Note 236 — Chapter V

All the circumstances attending their surrender ought to be related. The incident is thus feelingly chronicled by Captain Johnson: “Two days after the death of Shah Soojah, the people of Caubul demanded that our hostages, who had been left under charge of Mahomed Zemaun Khan, should be given up to the care of the son of the late High Priest, Meer Hadjee. The former noble-hearted gentleman, than whom no father could have behaved more tenderly to his children, begged and entreated with tears that the separation should not take place—adding that he was willing to give up his own family to the popular will, but not the English gentlemen who had been entrusted to his care, and who were his honoured guests—that he would, if the people so willed it, make over to them his own son, with his sword round his neck, and his turban for a winding-sheet, to be dealt with according to their pleasure; but that force alone should deprive him of the society of his friends. When all entreaties failed, he hoped to work upon the feelings of the party at the conference by telling them that their chief and his own sister and relations were in the hands of the British Government, and that vengeance would assuredly be dealt upon them if the English gentlemen sustained the slightest injury. On this, a grey-bearded old gentleman told him and the rest that they might make their minds perfectly easy as regarded the Afghan prisoners in India, as it was contrary to the uses of Englishmen to hurt a hair of the heads of their captives. The clamour of the people prevailed over all that the Newab could urge, and with many a bitter feeling did this amiable man make over the hostages to Meer Hadjee, with prayers and entreaties to the latter that he would behave kindly to them; and at the same time he sent with them to the latter’s house all the females of his family, as the surest means of their protection; for however excited a Mussulman population may be, it is seldom or ever that they violate a harem.”—[Captain Johnson’s MS. Journal.]