On the day after the arrival of Vickovich at Caubul, Burnes reported the incident to the supreme Government, and detailed the circumstances of his reception. Like almost everything in Burnes’s public letters, which places the conduct of Dost Mahomed in a favourable light, the following passages were cut out of the correspondence before it was placed in the printer’s hands;-“On the morning of the 19th,” wrote Burnes, “that is, yesterday, the Ameer came over from the Balla Hissar early in the morning with a letter from his son, the Governor of Ghuznee, reporting that the Russian agent had arrived at that city on his way to Caubul. Dost Mahomed Khan said that he had come for my counsel on the occasion; that he wished to have nothing to do with any other power than the British; that he did not wish to receive any agent of any power whatever so long as he had a hope of sympathy from us; and that he would order the Russian agent to be turned out, detained on the road, or act in any way I desired him. I asked the Ameer if he knew on what business the agent had come, and if he were really an agent from Russia. He replied that I had read all his letters from Candahar, and that he knew nothing more. I then stated that it was a sacred rule among civilised nations not to refuse to receive emissaries in time of peace, and that I could not take upon myself to advise him to refuse any one who declared himself duly accredited, but that the Ameer had it in his power to show his feeling on the occasion by making a full disclosure to the British Government of the errand on which the individual had come; to which he most readily assented. After this the Ameer despatched a servant on the road to Ghuznee to prevent the agent’s entering Caubul without notice; but so rapid has been his journey, that he met him a few miles from the city, which he entered in the afternoon, attended by two of the Ameer’s people. He has not yet seen the Ameer. He has sent a letter from Count Simonich, which I have seen, and states that he is the bearer of letters from Mahomed Shah and the Emperor of Russia. I shall take an early opportunity of reporting on the proceedings of the Russian agent, if he be so in reality; for, if not an impostor, it is a most uncalled-for proceeding, after the disavowal of the Russian Government, conveyed through Count Nesselrode, alluded to in Mr. M’Neill’s letter of 19th of June last.”[126]