[229] According, however, to our English notions, the contest was very far from a vigorous one. John Conolly wrote from Caubul: “The contending parties continue to amuse themselves with firing long shots with their guns and jezails, and the Balla Boorj is attacked—that is, fired at for three or four hours by one or two thousand men every third night or so.”—[MS. Correspondence.] Conolly says, in the same letter: “There is an anecdote here, that three Feringhees arrived at the Balla Hissar in disguise, and that on hearing this the Barukzyes withdrew their outposts to a considerable distance.” In another letter (May 26) he says: “The Prince holds out still in the citadel. The Barukzyes have been battering at the Upper Boorj, and firing into the Balla Hissar. According to our ideas, their efforts have been almost harmless; but the garrison, I fear, have become alarmed, and would be glad to see relief.”—[MS. Records.]
[230] The Prince had no powder. Mohun Lal, however, contrived to procure some and to convey it to the Balla Hissar, through the agency of the Kuzzilbash chiefs.
[231] On the 5th of June, Mohun Lal wrote to Sir R. Shakespear, Pollock’s military secretary: “If you will not march immediately, or in four days, to Gundamuck, you will lose all your prisoners, and the Barukzyes will possess the riches of the late Shah, as well as the Balla Hissar and the artillery.”—[MS. Records.] John Conolly’s letters, written about this time, contain the same urgent exhortations to advance, as the only means of saving the Balla Hissar and the prisoners.
[232] The mine was altogether the merest bug-bear. It frightened the Prince and the garrison; but Mohun Lal assured the former that it could not by any possibility do him any harm, as it had not been properly dug, nor run sufficiently far under the works to damage them, even if the strength of the masonry were not such as to bid defiance to the attempt.
[233] Correspondence of Mohun Lal. MS. Records. Futteh Jung continued to write to the British authorities that he had little or no money; and that if the British did not advance, the royal family would be ruined and disgraced. “It is well known to you,” he wrote to General Pollock, “that Mahomed Akbar has made peace, with the view to derive wealth from me; but I know that I have none. If I could sell everything that I possess, I should not be able to raise a lakh of rupees.”
[234] The Newab had little money; but the most valuable jewels of Shah Soojah were in his possession. The Shah was wont to carry them about with him in a bag; and he had them in his possession at the time of his murder. “Mahomed Zemaun Khan,” wrote Mohun Lal to Sir Richmond Shakespear, “has got hold of the most valuable jewels of the late King, who, report said, had them thrown into a ditch when Soojah-ood-Dowlah murdered him. This was seen by an Afghan at a distance, who after some days went to the place and took out the small bag of jewels, which he, being ignorant of their worth, sold them for 600 rupees. This was reported to the Newab, who imprisoned the bidders and got all the jewels from them. The bankers say that they are worth 50 lakhs of rupees, but here are no men to purchase them.”—[MS. Records.] Akbar Khan had contrived to extract a considerable sum of money from the Prince. On the 17th of June, Mohun Lal reported that the Sirdar had received a lakh and a half of rupees from the royal treasury. On the 18th, John Conolly wrote that the Sirdar had drawn two lakhs, adding: “He has taken an inventory of all the property and treasure in the citadel; and has his own men there.” “It will be a great consolation to us all,” he wrote in conclusion, “if you will tell us that no negotiations beyond the ransom of the prisoners will ever be entered into with Akbar. He is certainly the most uncompromising villain that ever lived.”—[Lieutenant Conolly to Captain Macgregor: Caubul, June 18, 1842. MS. Records.]
[235] “The Prince was seated on the throne on the 29th. Akbar constituted himself prime minister of all Afghans. The Hindostanee dependents on the Prince had been previously removed from the Balla Hissar, and none but his immediate attendants were allowed to remain—the garrison being composed of Akbar’s own soldiers. The remnant of the royal jewels, treasure, and property, even to a few silver cooking utensils, had been also made over to Akbar. It was Akbar’s intention to have deposed the Prince; and several meetings were convened to discuss the question. The resolution to crown the Prince was sudden, and suggested by an idea that the Populzyes who had connected themselves with Timour at Candahar might be induced to recognise the present arrangements in a preference to a Suddozye King under British auspices.”—[Lieutenant J. B. Conolly to Sir Richmond Shakespear: July 1, 1842. MS. Records.]
[236] All the circumstances attending their surrender ought to be related. The incident is thus feelingly chronicled by Captain Johnson: “Two days after the death of Shah Soojah, the people of Caubul demanded that our hostages, who had been left under charge of Mahomed Zemaun Khan, should be given up to the care of the son of the late High Priest, Meer Hadjee. The former noble-hearted gentleman, than whom no father could have behaved more tenderly to his children, begged and entreated with tears that the separation should not take place—adding that he was willing to give up his own family to the popular will, but not the English gentlemen who had been entrusted to his care, and who were his honoured guests—that he would, if the people so willed it, make over to them his own son, with his sword round his neck, and his turban for a winding-sheet, to be dealt with according to their pleasure; but that force alone should deprive him of the society of his friends. When all entreaties failed, he hoped to work upon the feelings of the party at the conference by telling them that their chief and his own sister and relations were in the hands of the British Government, and that vengeance would assuredly be dealt upon them if the English gentlemen sustained the slightest injury. On this, a grey-bearded old gentleman told him and the rest that they might make their minds perfectly easy as regarded the Afghan prisoners in India, as it was contrary to the uses of Englishmen to hurt a hair of the heads of their captives. The clamour of the people prevailed over all that the Newab could urge, and with many a bitter feeling did this amiable man make over the hostages to Meer Hadjee, with prayers and entreaties to the latter that he would behave kindly to them; and at the same time he sent with them to the latter’s house all the females of his family, as the surest means of their protection; for however excited a Mussulman population may be, it is seldom or ever that they violate a harem.”—[Captain Johnson’s MS. Journal.]
[237] Mohun Lal’s own account of his sufferings is worth quoting: “I have the honour to address you, for the information of Major-General Pollock, C.B., that Akbar Khan, on the night of the 11th inst. (July), put me in charge of Moollah Said, Atchekzye, in whose house I was forced to lay down, and a couch placed over me, on which the people jumped, and are beating me with sticks in a very unmerciful manner. Akbar wants 30,000 rupees from me—says, otherwise, that he will pull out my eyes. All my body has been severely beaten. I cannot promise anything without government’s order, but see myself destroyed.... All my feet is wounded by bastinadoing.”—[Mohun Lal to Sir R. Shakespear: July 14, 1842. MS. Records.] “I suffer very much. Sometimes I am pinioned and a heavy stone is placed on my back, whilst the red pepper is burnt before my nose and eyes. Sometimes I am bastinadoed. In short, I suffer every conceivable agony. He wants 30,000 rupees, out of which he has hitherto got 12,000, after using me very rudely. The remainder, if not paid in the course of ten days, he says he will pull out my eyes, and burn my body with a hot iron.”—[Mohun Lal to Sir R. Shakespear: July 17. MS. Records.]
[238] The cause of this hasty removal is to be found in Akbar’s suspicions that the Jabbar Khail, the most powerful of the western Ghilzye clans, intended to carry off the prisoners and sell them to General Pollock on their own account. This plot really existed, and had been suggested to the chiefs of the Jabbar Khail by Captain Mackenzie during his journeys to and from Jellalabad.