Note 250 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Mr. Masson says (Narrative, vol. iii., p. 495) that Burnes told him that the expedition across the Indus “had been arranged before he reached Simlah, and that when he arrived Torrens and Colvin came running to him and prayed him to say nothing to unsettle his Lordship; that they had all the trouble in the world to get him into the business, and that even now he would be glad of any pretext to retire from it.” I was for a long time, very sceptical of the truth of this story; and I do not now vouch for it. But I know that some men, with far better opportunities than my own of determining the authenticity of the anecdote, are inclined to believe it.