Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/242

 able force in the neighbourhood of Kalát-i-Ghilzai, with the view of cutting the communication between Kandahar and Kabul. The expedition was successful, and the Ghilzais were defeated at Tazi. Cotton further sent a force from Kabul to meet Nott, and under his orders to endeavour to prevent any concentration of Ghilzais and to destroy the forts on the route. This was successfully accomplished, and the rebel chiefs either submitted or fled to the hills, and Nott remained in camp at Húlan Robart settling the country.

In July Nott left Captain Woodburn with a small force at Húlan Robart, and himself returned to Kandahar with the main body. On the way he learned that Kalát was in rebellion. He at once proceeded to put the defences of Kandahar and Quetta in as good a state as he could; and on 9 Sept., in obedience to orders from Kabul, moved from Kandahar to Quetta, and on 25 Oct. arrived at Mastung. He then marched on Kalát; but, on his approach, the enemy evacuated the fortress, and Nott entered it on 3 Nov. 1840. Having placed Colonel Stacey in political charge at Kalát, Nott returned to Quetta, and on 18 Nov. marched to Kandahar. He received the thanks of parliament and of the East India Company for his services.

On 18 Feb. 1841 Major Rawlinson, the political agent at Kandahar, reported to Nott that political relations had been broken off with the Herat government. It was necessary to crush the rebellion in Zamín Dáwar, and despatch a force to the Halmand, to cooperate with the garrison of Girishk and to prevent Akhtar Khan from marching on Kandahar. Nott drew in troops from the Quetta district to Kandahar and sent a force to Girishk. Akhtar Khan submitted.

On 28 June 1841 Nott was appointed to command the second infantry brigade in Afghanistan. Successful expeditions were sent out by Nott in June to Girishk, and in July to Sikandarabad, on the right bank of the Halmand. In September he himself commanded a force against the refractory chiefs of Zamín Dáwar, Tirín, and Derawat, and, having brought the chiefs to a sense of their duty, returned to Kandahar on 1 Nov. On 8 Nov. 1841, in obedience to instructions from headquarters, he sent Maclaren's brigade back to India; but they had not proceeded far when tidings came from Kabul of the rising of the Afghans there. Nott recalled Maclaren's brigade, and, in obedience to orders received from Major-general Elphinstone, who had succeeded Cotton in command of the force in Afghanistan in the previous March, sent the brigade towards Kabul. Nott called in all the troops left at Derawat and Nish, and those encamped at Zamín Dáwar. He strengthened the post at Girishk, and took precautions against any rising in and about Kandahar. Maclaren's brigade was soon compelled to return to Kandahar on account of the severity of the weather.

On 13 Jan. 1842 the command was conferred upon Nott of all troops in Lower Afghanistan and Sind, as well as the control of the political officers in those countries. On 12 Jan. 1842 Safter Jang, Atta Muhammad, and others advanced within a short distance of Kandahar. Nott moved out of the city with five and a half regiments of infantry, the Shah's 1st cavalry, a party of Skinner's horse, and sixteen guns. After a march of four hours over a rough country he came in sight of the enemy, some fifteen thousand strong, drawn up in a formidable position on the right bank of the Argand-áb, with a morass on their flank, which made it difficult to get at them. Nott crossed the river and opened fire with his artillery, and in twenty minutes dispersed the enemy, who, owing to the protection afforded by the position, were enabled to effect a retreat with small loss. After this affair the camp of the Duranis became the nucleus of rebellion.

On 31 Jan. 1842 Nott heard of the murder of Macnaghten at Kabul. In February he was solicitous for the safety of Kalát-i-Ghilzai and the citadel of Ghazni. The enemy had captured the city of Ghazni in December 1841, and driven the garrison into the citadel. On 21 Feb. 1842 orders came to Kandahar from General Elphinstone at Kabul that the troops at Kandahar and Kalát-i-Ghilzai were to return to India. Nott decided that, Elphinstone having written under coercion, the Kabul convention was not binding on the officer in command at Kandahar, and that he would remain where he was, pending definite instructions from Calcutta. Sale, at Jalalabad, had received a similar letter from Kabul, and had replied in the same spirit. News of the fate of Elphinstone's army retiring from Kabul reached Nott immediately after, and he at once wrote to the government of India, pressing upon it the necessity of holding on both at Jalalabad and Kandahar with a view to advancing later upon Kabul and punishing the murderers of Macnaghten. He added that he would not himself budge without express instructions to do so. Nott now ordered all Afghans in Kandahar, some six thousand in number, to leave the city, and posted up a proclamation on 27 Feb. denouncing Safter Jang and his Durani followers. In the be-