508 
JOURNAL OF MAJOR GEORGE BROOKE. 
commercial mission to Kabul, and, notwithstanding that Russia sent 
Vickovich immediately afterwards to try and secure the good-will of 
Dost Muhamad in her favour, the Governor-General might have 
cemented a stronger alliance with him than ever he could have hoped 
to do with Shah Shuja. For the former had by strength of character 
obtained a firmer hand over the uncertain tribal elements of which the 
Afghan kingdom was composed than Shah Zaman or his brother, Shah 
Shuja, had ever possessed. 
But Lord Auckland was influenced too much by three men of un¬ 
doubted talent—Mr. William MacNaghten, Mr. John Colvin, and Mr. 
Henry Torrens. To them we are mainly indebted for the Tripartite 
Treaty, the heads of which were set forth in the manifesto, dated Oct. 
1st, 1838, a document which has caused many minds of less talent than 
its authors to marvel. 
The Governor-General, the Maharaja Runjeet Singh, and Shah Shuja 
united to place the last-named back in the Bala Hissar at Kabul. 
The territories of Runjeet Singh lay in the direct way to Kabul, and 
at one time it was hoped that he would not only furnish a contingent 
to assist, but permit the invading armies to march direct to Peshawur 
and thence to Kabul. But the wily old Lion would by no means consent 
to the invasion of his territories. Mr. Torrens, son of a distinguished 
Peninsular officer, and supposed to have inherited some knowledge of 
the art of war, acquiesced in the choice of the alternative route to cross 
the Indus in Upper Sind and thence move up to Kabul, through 
difficult passes, which it might have cost a campaign to force. Sir 
Henry Fane, the Commander-in-Chief, did not like the idea, but was 
to have commanded. 
So a great interview between the Governor-Generel and Runjeet 
Singh was proposed. Runjeet, decrepit and broken down in health, 
though not in years, was always ready for an opportunity of reviewing 
our troops and judging himself of their efficiencj^. So the Ferozepore 
“tamaslia" 1 was arranged and the “Army of the Indus ” was assembled 
at Ferozepore. 
But on the 8th of November, while the regiments and batteries were 
on their way up, another proclamation from the Governor-General told 
all India that cause for which the sword was being drawn no longer 
existed; the Shah of Persia had broken up his camp before Herat, which 
the gallantry of one man, Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger of the Bombay 
Artillery, held against him for ten months. There was no legitimate 
cause for war. “ All that remained was usurpation and aggression/' 
Kaye justly says. 
However, the war was proceeded with, though the force employed 
was reduced from two divisions of infantry to one, from Bengal. Every 
one knows the sequel. After two years came unparalled disaster, a 
campaign to vindicate our honour, Shah Shuja murdered by a common 
Jazailchi, and Dost Muhamad restored to the country from which he 
had been unjustly driven. 
To us now, half a century after, the fruits of an unholy war remain in 
an enormous debt and a distrust of our motives not yet eradicated from 
the minds of the Sirdars of Afghanistan. 
Show. 
