In that year Lord Auckland was Governor-General, and Captain Alexander
Burnes was sent on a commercial mission up the Indus, and through the
Kyber Pass, to Cabul, where he was received in a friendly manner by the
Ameer Dost Mahomed. It must be borne in mind that neither Scinde nor the
Punjaub was then under our rule, so that our frontiers were still far
distant from Afghanistan. It was supposed at the time that Russia was
advancing southward towards India in league with Persia, and the mission
of Burnes was in reality political, its object being to induce the Ameer
to enter into a friendly alliance.

Dost Mahomed was quite willing to meet our views, and offered to give
up altogether any connection with the two Powers named. It, however,
soon became apparent that our interests were by no means identical; his
great object, as we found, being to recover the Peshawur district, which
had been taken a few years previously by Runjeet Singh, while we, on the
other hand, courted his friendship chiefly in order that his country
might prove a barrier against the advance of Russia and Persia.

These respective views were evidently divergent and the issues
doubtful; when suddenly a Russian Envoy (Vicovitch), also on a so-called
commercial mission, arrived at Cabul, offering the Ameer money and
assistance against the Sikhs. This altered the aspect of affairs. Burnes
wrote to the Governor-General that the Russians were evidently trying to
outbid us. Still some hope remained, until definite instructions arrived
from Lord Auckland declining to mediate with or to act against Runjeet
Singh, the ruler of the Punjaub. The Ameer felt that we made great
demands on him but gave him nothing in return. It then became evident
that the mission of Burnes was a failure, and in April 1838 he returned
to India. It was our first direct effort to provide against a distant
and unsubstantial danger, and it failed; but unfortunately we did not