There is but scanty evidence to enable us to determine the point. That which is most credible is the evidence of Saleh Mahomed, a youth whom Major Todd despatched from Herat, to join Captain Conolly’s suit. His story is, that in the month of June, 1842, Stoddart and Conolly were executed by order of the Ameer; that he derived his information from one of the executioners; and that he saw their graves. On the 17th of June, it is related, they were taken out of their prison, and, in the presence of an assembled multitude, led into a small square. Their hands were bound together before them. Their graves were dug before their eyes. Stoddart was first marked for death. He cried aloud against the tyranny of the Ameer; and his head was cut off with a knife. Conolly was then offered his life, on condition that he would adopt the Mussulman faith. But he indignantly rejected the proposal. “Stoddart,” he said, “became a Mussulman, and yet you kill him: I am prepared to die.” And then Arthur Conolly, full of faith in the merits of his Redeemer, stretched forth his neck, and died.[213]
There is nothing more painful than this in all the history of the Central-Asian war. It would be unjust to encourage a belief in the reader’s mind that efforts were not made to compass the liberation of Colonel Stoddart. From the time when Major Pottinger first received at Herat intimation of his friend’s captivity, and wrote to the Ameer a protest against the outrage he had committed, to a date long subsequent to the deaths of Stoddart and Conolly, continual efforts were made, both from the side of India and of England, to accomplish this great object. Todd did all that he could do from Herat; Abbott and Shakespear did all that they could do from Khiva; Macnaghten did all that he could do from Caubul; Lord Auckland did all that he could do from Calcutta. From London, Lord Palmerston directed our ambassadors at St. Petersburgh and Constantinople to obtain the agency of the Courts at which they were resident; and both the Sultan and Count Nesselrode wrote urgent letters to Bokhara in behalf of the British prisoners.[214] But when all this is related, it still appears that more regard might have been shown for Stoddart’s position, and that if there had been greater promptitude in answering the references made by him to the home authorities, he might have taken advantage of a favorable change in the feelings of the Ameer, and of his own circumstances, to take his departure from Bokhara. Certain it is that Stoddart felt acutely the culpable indifference to his fate displayed by the British Government. As far back as the July of the preceding year he had written: