reply to which his Highness has instructed you to inform me that he neither requires nor is disposed to accept them, the British Government harbours no hostile designs against Afghanistan.

The British Government has no sort or kind of quarrel with the people of Afghanistan. It sincerely desires their permanent independence, prosperity, and peace. It has no conceivable object, and certainly no desire, to interfere in their domestic affairs. It will unreservedly respect their independence, and should they at any time be united in a national appeal to its assistance it will doubtless be disposed, and prepared, to aid them in defending that independence from aggression. Meanwhile, the Afghan people may rest fully assured that so long as they are not excited by their Ruler, or others, to acts of aggression upon the territories or friends of the British Government, no British soldier will ever be permitted to enter Afghanistan uninvited.

But the British Government repudiates all liabilities on behalf of the Ameer and his dynasty. The British Government does not indeed withdraw from any obligations previously contracted by it; but it absolutely and emphatically denies that it has ever incurred any such obligations as those imputed to it by your Excellency; and it further affirms that it will never, in any circumstances, undertake such obligations without adequate guarantees for the satisfactory conduct of the Ameer.

At the same time the British Government will scrupulously continue, as hitherto, to respect the Ameer's independence and authority throughout those territories which, up to the present moment, it has recognised as being in the lawful possession of the Ameer, and will duly abstain from interference so long as the Ameer, on his part, no less scrupulously abstains from every kind of interference with tribes or territories not his own.

The Ameer therefore, so long as he remains faithful to those treaty stipulations which your Excellency has invoked on behalf of his Highness, and which the British Government fully recognises as still valid, and therefore binding upon the two contracting parties, need be under no apprehension whatever of any hostile action on the part of the British Government.

We have seen that for all practical purposes the conference was closed on February 19, when Sir L. Pelly

declared that, as Noor Mahomed had rejected the sine quá non, matters could go no further. It was formally closed on March 30, 1878, when the Viceroy telegraphed to Sir L. Pelly as follows (vide p. 222) :—

Close conference immediately, on ground that basis on which we agreed to negotiate has not been acknowledged by Ameer; that, Mir Akhor not being authorised to negotiate on that basis, nor you on any other, conference is terminated ipso facto; and that you will leave Peshawur on a stated day. The date of it you will fix yourself, but it should be as early as conveniently possible, in order to show we are in earnest and avoid further entanglement.

The motive for this step is stated in the next quoted despatch. It shows a complete change of policy between March 15, when the Viceroy was still pressing Shere Ali to receive English Residents, and was depicting the disastrous consequences of a refusal, and March 30, when he no longer wished to have his demand complied with.

So ended the Peshawur conference.

Up to this time, if there was any cause for war-as probably there was not-nothing was brought forward as such. It is true that the British Government had assumed at its own will to set aside a treaty, to repudiate obligations, to demand fresh advantages, under the threat of exchanging friendship for hostility, and of following its own interests without reference to the interests or the rights of the Ameer. But still professions of peace and justice were on its lips. On March 15 the Afghans were assured that if they were not themselves excited to aggression, 'no British soldier will ever be permitted to enter Afghanistan uninvited.' And the Ameer was assured that so long as he abstained from interference with tribes and territories not his own, the British Government will scrupulously continue as hitherto to respect the Ameer's independence and authority' throughout the territories of which his possession has been recognised as lawful. How have those assurances been observed?

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CHAPTER IX.

OFFICIAL VERSION OF THE PESHAWUR CONFERENCE.

ON May 10, 1877, the Government of India sent home the report of their proceedings during the last fourteen months. It is long, but we must give it in full :

No. 36. No. 13 of 1877.

Government of India.-Foreign Department.

Secret.

To the Most Honourable the Marquis of Salisbury, P.C., Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India.

Simla: May 10, 1877.

My Lord Marquis,-We have already notified to your Lordship by telegraph the close of the recent conference at Peshawur between the Envoys of the British and Afghan Governments; and we now take the earliest opportunity in our power of submitting a full report of our proceedings in connection therewith. Those proceedings have been governed by the general principles laid down for our guidance in your Lordship's despatches of January 23 and November 19, 1875, and your further separate instructions of February 28, 1876. We were informed by the above-mentioned communications that, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, the time had arrived when it was desirable to place our relations with Afghanistan on a more definite and satisfactory footing; and that for the attainment of this object the first favourable opportunity should be taken to open amicable negotiations with the Ameer of Cabul.

2. For the complete explanation of the steps taken by us in accordance with the views thus held by Her Majesty's Government, we must preface our report of them by a brief

recapitulation of our past relations with that Prince, so far as they affect the questions dealt with in this letter.

3. The only formal obligation still extant between the British Government and the Barackzai Rulers of Afghanistan is the Treaty of March 30, 1855. This treaty comprises three short articles. The first article established perpetual peace and friendship between the British Government and Dost Mahomed Khan and his heirs; the second pledged the British Government to respect the territories then in his Highness' possession, and never to interfere therein; the third pledged the Dost, his heirs and successors, similarly to respect the territories of the British Government, and to be the friend of its friends and enemy of its enemies, without any such corresponding obligation on our part. It did not take long to prove the somewhat imperfect character of the treaty thus contracted. Two years afterwards, on the first occurrence of a crisis affecting British interests in Afghanistan, a much more complete engagement stipulating for British Agencies in Cabul, Candahar, and Balkh, and granting aid to the Ameer in money and arms, was entered into by Sir John Lawrence and Dost Mahomed. That engagement, though limited to the duration of the war then being waged between the British Government and the Shah of Persia, was declared by Lord Canning to be sound in principle, liberal, and simple; tending to 'redress the somewhat one-sided character of the Treaty of 1855, in which we appeared to take more than we gave; and his Excellency expressed an earnest hope that, independently of the war in which we were then engaged, the relations of the British Power with Afghanistan might remain upon a permanent footing, similar to that upon which the above-mentioned engagement had placed them.

4. Dost Mahomed Khan was informed during the course of the negotiations of 1857, that the British Government's support and assistance of him would be conditional on its officers being received in Afghanistan with the countenance and protection of his Highness. They were not however to exercise authority or command on Afghan territory; their duty (in the performance of which the Ameer was expected to afford them every facility) being simply to give advice when required, and to obtain all the information needed by our Government. The readiness with which the Ameer and his Sirdars perceived the propriety of this condition was, it is said, remarkable; and the measure, although not unattended

by risk, met with reasonable success. This at any rate may be assumed from a careful review of past records, and from the views entertained by the experienced Head of the Mission then stationed at Candahar in favour of a renewal, at the present moment, of the policy then adopted.

5. It must however be observed that, although the residence of a British Mission at Cabul formed part of the stipulations agreed to in 1857, this step was not enforced by the British Government. The Dost urged that the Afghan people would view it with dislike; but Sir John Lawrence deemed it more probable that the real motive of this representation was the disinclination of his Highness to let British officers discover the weakness of his rule, or come in contact with disaffected Chiefs at his capital. Provision was thereupon made in the treaty that, whenever the subsidy should cease, and the British officers have been withdrawn from the Ameer's country, a Vakeel, not an European officer, should remain at Cabul on the part of the British Government, and one at Peshawur on the part of the Government of Cabul. The stipulation thus agreed upon has, so far as the British Government is concerned, been tacitly observed, for convenience sake, from that day to this; but it is worthy of remark that the Government of Cabul withdrew its Vakeel from Peshawur in 1858, and has never replaced him by another. With the exception of this last-mentioned provision, the obligations of the Treaty of 1857 were contracted for a special and limited purpose which has long since lapsed with the lapse of time; it fixed the relations of the British Government with the Ruler of Cabul and their reciprocal obligations for the duration of the war with Persia; and our only object in referring to it now is to bring to recollection the good feeling of the Afghan Ruler and people, some twenty years ago, in regard to the stationing of British Missions in their territory, elsewhere than at Cabul.

6. No further change occurred for some years in the relations between the two Governments. They remained in a condition of friendly reserve. After the death of Dost Mahomed in 1863, Afghanistan became involved in civil war, which lasted four years; it did not necessitate, in the opinion of Lord Lawrence's Government, any active interference on our part. The present Ameer, alone and unaided, after varying fortunes and many severe reverses, regained the throne bequeathed to him by his father, the Dost. But no sooner was he firmly established thereon than he expressed a great desire,-not

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