History of the War in Afghanistan (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FRANCE AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. 35 CHAPTER IH. [1801?1808.] France and Russia in the East?Death of Hadjee Khalil Khan?The Mission of Condolence?Aga Nebee Khan?Extension of Russian Dominion in the East?French Diplomacy in Persia?The pacification of Tilsit ?Decline of French influence at Teheran. The intestine wars, which rent and convulsed the Afghan Empire, were a source of acknowledged security to the British power in the East. From the time when in the first year of the present century Captain Malcolm dictated at the Court of Teheran the terms of that early treaty, which French writers freely condemn, and Englishmen are ashamed to vindicate, to the date of the romantic pacification of Tilsit, the politics of Central Asia excited little interest or alarm in the Council-Chamber of Calcutta. India had ceased to bestir itself about an Afghan invasion. Instead of a shadowy enemy from beyond the Indus, the British had now to face, on the banks of the Jumna, a real and formidable foe. The genius of the two Wellesleys was called into action to curb the insolence and crush the power of the Mahrattas; and whilst we were alternately fighting and negotiating with Scin- diah and Holkar, we scarcely cared to ask who reigned in Afghanistan; or if accident made us acquainted withthe progress of events, viewed with philosophic unconcern the vicissitudes of the Douranee Empire. Content with the obligations imposed upon the Shah by the terms of the Malcolm treaty, and engaged in the solution of more pressing political questions at home, Lord Wellesley and his immediate successors bestowed little thought upon the Persian alliance. Throughout the remaining years of that nobleman's administration, one event alone occurred to rouse the Governor-General to a consideration of the temper of...