Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/247

Macnaghten employment of bribes and pecuniary allowances to native chiefs to buy their support for the new ameer, he intolerably burdened the Indian treasury, and also prepared for the outbreak, which eventually occurred, when it became necessary to reduce the amount of the allowances. At the moment Macnaghten organised a local corps of mountaineers to keep open the passes, by which the expedition communicated with its distant base on the Indus ; but this placed the commissariat and supplies of the force at the mercy of faithless and rapacious tribesmen. When the shah entered Candahar, Macnaghten reported that he was received with enthusiasm. Although the statement was completely falsified by subsequent events, its sincerity need not be questioned. Macnaghten was incurably optimistic ; and, pledged as he was to the policy of intervention in Afghanistan, he took an unduly hopeful view alike of Shah Soojah's character and of the attitude of his people towards him. He continued to deal successfully with the difficulties occasioned by the perfidy of the khan of Khelat, the surrender of the yrmily of Dost Mahomed, the despatch of a Russian force to Khiva, and the detention of Colonel Stoddart at Bokhara. Unfortunately Indian experience and precedents afforded little guidance in Afghanistan. Even Macnaghten soon realised that Shah Soojah alone would never govern his Afghan subjects, and that the occupation of Cabul and Candahar by British troops must continue for an indefinite period. The difficulty of keeping a puppet-prince on the throne by British arms, while at the same time investing him with the appearance of independence, and allaying the jealousy of his subjects, only increased as the months of 1840 went on. Macnaghten was forced to witness much cruelty and misgovernment, which the treaty with the shah forbade him to suppress, as being matters within the internal government of Afghanistan, although he felt that the presence of the British troops in the country made us morally responsible. Soon the influence of the chiefs was thrown into the scale against him. Dost Mahomed escaped from Bokhara, and the whole country from Cabul to the Oxus rose in his support. The shah's new levies deserted to the deposed ameer, and though the Dost was defeated on 17 Sept. atBamian, Shah Soojah's own forces had vanished. Suddenly on 3 Nov. the situation seemed to improve, when Dost Mahomed gave himself up to Macnaghten in person. All through the early part of 1841 the envoy was occupied with reorganising the administration of Afghanistan, and in spite of many signs of uneasiness he believed that all was quiet throughout the length and breadth of the land, and disregarded Sir Alexander Burnes's warnings and Pottinger's unfavourable reports from Kohistan and the Nijrow country. Macnaghten had been created a baronet 18 Jan. 1840. In September following he was appointed a provisional member of the council of India. In September 1841 he was nominated governor of Bombay, and he determined to assume his new office in November. On 25 Sept. he protested energetically against an evacuation of Afghanistan. Some months earlier he had made requisitions for further troops from India, but ne now admitted the necessity of relieving the enormous strain, which the cost — about 1,250,000l. per annum — of the occupation and the subsidies to the Afghan chiefs was putting on the finances of India. Since the troops could not be withdrawn the stipends were reduced. Disaffection, always smouldering, was at once fanned into a flame. The Kohistanees and the Nijrowees assumed a threatening attitude ; the Eastern Ghilzyes began to plunder the caravans in the Khyber pass and to cut the communications of the expedition with India. Still on the surface all seemed quiet, and on 1 Nov. Burnes waited on him with congratulations upon the state of profound peace m which he was leaving the country. At that moment the Afghan chiefs were arranging for rebellion. 'The immediate cause of the outbreak' as a memorandum of Macnaghten's records, 'was a seditious letter addressed by Abdoolah Khan to several chiefs of influence at Cabul, stating that it was the design of the envoy to seize and send them all to London.'

A street riot on 2 Nov. heralded the out-break, and Sir Alexander Burnes [q. v.], who lived in the city, was murdered. The English, force at Cabul, under the command of an incapable general, 'William George Keith Elphinstone [q. v.], had been reduced by the despatch of troops to deal with disturbances in the Nijrow country and in Kohistan, and it was cantoned in an exposed situation. Macnaghten called upon Elphinstone for immediate action, but nothmg was done. The riot of the 2nd, which half a dozen companies of sepoys could have quelled in an ', had developed into a national uprising by the 4th, when the British army had become a disorganised and helpless crowd. Provisions ran short; those in command thought of retreat, and the possibility of successful defence diminished daily. When the Barukzye chief, Osman Khan, sent in an offer to treat on 24 Nov., Macnaghten entertained it in principle, but rejected the terms offered. On 8 Dec. he invited the opinion of the military commanders upon the feasibility of further resistance, and re-