nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47officials, after all, had intervened to prevent a Sikh invasion of Sind, so
maybe Britain would be willing to act in a similar capacity and persuade
the Sikhs to withdraw from Jamrud and even come to a powersh aring
agreement over Peshawar. The Amir’s hopes were raised further after Wade
persuaded Ranjit Singh not to carry out his threat to attack Jalalabad and
Kabul, at least until Burnes had returned to India. Given the political
situation, Dost Muhammad had every reason to assume that the British
mission was coming to Kabul to discuss more than commercial matters,
especially as Burnes’s two previous expeditions had covert political and
military objectives. Masson informed Burnes about Dost Muhammad’s
expectations long before he reached Kabul and the Amir wrote regularly to
Burnes as he made his way to Afghanistan. In his replies, Burnes did little to
discourage his misconceptions despite his instructions limiting his discus
sions to ‘strictly commercial’ matters. As far as Burnes was concerned, his
mission was political and he was determined to seize the opportunity it
presented to revive his career.
After his triumph in London, Burnes had turned down the offer of
a post in Persia because he believed it was beneath him, so he had been
sent to Sind as assistant to Henry Pottinger. Not only did Burnes resent
this, the two men were chalk and cheese and their relationship quickly
turned sour. Pottinger was an old Indian hand who had worked his way
up the career ladder the hard way. As an ensign in the Indian Army he had
fought in the Second AngloMaratha Wars (1803–5), then in 1810–11 he
undertook a dangerous intelligencegathering journey from Baluchistan
to Isfahan at the height of the Napoleonic threat. Over the years Pottinger
had worked tirelessly to win the confidence of the Amirs of Sind and
had successfully secured British interests on the lower Indus. Yet despite
more than thirty years of service in India, so far Pottinger had received
little official recognition. It was not until 1839 that he was made a baronet
and in 1843 he was finally appointed Hong Kong’s first governor. As far
as Pottinger was concerned, Burnes was an ambitious, limelightseeking
upstart whose selfconfidence verged on arrogance. As for the young man’s
sudden fame, this hardly endeared him to a man who had spent all his
life serving King and Country. Their mutual loathing eventually became
so bad that they were no longer on speaking terms and Auckland had to
write to both to remind them that their personal animosity must in no
way affect their public duty. 40
Burnes had been upstaged by Pottinger’s successful treaty negoti ations
with the Amirs of Hyderabad, which had pushed British influence beyond
the Indus, and Burnes was determined to outdo his superior by ending