And now commenced those intrigues and machinations of Russia, of which so great a bugbear was made both in India and England. Mohan Lal maintains that the apprehensions occasioned by these manoeuvres were legitimate and well-founded; that the views of Russia were encroaching and dangerous; and that her name and influence were already seriously injurious to British interests, as far even as the eastern bank of the Indus. Vague rumours of Russian power and valour had spread through British India; had been exaggerated by Eastern hyperbole, and during their passage through many mouths; and had rendered numerous chiefs, Rajput as well as Mahomedan, restless and eager for a fray. Throughout the country there was a growing belief that English power was on the eve of a reverse. We are told of the mission of Captain Vikovich, of Muscovite ducats poured into Afghan pockets, of an extension of influence sought by Russia in Turkistan and Kabul, of arms to be supplied by Persia, and of a Persian army to be marched into Afghanistan to seize upon the disputed province of Peshavar. As the companion and friend of Sir Alexander Burnes during his mission to Kabul, Mohan Lal coincides in the opinions of that officer with respect to the necessity of taking vigorous and immediate steps to counteract the united intrigues of the Shah of Persia and Count Simonich, the Russian ambassador at Tehran. This necessity was pressed upon Lord Auckland in numerous and alarming despatches from Sir A. Burnes and other Anglo-Indian diplomatists.
With such opinions and prognostications daily ringing in his ears, Lord Auckland, who at first, we are told, did not attach much importance to the Vikovich mission and the Russian intrigues, at last took fright, and prepared to adopt the decisive measures so plausibly and perseveringly urged by the alarmists. The well-known and notable plan to be resorted to, was the expulsion of the Amir Dost Mohammed and of the other Barakzai chiefs inimical to the British, and the establishment of a friendly prince upon the throne of Kabul. Who was to be chosen? Two candidates alone appeared eligible--Sultan Mohammed Khan, chief of Peshavar, brother and bitter foe of the Amir, and Shah Shuja, the deposed but legitimate sovereign of Afghanistan. The Shah, who had long lived inactive and retired at Loodianah, was believed, not without reason, to have lost any ability or talent for reigning which he had ever possessed; nevertheless, his name and hereditary right caused him to be preferred by Lord Auckland, whose advisers also were unanimous in their recommendation of Shuja. "As for Shah Shuja," wrote Sir Alexander Burnes, who had now left Kabul, in his letter to the Governor-general, dated 3d June 1838, "the British government have only to send him to Peshavar with an agent, one or two of its own regiments as an honorary escort, and an avowal to the Afghans that we have taken up his cause, to ensure his being fixed _for ever_ on his throne."