and she dreaded to meet him; candidly confessing her regret upon hearing that the ship in which she sailed would proceed direct to Bombay, instead of first touching at Madras, as had been originally designed. She met him, lived with him, and was of course dissatisfied with the few moments of leisure which the uninteresting man snatched from mercantile concerns or prolix debates in Council. Thenceforth the land of her birth was to her a land of exile. She was a Peri that had lost Paradise, and pined because her lot was earth. The love of the old and eloquent, of two ministers of God who should have been the counsellors of her youth and guardians of her purity, had excited her passions, but inculcated no sound principles. Her vanity had been raised to an exorbitant height, her mind filled with morbid sentiment; and her affection for her husband was now succeeded by such aversion that she was determined, come what might, to escape from his embrace. The author of the Oriental Memoirs, no mean judge of character, met her at this time, and was struck by her elegant taste and refined accomplishments. Believing that their fragrance was wasted in Bombay, and in an Indian desert panting for adorers and an ardent lover, she eloped from her residence now called Belvidere, with an officer of the Royal Navy, who remained for some years afterwards in the Indian seas, and although writs were issued against him, always contrived with the assistance of his brother officers to escape from the hands of justice. The unhappy Eliza sunk in England under a load of sorrow and shame; she died at the early age of thirty-three, a degraded victim of false sentiment and vanity.*

* Sterne's Works; and some curious letters just published by the Philobiblion Society, of which we have only seen a review. Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, chap. xii. Raynal's History. Records of the Mayor's Court of Bombay, 23rd February 1776.

ART. VII. THE POLITICAL RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND INDIA WITH PERSIA.

1. A Great Country's Little Wars; or England, Afghanis tan and Sindh; being a Sketch, with reference to their Morality and Policy, of recent Transactions on the NorthWestern Frontier of India. By HENRY LUSHINGTON. J. W. Parker, London; 1844.

2. Speech of the Right Honorable Vernon Smith on the Affairs of India, in introducing the Indian Budget, House of Commons, 21st July 1856. "TIMES" Newspaper, July

22nd 1856.

3. Bombay Government Gazette Extraordinary, 10th November 1856.

4. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia. By LADY SHIEL, with Notes on Russia, Khoords, Toorkomans, Nestorians, Khiva and Persia. By SIR JUSTIN SHIEL. Post 8vo. Murray, London; 1856.

5. Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Affghanis tan, Turkistan, and Beloochistan; with Historical Notices of the Countries lying between Russia and India. By J. P. FERRIER, formerly of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, &c. &c. 8vo. London: Murray; 1856.

ONE of the greatest of our Indian statesmen, writing privately and familiarly to another, perhaps only second to himself, on the subject of the first Burmese war then raging at its height, opens his epistle with the following remarks entirely independent of his theme :

"My dear Malcolm," says Sir Thomas Munro, addressing Sir John Malcolm from Bangalore in September 1825, "by the desire of Macdonald, I enclose you an interesting paper of his on the difficulties of a Russian invasion of India. I have always considered such an undertaking as impracticable, without the previous conquest of Persia, and the quiet submission of the people to their new masters; neither of which events are likely unless we

* Sir John Macdonald Kinneir, noted for his services in Persia, in the conduct of his mission to that country.

are very negligent." He adds, with playful reference to the subject which he had then most at heart," At all events, the Russian invasion will not come so soon, I hope, as to find us in Ava. Let us get out of that country, and then come Russians and Persians when they will!"

A contemporary of these eminent men, in no respect inferior to either-writing, not hastily or on the spur of the moment, but with all the deliberation and well-considered argument so characteristic of his minutes in Council-thus expressed himself a few years later, when matters connected with the survey of the Indus under Burnes came before him :

"If we are ever to be troubled with a Russian invasion it must be after an approximation of our frontiers; and whether this is to take place by advances on our side or that of Russiawhether she is to conquer the intermediate countries, or acquire influence over them-whether the event apprehended is to occur in ten or twenty years, or in fifty or a hundred-what revolutions are to take place in the mean time in the intermediate states, or in India, or in Russia herself, or throughout the whole world—in what quarter she is to make her attack, and what will be the state of things when she may make it; these are all matters of such uncertainty, that it seems mere wantonness to vex and alarm our neighbours by surveying their lands and rivers by deceit and force, without their consent, and without knowing to what purpose.

"The most probable mode by which the Russians might attempt to assail us, would seem to be by inciting the intermediate nations against us-by inciting the Persians, Afghans, Belooches, Sikhs, &c., with themselves for the plunder of Hindostan, and by pouring all these masses upon us. The inclination to reap booty in India is not wanting in the countries of those tribes. Their traditions of the wealth obtained in former invasions have left strong impressions in favor of such enterprises. The very monkeys in Cabul are taught to flourish a stick and evince delight when asked if they will march to Hindostan. But to produce the effect imagined, how many nations must be conciliated or subdued and if subdued, not conciliated; how many rival and hostile interests must be reconciled, how many disturbances hushed! The requisite combinations of circumstances seem extremely improbable, and a length of time would be indispensable."*

Kaye's Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe; London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1855, pp. 215-16.

Russian invasion of India.

199

Colonel Sutherland, so distinguished for his admirable policy in the management of the Rajpoots, and for his intimate knowledge of the relations subsisting between the British Government and the different Native States, puts the difficulties of a Russian invasion in a still stronger light :

"Russia, it is true, has an army of sufficient magnitude to conquer most of the nations of Asia, supposing that an army could be spared from home. But has she or any other nation of Europe resources to send forth an army of such magnitude as could march from the shores of the Caspian, or from Orenburg, to those of the Indus, through hostile and desert regions, equipped in artillery, stores, and commissariat, as modern armies must be? Must Russia, or any other Christian power which attempts the conquest of India by land, conciliate, conquer, or colonise the intermediate nations? or may she attempt so extended a line of march with the Persians, the Usbeks, the Afghans, and the Dooranee in her rear, with the army of India posted on the Indus in her front, its ordnance and engineer departments equal to any in the world, and the steam-boats and floating batteries of England covering that river to oppose her advance, interrupt her communications, and cut off her retreat? The former system of enterprise will take years to accomplish, and we shall know of the commencement of the attempt in sufficient time to arm ourselves against it, and to give our assistance in organising and preparing the intermediate powers as well as those of India. The latter is an enterprise which it may easily be supposed would stagger the boldest General of the age.' "'*

The Munros, Malcolms, and Metcalfes, were succeeded by a new race of politicians, inferior in every respect in all the leading qualifications that characterise the accomplished statesinan, yet abounding in ability though absorbed by ambition, and restless for distinction. The grave questions that loomed in the distance, and caused anxiety and apprehension to those sagacious veterans at the close of their public career, had, in a few years afterwards, grown to formidable dimensions, and become the all-engrossing topics of the time.

Simultaneously with the appearance of Burnes's work on Central Asia, came the alarm about the spread of "Russian influence in the East." The subject was gossiped about at the clubs, mysteriously mooted in diplomatic circles, fiercely discussed in the daily newspapers, and betimes made a subject of trouble

* Sutherland's Relations of the British Government and Native States, p. 32. 80. Calcutta ; 1837.

some interrogatories to the Foreign Minister by inquisitive Members of Parliament.

A diplomatic official who had been in high employ, known to have been behind the scenes, and intimately versed in all intrigues understood to be going on, sounded the tocsin of alarm by giving vent to his own fears in the memorable pamphlet entitled "The Progress of Russia in the East," and the tone of this brochure, and a hundred others of similar character, were echoed and thundered through the columns of The Times to the remotest corners where the English language is spoken.

The poor English nation, suffering under this fit of Russophobia, saw Russian agents and emissaries at work in every event that happened from Constantinople to Pekin. And whether in intrigues at Teheran-plottings at Candahar-coquettings with chiefs and rulers in Central Asia-or treating with native princes of India-could see and discern but one grand conspiracy for subverting our Indian empire.

The march of a Persian army to besiege Herat, attended by Russian officers, seemed to confirm the worst fears! And so while the Emperor Nicholas was still the august ally of Queen Victoria, and Lord Palmerston and Baron Brunow were reciprocating in the blandest manner the amenities of diplomatic intercourse; after explanations had been asked at St. Petersburgh, and answers and assurances, "deemed highly satisfactory," received in return at St. James's, Europe was startled by the celebrated Simla proclamation, and the invasion of Afghanistan by an Anglo-Indian army.

It is not our present purpose to re-open and discuss afresh the policy which led to that disastrous episode in our Indian annals. The policy in itself, as having for its object the protection of our north-western frontier against invasion, and as seeking to secure it by forming an alliance with the tribes and nations on the confines of what seemed our natural barriers, was not merely defensible, but praiseworthy. That through the recklessness of some, the vacillation of others, and the utter absence of anything like high moral principle in all the leading persons concerned in carrying it out, a policy really just should have been converted into an enormous crime, is perhaps the most painful and humiliating circumstance connected with our Anglo-Indian story.

It was indeed "a grievous fault" "grievously answered." Unfortunately for India, the amiable nobleman then at the head of the Government was utterly incompetent to rule at the crisis which resulted in the Afghan war. That wretched phase of