'What Ameer?' asked Macnaghten.
'Dost Mahomed Khan,' was the reply, and sure enough there was the Dost
close at hand. Dismounting, this Afghan prince and gentleman saluted the
Envoy, and offered him his sword, which Macnaghten declined to take. Dost
and Envoy rode into Cabul together, and such was the impression the
former made on the latter that Macnaghten, who a month before had
permitted himself to think of putting a price on 'the fellow's' head,
begged now of the Governor-General 'that the Dost be treated more
handsomely than was Shah Soojah, who had no claim on us.' And then
followed a strange confession for the man to make who made the tripartite
treaty, and approved the Simla manifesto: 'We had no hand in depriving
the Shah of his kingdom, _whereas we ejected the Dost, who never offended
us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim_.'
Durand regards Dost Mahomed's surrender as 'evincing a strange
pusillanimity.' This opprobrious judgment appears unjustified. No doubt
he was weary of the fugitive life he had been leading, but to pronounce
him afraid that the Kohistanees or any other Afghans would betray him is
to ignore the fact that he had been for months among people who might,
any hour of any day, have betrayed him if they had chosen. Nobler motives
than those ascribed to him by Durand may be supposed to have actuated a
man of his simple and lofty nature.
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