inform your majesty that if Herat should have
surrendered to your majesty, the British government will consider your
continuing to occupy that or any other portion of Affghanistan as an
hostile demonstration against England. Your majesty is no doubt informed
by your government of Fars, that a body of British troops, and a naval
armament, consisting of five ships of war, have already arrived in the
Persian Gulf, and that for the present the troops have been landed in
the Island of Karrak. The measures your majesty may adopt in consequence
of this representation, will decide the future movements and proceedings
of that armament; but your majesty must perceive, from the view which
her majesty's government has taken of the present state of affairs,
and from the effect which must have been produced upon the minds of her
majesty's ministers and the British authorities in India, and by the
subsequent proceedings of the Persian government, with which they were
not then acquainted, that nothing but the immediate adoption of measures
complying with the demands of the British government, can induce the
authorities acting under the orders of that government to suspend the
measures that are now in progress for the defence of British interests,
and the vindication of British honour." Before this declaration had come
to the hands of the Shah, the Persian army, after six days of incessant
battering, had made a general assault upon Herat; but although the
troops went forward courageously, and had even planted their standards
three several times upon the breach, they were finally defeated in
their attempt: the Affghans attacked them sword in hand, with energy too
resolute to be resisted, and drove them with great slaughter across the
ditch: nearly two thousand Persians were slain. This failure, however,
had not the immediate effect of forcing the Shah to raise the siege.

In the meantime Captain Burnes had failed in his mission to Cabool, and
Lieutenant Leach, who had been sent to Candahar, had met with the same
ill-success. A treaty had been concluded between Persia and the latter
state, under the warrant of the Russian minister; and a treaty of nearly
similar import was in progress at Cabool. Under these circumstances
preparations were set on foot for marching an army into Affghanistan.
The moment was very critical: there was a prospect of Persian dominion
and Russian supremacy in all the Affghan states. By Russian subsidies,
Kohun Dil