Note 132 — Chapter I

It is probably of this meeting, or one shortly preceding it, of which General Harlan, who has not much regard for dates, speaks in the following passage. Harlan had by this time quitted Runjeet Singh’s camp, and taken service with Dost Mahomed:-“The document (Lord Auckland’s ultimatum) was handed to me amongst others. I satisfied myself, by the Governor-General’s signature, of its authenticity, surveying the contents with extreme surprise and disappointment. Dost Mahomed was mortified, but not terrified.... The Governor-General’s ultimatum was handed round, and an embarrassing silence ensued. A few minutes elapsed, when Abdul Sami Khan recalled the party from abstraction.... He proclaimed that the Governor-General’s ultimatum left no other alternative than the dismission of the English agent, for the spirit of the Kuzzilbash party was supercilious and unyielding, though full of duplicity.... Nieb Mahomed Ameer Khan, Akhondzadeh, openly opposed the Kuzzilbash party, and urged many weighty arguments in favour of a pacific settlement of the Ameer’s relations with the British Government, which had now assumed a position so inauspicious. He concluded his oration with these words, addressing the Ameer: ‘There is no other recourse for you but to introduce Mr. Harlan in the negotiations with Mr. Burnes, and he, through his own facilities and wisdom, will arrange a treaty according to their European usage, for the pacific and advantageous settlement of your affairs;’ and to this proposition the council unanimously assented.” The proposition, it appears, was made to Burnes; but Burnes declined the honour of negotiating with the doctor-general. Harland says that he then wrote to the British envoy, offering to “negotiate upon his own terms;” but Burnes sent “a reply personally friendly,” but “evincing a deficiency of knowledge of first principles concerning the rights of independent powers in political negotiations.” Burnes says nothing about this in his official or private letters.