Teheran as an ambassador from the British-Indian Government, “with handsome and splendid equipments, so as to exceed by many degrees those with which Major Malcolm travelled: for this is the particular wish of the king and his ministers, in order that it may get abroad universally that the English had, for the sake of apologising, made these new preparations far exceeding the former, and that it is evident they highly regard the friendship of the king, and were not to blame for the death of Hadjee Khalil Khan. His majesty, too, when he hears of the splendour and greatness of your retinue, will be much pleased, and most favourably inclined.... Do not be sparing in expenditure, or presents, or largesses. Every country has its customs; and every nation may be won somehow or other. The people of Persia in the manner above stated.” It is hard to say which is to be most admired, the candour or the craft of this.—[MS. Records.]
[30] Some French agents, under the feigned character of botanists, had visited Teheran before Buonaparte invaded Egypt, and wished Aga Mahomed Khan, the then ruler of Persia, to seize Bussorah and Bagdad. They also endeavoured to stimulate the Shah to assist Tippoo Sultan against the British, and endeavoured to obtain permission to re-establish their footing at Gombroon. Had the emissaries appeared in a more openly diplomatic character, they might have succeeded, for Aga Mahomed Khan coveted the territory named, and might have been induced to co-operate in an attack upon the Turkish dominions; but the doubtful character of the agents thwarted their schemes, and he gave little heed to the representations of the savans.—[See Brigadier Malcolm to Lord Minto: MS. Records.]
[31] General Gardanne’s suite, according to Colonel Malcolm, consisted of “twenty-five officers, two clergymen, a physician, some artillery and engineer officers, thirty European sub-officers, and a number of artificers.”—[MS. Records.]