Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/61

Rh By this time indeed the growing jealousy of Russian progress eastward, the chatter of diplomatists in both continents, the reports of travellers and roving envoys, the wild gossip of Indian and Afghán bazaars, hashed up in English newspapers and pamphlets, the demand of English trade for new markets, — all conspired with the official despatches received from England to impress Lord Auckland with the need of taking swift precautions against a remote, if not imaginary danger. A year ago he had declared himself resolved 'decidedly to discourage the prosecution by the ex-King Sháh Shujá-ul-Mulk, so long as he may remain under our protection, of further schemes of hostility against the chiefs now in power in Kábul and Kandahár.' Now he spoke of Herát as 'the western frontier of India' from which it was then distant many hundred miles; and prepared to aid Shujá in wresting Kábul and Kandahár from their Bárakzái masters, on the plea that our Saduzai pensioner, as the grandson of Ahmad Sháh, had the best claim to govern a people who had thrice already cast him out. And he proposed that Ranjít Singh should aid Shujá with troops in an enterprise for which the Sikh army had no stomach. General Avitabile, who commanded the garrison at Pesháwar, used to declare that the mere mention of the Kháibar gave his soldiers the colic; and the Afgháns knew that a Sikh advance on Kábul was the last thing they had to fear. Ranjít was a famous warrior, but even his European officers could never make him understand the simple manœuvre