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50 Ranjít Singh, namely, that Pesháwar should be handed over to the joint keeping of Sultán Muhammad and the Amír.

The Tzar's letter was long but harmless. Stripped of all flourishes, it merely thanked the Amír for his friendly promises to encourage trade between Russian subjects and the people of Kábul, and informed his Highness that 'a man of dignity' was on his way to Kábul, bearing with him certain 'rarities' which the Tzar himself had sent to the Amír. If Viktevitch brought with him any private instructions from Count Simonich at Teherán, the Amír was in no hurry to learn their purport, so long as the British Agent could speak words of comfort into his ear.

By the 21st of February, 1838, Burnes himself began to give up all hope of winning 'the neck-and-neck race,' as he had called it, between Russia and England in Afghánistán. Lord Auckland's latest letters to him and Dost Muhammad declared in the plainest language that compliance with the Amír's demands was quite impossible, that the question of Pesháwar must be left in the hands of Ranjít Singh, 'our firm and ancient ally,' with whom the Amír would find his advantage in making peace. The goodwill and protection of the Indian Government would be assured to the Afghán ruler so long as he placed his foreign policy under British guidance.