ding them at some convenient season (which many
conceive to be in every alternate year) upon a lucrative foray. But this
was exactly what we came to prevent. What we should have done is
manifestly this. How much could the Shah have levied on all
Affghanistan? A matter of L. 300,000 at most. But this was the _gross_
sum, before deducting any thing for costs of collecting, which costs
were often eighty shillings in the pound, besides counting on the
_little_ aid of our bayonets as a service wholly gratuitous. The sum
netted by the exchequer must have been laughably small; and even in that
respect the poor king must often have sighed for his quiet English
lodgings on the left bank of the Sutlege. Now, surely this trivial
revenue might have been furnished on the following plan. In a country
like Affghanistan, where the king _can_ be no more than the first of the
sirdars, it is indispensable to raise his revenue, meaning the costs of
his courtly establishment, as we ourselves did in England till the
period of 1688. And how was _that?_ Chiefly on crown estates, parks,
forests, warrens, mines, just as every private subject raised his
revenue, reserving all attempt at _taxes_ in the shape of aids,
subsidies, or benevolences, for some extraordinary case of war, foreign
or domestic. Our kings, English and Scotch, lived like other country
gentlemen, on the produce of their farms. Fortunately for such a plan,
at that moment there must have been a fine harvest of forfeitures rising
to the sickle all over the Affghan land, for rebels were as thick as
blackberries. But, if any _deficit_ had still shown itself on the Shah's
rent-roll, one half of that L.30,000 a-year which we allowed to the Dost
when our prisoner, or of that smaller sum[1] which we allowed to the
Shah when our guest, would have made it good. Yet what if we had spent
a million sterling through a period of ten years, as a sort of
scaffolding for the support of our new edifice whilst yet green and
rising? Even in that case, and supposing us to have taken our leave of
the Dooraunee throne at the end of one year, after planting it as
firmly as it ever could be planted, we should have pocketed six million
of pounds sterling that now are gone; whereas we insisted on sinking
three millions per annum for the first three years, in some bottomless
Affghan Chatmoss, with the effect (seemingly with the intention) of
enabling King Soojah to earn universal hatred by netting a few lacs