appealed to the British functionaries, who remonstrated with the
minister, and the minister punished the people for appealing to the
British functionaries. The Shah was free to confer grants of land on his
creatures, but when the holders resisted, he was unable to enforce his
will since he was not allowed to employ soldiers; and the odium of the
forcible confiscation ultimately fell on Macnaghten, who alone had the
ordering of expeditions, and who could not see the Shah belittled by
non-fulfilment of his requisitions.

Justice sold by venal judges, oppression and corruption rampant in every
department of internal administration, it was no wonder that nobles and
people alike resented the inflictions under whose sting they writhed.
They were accustomed to a certain amount of oppression; Dost Mahomed had
chastised them with whips, but Shah Soojah, whom the English had brought,
was chastising them with scorpions. And they felt his yoke the more
bitterly because, with the shrewd acuteness of the race, they recognised
the really servile condition of this new king. They fretted, too, under
the sharp bit of the British political agents who were strewn about the
country, in the execution of a miserable and futile policy, and whose
lives, in a few instances, did not maintain the good name of their
country. Dost Mahomed had maintained his sway by politic management of
the chiefs, and through them of the tribes. Macnaghten would have done
well to impress on Shah Soojah the wisdom of pursuing the same tactics.
There was, it is true, the alternative of destroying the power of the
barons, but that policy involved a stubborn and doubtful struggle, and
prolonged occupation of the country by British troops in great strength.
Macnaghten professed our occupation of Afghanistan to be temporary; yet
he was clearly adventuring on the rash experiment of weakening the nobles
when he set about the enlistment of local tribal levies, who, paid from
the Royal treasury and commanded by British officers, were expected to be