CHAPTER IV.
[October-December: 1842.]
Effect of the victories—Lord Ellenborough at Simlah—The Manifesto of 1842—The Proclamation of the Gates—The Restoration of Dost Mahomed—The Gathering at Ferozepore—Reception of the Troops—The Courts-Martial.
Never was intelligence received in India with stronger and more universal feelings of delight than the intelligence of the victories of Pollock and Nott; and the happy recovery of the prisoners. There was one general shout of triumphant congratulation, caught up from station to station along the whole line of country from Sirhind to Tinnevelly. Suspense and anxiety now died away in the European breast; and, in the words of one of the ablest Indian statesmen, “it was a comfort again to be able to look a native in the face.”[330]
To Lord Ellenborough the brilliant achievements of the two Generals were a source of unbounded gratification. Everything that he could have desired had been accomplished. Pollock and Nott, under his orders, had “retired” so adroitly from Afghanistan, that everybody believed they had advanced upon the capital of the country. The movement had produced, or was producing, a grand moral effect all over Hindostan. Again was there likely to be a season of universal repose. The excitement which had stirred the hearts of the native community was now passing away. All those vague hopes and longings which had sprung up, at the contemplation of our disasters, in Native States of doubtful friendliness and fidelity, were now stifled by the knowledge of our success. The Governor-General had threatened to save India in spite of every man in it who ought to give him support;[331] but it now seemed as though, in reality, Pollock and Nott had achieved the work of salvation in spite of the Governor-General himself.
But Lord Ellenborough was not less delighted than if the work had been emphatically his own. He was at Simlah when the glad tidings of the re-occupation of Caubul reached him. He was at Simlah, and in the very house which had been the cradle of the great manifesto of 1838, out of which had come all our disasters. He was at Simlah; and the 1st of October was temptingly at hand. On the 1st of October, four years before, that manifesto had been issued. From Simlah, therefore, now, on the first of October, another manifesto was to be made to issue. The utter failure of Lord Auckland’s policy in Afghanistan was to be proclaimed from the very room in which it had taken shape and consistency.[332] From this very room was to go forth to all the chiefs and people of India a proclamation, laying bare to the very core the gigantic errors which had been baptised in the blood of thousands, and shrouded in contumely and disgrace.
And thus ran the proclamation:
Secret Department, Simlah, the 1st of October, 1842.
The Government of India directed its army to pass the Indus in order to expel from Afghanistan a chief believed to be hostile to British interests, and to replace upon his throne a sovereign represented to be friendly to those interests, and popular with his former subjects.
The chief believed to be hostile became a prisoner, and the sovereign represented to be popular was replaced upon his throne; but, after events, which brought into question his fidelity to the government by which he was restored, he lost by the hands of an assassin the throne he had only held amidst insurrections, and his death was preceded and followed by still existing anarchy.