My anxiety for your departure from Jellalabad for Caubul appears thoroughly useless. It is now forty days since your victorious army has passed up through Khybur, and you have not yet left Jellalabad. I endeavoured to excite a dispute among the rebels, with the view that the English army should reach here without opposition. Although I have successively sent letters through Mohun Lai, asking you to advance immediately to this side, but no symptoms of the kind have yet appeared. In such delay dangerous evils are to be apprehended.
It is a long time that I have deputed and entrusted Meerza Ameen-oollah with my verbal messages to you; but no answer has yet reached me about it. You should quickly reply to my letters, as well as the messages I have sent you by him, and also let me know the day of your march, as I am now in much perplexity. If there be any hope of your immediate advance, I will undergo every hardship to defend the Balla Hissar, and engage the rebels in fight. In case of any more delay the object will be lost, and an easy end will be obtained with the utmost difficulty hereafter. What can I write you more than this?[227]
Feeling himself utterly powerless to resist the demands of the Barukzyes, for all his principal supporters were deserting him, the Prince now placed himself in the hands of Ameen-oollah Khan, who went out to a conference with Mahomed Shah Khan, which mutual distrust nearly strangled in the womb, and consented to the first of these propositions.[228] Futteh Jung was to be the nominal occupant of the throne. Akbar Khan was to be minister; and Ameen-oollah Khan, his Naib, or deputy. It was the object of the Sirdar to arrest the internal dissensions which were so weakening the great national and religious cause, to obtain possession of all the available money and munitions, and then to carry on the war with new vigour against the infidels.
But Mahomed Zemaun Khan was the recognised chief of the Barukzye party; and he now asked on what authority the Sirdar ventured without his sanction to make peace with the Suddozyes. There appeared to be every chance of an open rupture between them; and scarcely had Akbar Khan concluded his negotiations with the Prince, then the Newab made a hostile demonstration, attacked the Balla Hissar, but was beaten back with much slaughter. It was, however, currently reported that a secret understanding existed between the two Barukzye chiefs, whose common object it was to obtain possession of the Balla Hissar. Two or three days afterwards they were, outwardly, again united. An attempt had been made to lure the Prince to an interview with Akbar Khan beyond the walls of the Balla Hissar. The Arabs in the garrison, who remained true to the royal family, dissuaded the Prince from exposing himself to the treachery of the Sirdar; mutual distrust soon engendered a rupture between them; and it was plain, that if some arrangement could not be promptly made between the Prince and the Barukzyes, through the agency of the Kuzzilbash chief, the Balla Hissar, the treasure, and the guns, would speedily fall into the hands of Akbar Khan and his confederates.
The Barukzyes now laid siege, with redoubled vigour, to the Balla Hissar. The Prince was well-nigh deserted.[229] He called upon Oosman Khan, Shah Soojah’s old minister, to aid him, but upon some frivolous pretext, the Wuzeer declined to league himself with so perilous a cause. It was assiduously given out that the Prince was holding the Balla Hissar only for the Feringhees; and, as the national feeling became stronger and stronger against him, if it had not been for the strength of the place itself, he would hardly have been able to hold it for a day against the Barukzyes. But the fortress held out, in spite of the weakness of the Prince and the garrison; and so at last the Barukzyes began to undermine the works. “Last night,” wrote Futteh Jung to General Pollock, at the beginning of June, “they made an assault; now they have made mines in every direction. My affairs are in a very critical state.... If you do not come quickly, the Balla Hissar and the throne will be lost, and you will be a sufferer. At this time I am at my last gasp. Moreover, there is nothing in the magazine.[230] Now is the crisis.”[231]
On the 6th of June, after an ineffectual attempt at negotiation, Akbar Khan issued orders for the springing of the mine. But it was not carried sufficiently far to damage the works.[232] The explosion killed a large number of the besiegers; whilst the storming party was driven back by the garrison with considerable loss. The troops of the Shah-zadah are said to have “behaved very nobly, and like heroes, to have defeated the assault.” Mohun Lal reported, but with some exaggeration, that not less than 1000 of the followers of Akbar Khan fell upon this day.
But the elation of the garrison was but short-lived. On the following day the Barukzyes brought up some heavy ordnance and began to cannonade the Balla Hissar. The defenders then lost heart. The Hindostanee and Arab fighting men, who composed the bulk of the Prince’s followers, began to tremble for the safety of their families, and to call upon Futteh Jung to enter into some accommodation with their assailants. Thus deserted by his garrison, who declared that they would open the gates to the enemy if the Prince did not submit, he had nothing to do but to abandon the defence, and to suffer the Barukzyes to enter the Balla Hissar.
With many professions of fidelity and demonstrations of respect, Akbar Khan presented himself before the Prince, declared that he had the prosperity of the royal family at heart, and that he himself was merely the servant of the Suddozyes. Futteh Jung offered him money; but he declined it—offered him a dress of honour, but he meekly refused to wear it. He wanted nothing, he said, but the prosperity of the Prince, and he could not wear the dress of honour until he had adjusted all his differences with Mahomed Zemaun Khan. But these differences were not very easily to be adjusted. The Newab was unwilling to recognise the sovereignty of Futteh Jung; and was jealous of the rising power of the Sirdar. Meeting after meeting was held, and many attempts were made to reconcile the conflicting interests of the two Barukzye leaders. It was urged, on the one side, that if Futteh Jung were acknowledged as the nominal ruler of Afghanistan, all his wealth would be in the power of the chiefs, and that the war might then be waged against the infidels with every chance of success. But, on the other hand, it was asked by the friends of Zemaun Khan—and Meer Hadjee, the High Priest, adopted the same views—since during the lifetime of Shah Soojah the Newab had been chosen King by the chiefs and accepted by the nation, why should they now revert to the old Suddozye sovereignty, which the country had so emphatically repudiated?[233]
As time advanced, the difficulties in the way of a reconciliation between the two parties seemed to thicken. The Newab declared that he was King—that Akbar Khan might hold the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan army, but that Oosman Khan was to be the Wuzeer.[234] In the meanwhile, the Sirdar was gaining over the Kohistanee chiefs, and preparing himself for the inevitable conflict. But the Kuzzilbashes now refused to league themselves with Akbar Khan, and talked of joining the British on their advance. There was no prospect of a reconciliation of the differences between the two Barukzye chiefs. The old Newab bitterly deplored the strife which seemed likely soon to plunge the city again into the miseries of war, and openly prayed that God might send General Pollock quickly, so that he and Akbar might fly from Caubul before they had caused bloodshed among the people by the violent arbitrement of their disputes.
Equally did Akbar Khan claim credit for his forbearance. On the 21st of June, after many fruitless attempts at an amicable adjustment of affairs, the two factions came into open collision. A battle was fought; and “after an insignificant fight of two or three hours’ duration,” the Newab was defeated. He and his sons were taken. His house was plundered. The leading chiefs of his party were seized and subjected to every conceivable insult. The victory, indeed, was complete; but it was mainly achieved by the money which had been pillaged from the treasury of the Prince. Some of the most influential men of the Newab’s party were bribed over to desert him; and he found, when it was too late, that he was betrayed.