ABSTRACT

Among the difficulties to which Sir Robert Peel’s government succeeded, none was more conspicuous in the eyes of the world than our affairs in India. It was not that misfortunes had happened, such as must be looked for, from time to time, in all dependencies, – a scarcity in one region, a case of disputed succession in another, a discontented border-neighbor elsewhere: there was quite enough of this kind of difficulty. Mr. Ellis warned the Persian government of the extreme displeasure with which Great Britain would regard any attempt of Persia over Afghanistan, beyond that of settling its quarrel at Herat; and he proposed that that dispute should be disposed of by negotiation, rather than by war. There were endless quarrels among the rulers of different cities and districts of the Cabool territory, whether of the same or different families.