administrators which encamped on the Ambála Plain. But if I were to enter on the spectacular aspects of an Indian Viceroy's career this book would swell far beyond the limits assigned to it. My business is with the less imposing but more permanent work actually accomplished. From the moment the Amír crossed our frontier he was received with a magnificence of hospitality which deeply impressed him. At Lahor he let fall the words, 'I now begin to feel myself a King.'
Sher Alí came to India with five distinct objects in view. He desired, in the first place, a treaty. In the second place, he hoped for a fixed annual subsidy. In the third place, for assistance in arms or in men, to be given 'not when the British Government might think fit to grant, but when he might think it needful to solicit it.' In the fourth place, for a well-defined engagement, 'laying the British Government under an obligation to support the Afghán Government in any emergency; and not only that Government generally, but that Government as vested in himself and his direct descendants, and in no others[1].' Finally, he cherished a desire that he might obtain some constructive act of recognition by the British Government in favour of his younger son, Abdullá Ján, whom he brought with him, and whom he wished to make his heir, to the exclusion of his elder son, Yákub Khán, who had helped him to win the throne.
- ↑ Minute in Council, by the Hon. Sir John Strachey, G.C.S.I., sometime acting Governor-General, dated 30th April, 1872.
