Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/108

56 on paying a short visit to Paris, he was welcomed with general enthusiasm as one of the most talented and adventurous of modern travellers, and presented with the silver medal of the French Geographical Society.

The stay of Burnes at home after so long a residence in India, and so much travel, was comparatively brief, extending to only eighteen months, after which he left England on April 5, 1835, and proceeding by the south of France, Egypt, and the Red Sea, he reached Bombay on the 1st of June, and joined Colonel Pottinger, the British Resident at Cutch, as his assistant. Only a few months after, he was sent upon a mission to Hyderabad, to prevent the necessity of a war with Scinde, in which he was successful. While thus occupied in that country, a more important duty was intrusted to him; this was, to negotiate a commercial treaty with Dost Mohammed, sovereign of Afghanistan, and also with the Indian chiefs of the western provinces. He reached Cabool on the 20th of September, 1837. Here, however, he found that his mission was useless, from the danger that menaced our Indian empire through the movements and intrigues of Persia and Russia, and the likelihood of their uniting with the Afghans, while Dost Mohammed, instigated by the Russian agent at his court, gave Burnes an order of dismissal. On his return to head-quarters, it was resolved by the Indian government to replace their pensionary, Shah Soojah, upon the throne of Cabool, as a more peaceable or compliant ally than Dost Mohammed; and Burnes was sent to the army to make arrangements in the commissariat department, preparatory to the invasion of Afghanistan. While thus occupied, he was gratified to learn that his valuable services had not been forgotten at home, for at Shikarpoor he received a copy of the "London Gazette," announcing his promotion to the honour of knighthood and the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Before the commencement of military operations, Sir Alexander Burnes was sent on a political mission from Scinde to Beeloochistan, that failed, upon which he regained the British invading army, that had already advanced, through many difficulties, as far as the fertile valley of Quettah. Here he saw hard military service in the shape of a toilsome march, accompanied with danger and privation of every kind, as well as in the storming of Ghuznee, which was only wrested from the Afghans after a close and desperate hand-to-hand fight of three hours. After this important city was won, Hyder Khan, its governor, one of the sons of Dost Mohammed, who had surrendered himself to the British, was placed under the care of Sir Alexander Burues. Soon after, Dost Mohammed fled from the kingdom, Shah Soojah was replaced in the sovereignty, and such was the appearance of submission on the part of the Afghans, that Sir William M'Naughten was left as British envoy at the court of Cabool, with Sir Alexander Burnes for his assistant. But, unfortunately, this season of calm was soon overcast. The impatient Afghans resumed their insurrectionary spirit, and on several occasions broke forth into revolts that were suppressed with difficulty. Still, however, neither M'Naughten nor Burnes seem to have anticipated any immediate danger, notwithstanding the warnings of Major Pottinger, for 14,000 British soldiers were stationed in Afghanistan, independent of the troops of the new Shah. But, on the 2nd November, 1841, the storm suddenly burst out. At nine o'clock in the morning, the house of Burnes in Cabool was attacked and set on fire by the insurgent multitude, and himself, his brother Lieutenant Charles Burnes, Lieutenant Broadfoot, and every man, woman, and child in the building were murdered. It was the commencement of a fearful tragedy, of which a disastrous retreat, and the destruction