Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/129

Rh Sháh of Persia, and offered help to the Durání insurgents in Zamíndáwar. They got fresh subsidies under false pretences out of Todd, whose eyes were opened too late to the Wazír's audacious perfidies. In February, 1841, Todd agreed to comply with the Wazír's demands for more money, if Kámrán would admit a British garrison into Herát. The Wazír replied by demanding the retirement of the Mission unless the money were paid down. Hopeless of achieving the main object of his errand, Todd withdrew the Mission at once, to the extreme annoyance of Lord Auckland, who hastened to disavow his Agent's indiscreet demand, and to remove him from political employ. Todd returned to regimental duty; while Macnaghten, the prime mover in the policy thus condemned, was simply reminded that 'we should first learn to quiet and control the positions we occupied, before we plunged onwards .'

In that same month of February the despatch of troops from Jalálábád, under Colonel Shelton of the 44th Foot, against an insurgent tribe in the Nazirán valley, furnished a curious comment on the miraculous tranquillity of which the Envoy had spoken a few days before. By the middle of March Shelton s force had destroyed a hundred fortlets in that district. Aktar Khán, the Durání leader, had by this time made his submission at Kandahár; but a new cause of quarrel sprang up in the country watered by the Tarnak. The needless storming of a small fort in the Tarnak valley, and the measures taken for strengthen-