observable in the character of the higher order of men in Southern Asia.'




CHAPTER III: THE FIRST YEAR OF OCCUPATION

Sir John Kaye, in his picturesque if diffuse history of the first Afghan
war, lays it down that, in seating Shah Soojah on the Cabul throne, 'the
British Government had done all that it had undertaken to do,' and Durand
argues that, having accomplished this, 'the British army could have then
been withdrawn with the honour and fame of entire success.' The facts
apparently do not justify the reasoning of either writer. In the Simla
manifesto, in which Lord Auckland embodied the rationale of his policy,
he expressed the confident hope 'that the Shah will be speedily replaced
on his throne by his own subjects and adherents, and when once he shall
be received in power, and the independence and integrity of Afghanistan
established, the British army will be withdrawn.' The Shah had been
indeed restored to his throne, but by British bayonets, not by 'his own
subjects and adherents.' It could not seriously be maintained that he was
secure in power, or that the independence and integrity of Afghanistan
were established when British troops were holding Candahar, Ghuznee and
Cabul, the only three positions where the Shah was nominally paramount,
when the fugitive Dost was still within its borders, when intrigue and
disaffection were seething in every valley and on every hill-side, and
when the principality of Herat maintained a contemptuous independence.
Macnaghten might avow himself convinced of the popularity of the Shah,
and believe or strive to believe that the Afghans had received the puppet
king `with feelings nearly amounting to adoration,' but he did not
venture to support the conviction he avowed by advocating that the Shah