55, whereby the Ameer promised effective help to the Indian
Government, if need be, and gained only friendly assurance in return.
The Duke of Argyll telegraphed in reply on July 26:--

Cabinet thinks you should inform Ameer that we do not at all share his
alarm, and consider there is no cause for it; but you may assure him we
shall maintain our settled policy in favour of Afghanistan if he abides
by our advice in external affairs[290].

[Footnote 290: Argyll, _op. cit._ vol. ii. 331. The Gladstone Cabinet
clearly weakened Lord Northbrook's original proposal, and must therefore
bear a large share of responsibility for the alienation of the Ameer
which soon ensued. The Duke succeeded in showing up many inaccuracies in
the versions of these events afterwards given by Lord Lytton and Lord
Cranbrook; but he was seemingly quite unconscious of the consequences
resulting from adherence to an outworn theory.]

This answer, together with a present of L100,000 and 20,000 rifles, was
all that the Ameer gained; his own shrewd sense had shown him long
before that Britain must in any case defend Afghanistan against Russia.
What he wanted was an official recognition of his own personal position
as ruler, while he acted, so to speak, as the "Count of the Marches" of
India. The Gladstone Government held out no hopes of assuring the future
of their _Mark-graf_ or of his children after him. The remembrance of
the disaster in the Khyber Pass in 1841 haunted them, as it had done
their predecessors, like a ghost, and scared them from the course of
action which might probably have led to the conclusion of a close
offensive and defensive alliance between India and Afghanistan.

Such a consummation was devoutly to be hoped for in view of events which
had transpired in Central Asia. Khiva had been captured by the Russians.
This Khanate intervened between Bokhara and the Caspian Sea, which the
Russians used as their base of operations on the west. The plea of
necessity was again put forward, and it might have been urged as
forcibly on geographical and strategic grounds as on the causes that
were alleged for the rupture. They consisted mainly of the frontier
incidents that are wont to occur with restless, uncivilised neighbours.
The Czar's Government also accused the Khivans of holding some Russian
subjects in captivity, and of breaking their treaty of 1842 with Russia
by helping the Khirgiz Horde in a recent revolt against their
new masters.