Governor-General selected him as leader of that commercial mission to which reference has already been made. Accompanied by Leech of the Bombay Engineers and Wood of the Indian Navy — they were joined later by Dr. Percival Lord — Burnes sailed for Sind from Bombay in November, 1836, to 'work out the policy of opening the river Indus to commerce,' and to keep his eyes open to the political movements in Afghánistán.
Lord Auckland had not been long in India before he began to have vague misgivings as to the maintenance of peace along the Indian frontier. 'Even since I have been here' — he wrote to Metcalfe in September, 1836 — 'more than one event has occurred, which has led me to think that the period of disturbance is nearer than I had either wished or expected.' The growing restlessness of 'the old man of Lahore,' who still hankered after the 'jungles' and treasures of Sind, the excessive importance attached to the opening of the Indus, the advance of the Persians towards Herát — all this disquieted him much. 'In the meanwhile' — he added — 'I have entreated Ranjít Singh to be quiet, and in regard to his two last requests have refused to give him 50,000 muskets, and am ready to send him a doctor and a dentist.'
The idea of a commercial agency at Kábul, when mooted two years before by Burnes himself, had found no favour among men of Indian experience. St. George Tucker, then Chairman at the India House, had condemned it as sure to 'degenerate into a
