Macnaghten next launched into a panegyric on the general moderation of the British Government; and then having entered into some particulars relating to the necessary modification and extension of the treaty between Shah Soojah and Runjeet Singh,[224] proceeded to call the attention of the Maharajah to the second plan suggested by the Governor-General—the plan of independent action on the part of the Sikh ruler, which Lord Auckland declared that he was more inclined to favour than the other project. But it was with difficulty that Runjeet Singh could be induced to listen to this proposal. His impatience broke out openly. His mind, he said, was made up on the subject. He would have nothing to do with the independent expedition. The plan first set forth by the British Envoy was the one which he purposed to accept; and so Macnaghten could only say in reply, that though the Governor-General approved of the course last stated, his Lordship set too much value on the friendship of the Maharajah to wish to force it upon him. It now only remained to settle the details of the project for the subversion of Barukzye ascendancy in Afghanistan. So little at this time was it in contemplation that the brunt of the expedition should fall upon the British army, that Runjeet, who soon began to have his misgivings regarding the success of an undertaking in which his own troops and the raw levies of Shah Soojah were to be the main actors, sent the Fakir Aziz-ood-een to ask Macnaghten whether, in the event of the allies sustaining a reverse, the British Government were prepared to support them. The affirmative reply hardly seemed to satisfy the Sikh agent, who spoke of the remoteness of our resourses from the scene of action; and it was obviously then the desire of his master that the British troops should take a more prominent part in the coming expedition. He seemed, indeed, to think that too large a share of the danger[225] devolved upon him, and that he was to be allowed too little of the spoil.[226] The advantages to be derived from the alliance with Shah Soojah were not, he said, so great that he might not reasonably ask for something beyond what had been set forth in the proposals of the British Government; and it is not to be denied that there was at this time some show of truth in the assertion. Macnaghten continued to reply that the Maharajah, if he were not satisfied with the terms of the treaty, was at liberty to act independently, and that it would be no offence to the British Government if he preferred that scheme to the other. But he took the opportunity, in the course of one of his conferences with the Sikh agents, to hint that it was possible that “circumstances might occur to render it necessary for us to counteract danger, and that if it seriously threatened us, we might be compelled to arrest the advance of the Persians by the advance of our own troops; and in this case we might find it expedient to