Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/50

26 best calculated to obtain the result aimed at with the smallest expenditure of blood and money. He directed the formation of a mixed force of English and Indian troops, to be commanded by Sir James Outram, to attack Persia on the side of the Persian Gulf, and he authorised the Governor-General of India to come to a cordial understanding with the Amír of Afghánistán.

Before the army could land on the Persian coast, Herát, I have said, had fallen. But very soon afterwards the Commissioner of the Panjáb, Mr John Lawrence, held at Pesháwar (January 1857) that interview with Dost Muhammad which resulted in a cordial understanding between that sagacious prince and the stern and resolute representative of the might of Great Britain. Later still, Outram, landing at Bushir, gained two victories, which had the effect of forcing the Sháh to sue for peace. The consequence was that, in May 1857, he resigned all claim to Herát, which he surrendered, and signed, by his agents, at Paris, a treaty of peace. The troops composing Outram's force were thus available in May for any service which Lord Canning might require at their hands.

During the year the circumstances attendant upon the refusal of the 38th Regiment N. I. to proceed by sea to Burma had caused Lord Canning to look up an Act, already drafted, having for its object the so altering of the terms of the enlistment of the sipáhí as to make, in the future, every regiment available for service across the seas. The Act did not touch the interests of sipáhís already enlisted. It referred simply to those who might enter the service thereafter. In July 1856 that Act became law. In itself the Act was a just and righteous Act. Issued at any other time, it would have caused no feeling whatever. The men of the six regiments already enlisting for general