s permanent ambassador.

[Pageheading: _ELPHINSTONE IN AFGHANISTAN._]

Two other envoys selected by Minto left names which are famous in
Anglo-Indian history, and one achieved an important success. Charles
Metcalfe, Minto's envoy to Lahore, succeeded with the advantage of an
armed force within easy reach of the Sikh frontier, in converting into
an ally the redoubtable Ranjit Singh (not to be confounded with Ranjit
Singh of Bhartpur), who had gathered into his own hands the Sikh
confederacy and acquired sovereignty over the whole Punjab. He was now
induced not only to accept the Sutlej river as the boundary line of his
dominion, but to conclude a treaty of perpetual amity with the British
government. This treaty remained unbroken until his death, and stood us
in good stead during the perilous crisis of the first Afghan war. The
embassy of Mountstuart Elphinstone to Afghanistan was comparatively
fruitless, chiefly owing to the unsettled state of that mysterious
country. Shah Shuja, its titular amir, so far from being in a condition
to resist French invasion, had lost possession of Kabul and Kandahar,
and was only anxious to obtain British aid against his elder brother
Mahmud. Elphinstone, of course, had no authority to entangle the Company
in a civil war far beyond the Indian frontier and was obliged to content
himself with a worthless treaty empowering Great Britain to defend
Afghanistan against France. This treaty had scarcely been ratified when
Shah Shuja himself was driven into exile, to play an ignoble part thirty
years later in the great tragedy of the first Afghan war.

However pacific Minto's policy was, he did not shut his eyes to the
necessity of guarding the coasts and commerce of India against the enemy
who still dominated Europe, and had not wholly abandoned his visions of
eastern conquest. We have seen already that the "half way" naval station
at the Cape of Good Hope had been retaken from the Dutch in 1806, the
year in which the Berlin decree was issued. In 1810 the French were
expelled from Java by an expedition despatched under Minto's orders,
though it was soon to be restored to Holland. In the same year the
islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were captured from the French and the
sea route to India was finally secured. Lord Minto, who was recalled in
1813 and raised to the dignity of an earl, left India after six years of
peaceful government in a state of tranquillity such as it had never
before enjoyed,