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Rh Lieut.-Col. Sir Alexander Burnes, has failed, and that Major Leech, who was accredited to the Court of Kandahár, has also been obliged to return from that city. Still more concerned have we been to find that a Russian agent has been openly received at Kábul, and that the Sirdárs of Kandahár have entered into a Treaty with the Sháh of Persia, by which the Shah consents to establish the power of the Sirdárs in Herát under certain conditions, and that the Ambassador of the Emperor of Russia has, under his own hand, bound himself to secure the fulfilment of the Treaty.

'15. It is obvious that such an engagement is altogether at variance with British interests in Central Asia, and that should Herát fall into the hands of the Shah and be delivered over to the Sirdárs of Kandahár, those Princes, as well as the Amír of Kábul, would be only the vassals of Persia, whilst the Sháh himself would be but an instrument in the hands of Russia, to be used, or not, as occasion might require, in direct hostility to our Indian Empire. A due regard even for the security of British India, to say nothing of the character which we have hitherto maintained in the regions bordering on our North-Western frontier, makes it indispensable that we should re-establish whatever influence and authority late occurrences may have deprived us of in Afghánistán.

'16. We have hitherto declined to take part in the intestine dissensions of the Afghán States, and when Sháh Shujá-ul-Mulk recently endeavoured to recover his throne, and advanced against the present ruler of Kábul, we gave no assistance either to that chieftain or to his antagonist. But as our efforts to cultivate a closer alliance with Dost Muhammad and his brothers of Kandahár have not only failed, but those Princes have, as it were, thrown themselves into the arms of a Power whose nearer approach to the Indus is incompatible with the safety of Her Majesty's Indian possessions, it becomes our imperative duty to adopt some course of