12th. For the due fulfilment of the above conditions four respectable British officers will be left in Caubul as hostages, and will be allowed to return to India on the arrival of the Ameer and his family at Peshawur.
13th. Sirdar Mahomed Akbar Khan, Sirdar Mahomed Oosman Khan, and such other chiefs of influence as may be so disposed, will accompany the British troops to Peshawur.
14th. Notwithstanding the retirement of the British troops from Afghanistan, there will always be friendship between that nation and the English, so much so that the Afghans will contract no alliance with any other foreign power without the consent of the English, for whose assistance they will look in the hour of need.
15th. Should it hereafter be the desire of the Afghan nation, and the British Government to consent thereto, a British resident at Caubul may be appointed to keep up the friendly communication between the two governments, but without interfering in any way with the internal administration of Afghanistan.
16th. No one is to be molested on account of any part he may have taken in the late contest; and any person desirous of going to India with the British troops shall be permitted to do so.
17th. From the date on which these articles are agreed, the Sirdars above named undertake that the British troops shall be supplied with provisions on rendering payment for the same.
18th. All British officers and troops who may be unable from any cause, to quit Afghanistan immediately shall be treated with all honour and respect, and receive every assistance until the state of the season and of their preparations admits of their departure.
The conference lasted two hours. The terms of the treaty were discussed with as much calmness and moderation as could have been expected, and its main stipulations were agreed to by the assembled chiefs. It was resolved that the British troops should evacuate their cantonments within three days, and that the chiefs should, in the meanwhile, send in provisions for their use. The meeting broke up, and Captain Trevor accompanied the Khans to the city, “as a hostage for the sincerity of the Envoy.”
It is scarcely necessary to write anything in vindication of the conduct of Macnaghten with respect to this early treaty. His vindication is to be found in the preceding correspondence with the military chiefs. But a few pregnant sentences, in which he has himself recorded the circumstances under which he was at last induced to throw himself upon the forbearance of the enemy, ought to be laid before the reader, embodying as they do the Envoy’s own justification of his conduct. “The whole country,” he wrote in his unfinished report, “as far as we could learn, had risen in rebellion; our communications on all sides were cut off; almost every public officer, whether paid by ourselves or his Majesty, had declared for the new governor, and by far the greater number even of his Majesty’s domestic servants had deserted him. We had been fighting forty days against very superior numbers, under most disadvantageous circumstances, with a deplorable loss of valuable lives, and in a day or two we must have perished from hunger, to say nothing of the advanced season of the year and the extreme cold, from the effects of which our native troops were suffering severely. I had been repeatedly apprised by the military authorities that nothing could be done with our troops; and I regret to add that desertions to the enemy were becoming of frequent occurrence among our troops. The terms I secured were the best obtainable, and the destruction of fifteen thousand human beings would little have benefited our country, whilst the government would have been almost compelled to avenge our fate at whatever cost. We shall part with the Afghans as friends, and I feel satisfied that any government which may be established hereafter will always be disposed to cultivate a good understanding with us. A retreat without terms would have been impracticable. It is true, that by entering into terms, we are prevented from undertaking the conquest of the entire country—a measure which, from my knowledge of the views of government, I feel convinced would never be resorted to even were the means at hand. But such a project, in the present state of our Indian finances, and the requisitions for troops in various quarters, I knew could not be entertained.”[183]