Runjeet Singh commenced the conference. The letter of the Governor-General, he said, had been read to him, and he fully understood its contents. He desired that all present should hear it; and accordingly the Fakir Aziz-ood-deen, whose polished manners and admirable address presented a striking contrast to the ruder bearing of the Sikh chiefs by whom he was surrounded, read the letter aloud, and, with that unequalled power of interpretation of which he was the master, distinctly explained every sentence. Macnaghten was then requested to state what he had to say on the part of the British Government. This he did fluently and well. Whether all he advanced was strictly true it is hardly necessary to inquire. Diplomacy is not intended to be subjected to such a test. The tender interest taken in the honour and dignity of the Maharajah were descanted upon, on the one side, and the unreasonableness of Dost Mahomed on the other. The failure of Burnes’s Mission was spoken of as the result of the unwillingness of the Caubul Ameer to break off negotiations with other foreign agents, though even at that time Dost Mohamed, after Burnes’s departure, was making a last despairing effort to win back the friendship of the British Government.[223] Then came a somewhat inflated eulogium on the resources of the British Government, and the 200,000 soldiers who could at any time be brought into the field to resist a simultaneous invasion from all the four sides of India. If then, urged Macnaghten, such were the unaided power of the British Government, what must that power be when united with the strength of the Sikh Empire? There was nothing, indeed, of a palpable character to be apprehended from the movements of the Russians and Persians, or the hostility of the Barukzye Sirdars, but as their intrigues, it was said, must have the effect of unsettling men’s minds, both in the British and the Sikh dominions, it was desirable to concert measures for the future suppression of all these disturbing influences. He had, therefore, been despatched by the Governor-General of India to the Court of the Maharajah, to ascertain the wishes of his Highness.