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Rh with but a brief interval, had been Foreign Secretary. So far as defence against a European Power was concerned, the Treaty of 1814 had become waste paper. Since in 1828 Russia overshadowed Teherán, the cover of Persia no longer existed between Europe and India. In 1835 Mr. Ellis was sent, shortly after Muhammad Sháh's accession to the throne of Persia, as ambassador to Teherán. He was to warn the Persian Government against allowing themselves to be incited by the Russian Minister into forcing a war on the Afgháns. Mr. Ellis, after arrival at Teherán, suggested that danger from the West should be anticipated by sending an envoy to Dost Muhammad Khán, and by offering him British officers to drill his army. Meanwhile a little host of Anglo-Indian officers, foremost among them Burnes and Conolly, had been let loose to explore Central Asia. In the first days of 1836 it had become finally certain that the Sháh of Persia was meditating an attack upon Herát; and it was known that in this object he was encouraged by the Russian Minister. Article 9 of the Treaty of 1814 precluded Great Britain from unsolicited interference. But it is very doubtful whether the direct interference of the English Cabinet had ever come within Lord Palmerston's plans. If India was threatened, by India the attack must be baffled. The approaching crisis was not an English, but an Indian crisis. 'This course was necessary for the defence of our Indian possessions. I say, for the defence of our Indian possessions, because, when we