Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/60

54 his day, and those which prompted Lord Wellesley's efforts to counteract the designs of the powerful Afghán ruler, Zemán Sháh. 'We then counteracted them through Persia. We now wish to do it through the Sikhs.' But meanwhile the old Durání Empire of Ahmad Sháh had gone to pieces, and that of Ranjít had risen to greatness upon its wrecks. While we are doing all we can to keep up the Sikhs as a power east of the Indus, we should also 'consolidate Afghán power west of the Indus, and have a king and not a collection of chiefs;' for another power 'might step in and destroy the chiefships in detail.' But, if the Afgháns were united, we and they could bid defiance to Persia, and we should thus secure 'a steadily progressing influence all along the Indus.' Burnes at any rate had freed himself from the magic of obsolete traditions; but his arguments fell upon ears dazed by the echoes of Persian cannon thundering against the ramparts of Herát. Because certain things had happened to an India torn by intestine quarrels, the wise men at Simla thought that they might be repeated any day against a Government firmly established over a wide dominion, whose base rested on our natural stronghold, the sea, while all the resources of the powerful British nation could be called at need to its support. To let the Persians become masters of Herát seemed to them like throwing open the Gate of India to a power which was making use of Persia as a cat's-paw, in furtherance of the grand scheme of conquest popularly ascribed to Peter the Great.