Page:John Russell Colvin.djvu/98

90 and learning to practise good government at home, should have engaged in wars of aggression to their eastward, and should be throwing eon fusion into the countries of Herát, Kandahár, and Kábul, where all was more than sufficiently weak and unsettled before. I see no reason for direct interference in all this from this side; and we have nothing else at present to do than to keep ourselves strong, and to wait for occasion of using our influence.'

On the same date ho writes to Sir John Hobhouse:

'In the meantime, as this cloud becomes lighter' (the threatened attack on Sind by the Mahárájá Ranjít Singh), 'one yet more threatening to the peace of these districts is collecting in the further west, and the Persians are rapidly advancing towards Herát. I am sorry for this. We are feeding whatever there is of military strength in Persia, that she may interfere with British objects; bring her own and consequently Russian influence nearer to our frontier, and throw into confusion and disorder all those countries in which we were most anxious to see established tranquillity and commerce. It is not easy for us to take any steps to counteract this move from India, and I have heard nothing from McNeill.'

For more than another year the Governor-General watched his plans developing. From Captain Wade at Ludhiána, from Colonel Pottinger at Haidarábád, he continued to receive intelligence which led him to believe that in the Punjab and Sind his policy would be accepted. Captain Burnes was on his way to Kábul, and on the success of his mission depended the whole scheme. The corner-stone of the scheme of frontier defence against 'the extension of Persian