the Afgháns, who would thankfully have accepted our help against an invader, 'will now be disaffected and glad to join any invader to drive you out.' He never knew 'a close alliance between a civilized and an uncivilized State that did not end in mutual hatred in three years,' and in this case Afghán hatred was ensured by our close alliance with their great foe, Ranjít Singh.
St. George Tucker, one of the leading Directors of the Company, enlarged again and again on the folly of attempting to displace a strong de facto ruler by 'a quondam pensioner,' who owed all he possessed to our bounty, whose nephew Kámrán had a better title to the throne, and whose power would have to be maintained by a strong British force 800 miles from our own frontier. The Court of Directors, as a body, were strongly opposed to the policy, which, as mouthpiece of tho Board of Control, they appeared to sanction in despatches signed by their Secret Committee. In their despatch of September, 1837, they commended Lord Auckland for observing towards the States beyond the Indus 'the proper course, which is to have no political connexion with any State or party in those regions, to take no part in their quarrels, but to maintain, so far as possible, a friendly connexion with all of them.' Even in India many voices from among our countrymen were raised against the policy of setting up a prince of the Bourbon or Stuart pattern, who had been cast out more than once by his own subjects, in the place of a ruler who had
