Willing to spare the city and the Balla Hissar for the sake of a friendly government, Pollock had despatched Shakespear to the Kuzzilbash camp, which was then in the Kohistan, to take counsel with Khan Shereen Khan, and the other chiefs of the Persian party. It seems that they had been sceptical of the intentions of the British General to evacuate the country; but Shakespear now announced that the departure of the army was at hand, and that it was necessary finally to determine upon the nature of the new government. In this conjuncture, the Kuzzilbashes, trembling for the safety of the city, and feeling that there was little hope of their being reconciled to the Barukzye party, laid their hands upon another puppet. There was a younger scion of the Suddozye House then at Caubul—the Prince Shahpoor. His mother was a high-born Populzye lady, and it was believed that his recognition would tend to conciliate the Douranees. Postponing, however, the final enunciation of their views until their return to Caubul, they now proposed that the young Prince should be set up in the place of his brother. At Caubul, a general meeting of the chiefs was held. The voice of the assembly declared in favour of the elevation of Shahpoor. The Prince himself, a high-spirited boy, willingly accepted the crown that was offered to him, and a declaration to that effect, from the Wuzeer and the Kuzzilbash chief, was then sent in to Pollock’s camp.
Determined to make a last effort to obtain substantial assistance from the British authorities, the chiefs now waited upon Pollock, and entreated him to leave some British troops behind him for the support of the new monarch. Pollock resolutely refused the request. They then asked him for money. This he also refused. Then came before them the painful subject of the “mark” that was to be left on Caubul. The chiefs pleaded for the city and for the Balla Hissar. Urgently they now set forth the necessity of a Suddozye Prince maintaining the appearance of royalty in the palace of his fathers—urgently they now set forth that the Arabs and Hindostanees, who in the hour of extremest peril had been so faithful to Futteh Jung, were all located in the Balla Hissar; and that the blow would fall with the greatest severity on those who were least deserving of punishment.[323] So Pollock consented to spare the Balla Hissar.
But it was still necessary that some mark of the retributory visit of the British should be left upon the offending city. Pollock, therefore, determined to destroy the great Bazaar. There the mutilated remains of the murdered Envoy had been exhibited to the insolent gaze of the Afghans; and there it was deemed fit that the retributory blow should fall. So, on the 9th of October, Abbott, the chief engineer, received instructions from the General to destroy the Bazaar; but so anxious was Pollock not to extend the work of destruction, that he strictly enjoined the engineer to abstain from applying fire to the building, and even from the employment of gunpowder, that other parts of the city might not be damaged by his operations. At the same time, a strong detachment of British troops, under Colonel Richmond—one of the best and ablest officers of the force—was sent with the engineers, to protect the town from injury and the inhabitants from plunder and outrage.
But it was no easy task to destroy that great Bazaar simply by the work of men’s hands. Abbott did his best to obey the instructions he had received from the General; but he was baffled by the massiveness of the buildings on which he had been sent to operate. It was necessary to employ a more powerful agent. On his own responsibility, therefore, he betook himself to the use of gunpowder. But the explosions damaged no other buildings than those which had authoritatively been marked for destruction. The operations against the great Bazaar lasted throughout the 9th and 10th of October. Every effort was made to save the city from further destruction; but all Richmond’s protective measures were insufficient to control the impetuosity of the soldiers and camp-followers who poured themselves into the town.
That many excesses were then committed is not to be denied. The principal gates of the city were guarded; but there were many other points of ingress, and our people streamed into the streets of Caubul, applied the firebrand to the houses, and pillaged the shops. Guilty and innocent alike fell under the heavy hand of the lawless retribution which was now to descend upon the inhabitants of Caubul. Many unoffending Hindoos, who, lulled into a sense of delusive security by the outward re-establishment of a government, had returned to the city and re-opened their shops, were now disastrously ruined.[324] In the mad excitement of the hour, friend and foe were stricken down by the same unsparing hand. Even the Chundarwal—where dwelt the friendly Kuzzilbashes—narrowly escaped destruction. Such excesses as were committed during the three last days of our occupation of Caubul must ever be deplored, as all human weakness and wickedness are to be deplored. But when we consider the amount of temptation and provocation—when we remember that the comrades of our soldiers and the brethren of our camp-followers had been foully butchered by thousands in the passes of Afghanistan; that everywhere tokens of our humiliation, and of the treachery and cruelty of the enemy, rose up before our people, stinging them past all endurance, and exasperating them beyond all control, we wonder less, that when the guilty city lay at their feet, they should not wholly have reined in their passions, than that, in such an hour, they should have given them so little head.
It was now time that the British army should depart. Nothing remained to be done. Any longer continuance at Caubul would only have aggravated the sufferings of the people and increased our own difficulties. So, on the 11th of October, orders were issued for the commencement of the march on the following day. The unhappy Prince, Futteh Jung, had claimed and sought permission to accompany Pollock’s camp to India, and to seek an asylum in the Company’s dominions. The old blind King, Zemaun Shah, after all the vicissitudes of his eventful life, was now about again to become an exile, and to end his days in the same hospitable country. For the family of Shah Soojah protection also had been sought, and not refused; and now all these fragments of the great wreck of royalty—these miserable records of a most disastrous enterprise—were committed to the charge of one who had largely participated in its sufferings, but had happily escaped the ruin which had overwhelmed his comrades and his chief.[325] On the evening of the 11th of October they came out of the town, and found safety in Pollock’s hospitable camp.[326] The British colours, which had floated over the Balla Hissar, were now lowered; the regiment which had been posted there was withdrawn; and every preparation was made for the departure of the British army.
On the following morning the two divisions commenced their march. Fearful that the Candahar division, if left in occupation of its old ground, whilst the head-quarters of the army were proceeding in advance, would commit many unauthorised excesses, Pollock had determined that the whole force should move on the same day. There was some inconvenience in this, for Nott’s division came up before Pollock’s had crossed the Loghur river; but to the cause of humanity it was, doubtless, great gain. The unfortunate Hindoos, who had been rendered destitute by the destruction of Ghuznee and the spoliation of Caubul, had crowded into the British camps, hoping to obtain, in their utter misery, safe conduct to the provinces of India.[327] Pollock took with him what trophies he could, but he had not carriage for all the guns,[328] and even on the first day’s march he was compelled to begin their destruction; whilst Nott, rejoicing in a letter from the Governor-General, who was in ecstasies about the gates of Somnauth, and in the notification of his appointment to the Residency of Lucknow, went off with those venerable relics, and turned his face towards the country, from which they had been traditionally ravished.
And on that day, as Pollock was leaving Caubul, and Nott was striking his camp, the guns of the Balla Hissar roared forth a royal salute in honour of the accession of Prince Shahpoor—the Fatiha was read in his name, and the chiefs tendered their allegiance. It was, perhaps, a mere mockery; but it had saved the Balla Hissar.[329] So the new King was paraded about the streets of Caubul—only to be dethroned again before the British army had reached the provinces of India; and that army turned its back upon Afghanistan, not as of old, in the agony of humiliation and defeat, but in the flush of victory and triumph.