Lord Lawrence

by Sir Richard Carnac Temple

Then, in consequence of the hostile movements of Persia against Afghanistan, presumably with indirect support from Russia, he received proposals from Colonel (afterwards Sir Herbert) Edwardes, the talented and distinguished Commissioner of Peshawur, for an alliance with the Afghan ruler. He strongly advised the Governor-General not to enter into any relations with Afghanistan, but added, as in duty bound, that if such relations were to be undertaken, he would do his best to arrange them satisfactorily. He then, under Lord Dalhousie’s direction, in company with Edwardes, met Sirdar Gholam Hyder the heir-apparent of the Amir Dost Mahommed at Peshawur in the spring of 1855. Thereupon he concluded a treaty, obliging the two parties mutually to respect each other’s dominions, also binding the Amir to be the friend of the friends and the enemy of the enemies of the British Government, without imposing on it any corresponding obligation. But though the treaty was simple, his negotiations with the Afghan prince were complex, and in these he was duly assisted by Edwardes, with whom the policy had originated, and to whom he rendered full acknowledgment.

He was recommended by Lord Dalhousie for honours from the Crown, and was made a Knight Commander of the Bath early in 1856, just after Lord Dalhousie had been succeeded by Lord Canning.

He was shortly afterwards, in 1856, consulted by Lord Canning regarding the war which the British Government was declaring against Persia for her conduct towards Herat, a place then deemed to be the key of Afghanistan on the western side. In the autumn of that year he was startled by news of the fall of Herat into Persian hands, and by proposals from Edwardes for rendering effective aid to the Afghan Amir. Again he opposed these proposals, with an intimation that if the Governor-General, Lord Canning, should accept them he would do his utmost to secure their success. As they were accepted by the Government of India he repaired early in 1857 to Peshawur to meet the Amir Dost Mahommed. At the Amir’s special request, he crossed the British portal of the Khyber Pass, and proceeded for a full march inside that famous defile. The crags and heights echoed with the boom of the guns fired from the Afghan camp to salute his arrival. There was much of weirdness and wildness in the aspect of the Afghan levee which was there held in his honour, an aspect which betokened the desperate character of many of the chiefs there assembled. He was then accompanied by Dost Mahommed to Peshawur, and again assisted by Edwardes in the tedious negotiations which followed. He concluded an additional treaty with Dost Mahommed, confirming that which had been already made with Gholam Hyder, and agreeing to afford the Amir a subsidy of a lac of rupees, or £10,000, monthly with a present of four thousand stand of arms, on the condition that a European officer should be temporarily deputed, not to Caubul but to Candahar, and with an assurance that in deference to Afghan susceptibility, the British Government would not propose to despatch any European officer to Caubul unless circumstances should change.

This treaty established relations between the British empire and Afghanistan which have lasted, with some brief but stormy interruptions, for thirty years up to the present time. It was concluded on the eve of the war of those mutinies in India which were foreseen by neither of the contracting parties. On its conclusion Dost Mahommed exclaimed that he had thereby made with the British Government an alliance which he would keep till death; and he did keep it accordingly. As a consequence, during the storm, which very soon afterwards burst over Northern India up to the very verge of Afghanistan, he preserved a friendly neutrality which was of real value to the British cause. Thus whatever may be the arguments before or since that date, the beginning of 1857, for or against the setting up of relations with Afghanistan, this treaty proved very useful to British interests in the events which arose immediately after it was made.

It is but just to the memory of Edwardes, who was the originator and the prime adviser of this policy, to quote the explanation of it in his own words by a memorandum which he wrote in the following year, 1858. After alluding to the former dealings of the British with Afghanistan, he writes thus regarding himself:

“When Commissioner of Peshâwur, in 1854, he sought and obtained the permission of Lord Dalhousie to bring about that hearty reconciliation which was expressed in the first friendly treaty of March 1855, and subsequently (with the equally cordial approval of Lord Canning) was substantially consolidated by the treaty of January 26, 1857. At this latter juncture the Shah of Persia had seized Herat and was threatening Candahar. England was herself attacking Persia in the Gulf, and the Indian Government now gave to the Amir at Cabul eight thousand stand of arms, and a subsidy of £10,000 a month, so long as the Persian war should last. We did this, as the treaty truly said, ‘out of friendship.’ We did it, too, in the plenitude of our power and high noon of that treacherous security which smiled on India in January 1857. How little, as we set our seals to that treaty, did we know that in May the English in India, from Peshâwur to the sea, would be fighting for empire and their lives, and that God’s mercy was stopping the mouths of lions against our hour of need. To the honour of Dost Mahommed Khan let it be recorded that during the Sepoy war, under the greatest temptation from events and the constant taunts of the fanatical priests of Cabul, he remained true to the treaty, and abstained from raising the green flag of Islam and marching down on the Punjab.”

In another memorandum discussing the alternatives, of advancing into Afghanistan to meet Russia, or of awaiting her attack on our own frontier—which frontier has just been described—and deciding in favour of the latter, Edwardes writes thus:

“By waiting on our present frontier, we husband our money, organise our line of defence, rest upon our base and railroads, save our troops from fatigue, and bring our heaviest artillery into the field; while the enemy can only bring light guns over the passes, has to bribe and fight his way across Afghanistan, wears out and decimates his army, exhausts his treasure and carriage, and, when defeated, has to retreat through the passes and over all Afghanistan—plundered at every march by the tribes.”

Early in 1857 all people in the Punjab, with John the Chief Commissioner at their head, rejoiced to hear that Henry Lawrence had been appointed by Lord Canning to be Chief Commissioner of Oude and would now occupy a position peculiarly suited to his genius.

The narrative, having now reached the month of April, 1857, may pause for a moment on the eve of a perilous crisis. In the coming events the Punjab was destined to play a foremost part, to be the staff for sustaining the empire and the sword for destroying its enemies. It may be well to review in the briefest terms the position which was about to undergo the severest test.