to this object
the conduct of our relations with the rulers of Kabul, it was our
long-continued endeavour to find in their friendship and their
strength the requisite guarantees for the security of our own
frontier. Failing in that endeavour, we were compelled to seek the
attainment of the object to which our Afghan policy was, and is
still, exclusively directed, by rendering the permanent security
of our frontier as much as possible independent of such
conditions.

This obligation was not accepted without reluctance. Not even when
forced into hostilities by the late Amir Sher Ali Khan's espousal
of a Russian alliance, proposed by Russia in contemplation of a
rupture with the British Government, did we relinquish our desire
for the renewal of relations with a strong and friendly Afghan
Power, and, when the son of Sher Ali subsequently sought our
alliance and protection, they were at once accorded to him, on
conditions of which His Highness professed to appreciate the
generosity. The crime, however, which dissolved the Treaty of
Gandamak, and the disclosures which followed that event, finally
convinced the Government of India that the interests committed to
its care could not but be gravely imperilled by further adhesion
to a policy dependent for its fruition on the gratitude, the good
faith, the assumed self-interest, or the personal character of any
Afghan Prince.

When, therefore, Her Majesty's troops re-entered Afghanistan in
September last, it was with two well-defined and plainly-avowed
objects. The first was to avenge the treacherous massacre of
the British Mission at Kabul; the second was to maintain the
safeguards sought through the Treaty of Gandamak, by providing
for their maintenance guarantees of a more substantial and less
precarious character.

These two objects have been maintained: the first by the capture
of Kabul and the punishment of the crime committed there, the
second by the severance of Kandahar from the Kabul power.

Satisfied with their attainment, the Government of India has no
longer any motive or desire to enter into fresh treaty engagements
with the Rulers of Kabul. The arrangements and exchange of
friendly assurances with the Amir Sher Ali, though supplemented on
the part of the Government of India by subsidies and favours of
vari