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MR. McNEILL'S PAMPHLET
85

standing that the danger to British interests is greatest and most imminent. ... It signifies little to object that the Russian troops are not even yet at Herát; the time may not be ripe for the last decided step of military occupation; but it is fast approaching, and all is prepared to take advantage of the proper moment; and if England remains as indifferent to the present and the future as she has been to the past that consummation will speedily be witnessed. The regiment,' added the pamphlet, 'that is now stationed at her (Russia's) farthest frontier-post on the western shore of the Caspian, has as great a distance to march back to Moscow as onward to Attock on the Indus, and is actually further from St. Petersburg than from Lahore, the capital of the Seikh. The battalions of the Russian Imperial Guard that invaded Persia found, at the termination of the war, that they were as near to Herát as to the banks of the Don; that they had already accomplished half the distance from their capital to Delhi; and that therefore, from their camp in Persia, they had as great a distance to march back to St. Petersburg as onward to the capital of Hindustán. Meanwhile the Moscow Gazette threatens to dictate at Calcutta the next peace with England, and Russia never ceases to urge the Persian Government to accept from it, free of all cost, officers to discipline its troops and arms and artillery for its soldiers, at the same time that her own battalions are ready to march into Persia whenever the Sháh, to whom their services are freely offered, can be induced to require their assistance.'

The pamphleteer who published these words was the Minister selected by Lord Palmerston in the year of their publication to represent Great Britain in Persia. If no other symptom were forthcoming of the views which found favour in England, we should have here very strong presumption that Lord Auck-