It is plain that no advice offered by Burnes could have had any effect upon the question of the restoration of Shah Soojah. Macnaghten, on reaching Adeenanuggur, had determined not to await the arrival of the agent from Caubul before stating the views of the British Government to Runjeet Singh. He had, indeed, given the Maharajah the option of participating in an expedition for the restoration of Shah Soojah before he had received, either orally or by letter, the recommendations of Captain Burnes. When Burnes joined the British Mission, our Government was irretrievably committed to a course of policy which he either might or might not have supported. If he had any influence on the future out-turn of events, it was rather as the adviser of Runjeet Singh[251] than as the adviser of the British Mission. The fatal offer had been made to the Maharajah before Burnes joined the Mission camp. What Burnes really recommended, as the growth of his own free and unfettered opinion was, that the case of Dost Mahomed should be reconsidered, and that the British Government should act with him and not against him. “It remains to be reconsidered,” he wrote,[252] “why we cannot act with Dost Mahomed. He is a man of undoubted ability, and has at heart a high opinion of the British nation; and if half you must do for others were done for him, and offers made which he could see conduced to his interests, he would abandon Russia and Persia to-morrow. It may be said that opportunity has been given him; but I would rather discuss this in person with you, for I think there is much to be said for him. Government have admitted that he had at best a choice of difficulties; and it should not be forgotten that we promised nothing, and Persia and Russia held out a great deal.” But Burnes had been asked for his advice, not regarding the best means of counteracting Persian or Russian influence in Afghanistan, but the best means of counteracting Dost Mahomed; and he gave it as his opinion, that if Dost Mahomed were to be counteracted, the restoration of Shah Soojah was a more feasible project than the establishment of Sikh influence at Caubul. Captain Wade had declared his conviction that the disunion of the Afghan chiefs was an element of security to the British; but this opinion Burnes controverted, and pronounced himself in favour of the consolidation of the Afghan Empire. “As things stand,” he wrote, “I maintain that it is the best of all policy to make Caubul in itself as strong as we can make it, and not weaken it by divided forces. It has already been too long divided. Caubul owed its strength in bygone days to the tribute of Cashmere and Sindh. Both are irrevocably gone, and while we do all we can to keep up the Sikhs, as a power east of the Indus, during the Maharajah’s life or afterwards, we should consolidate Afghan power west of the Indus, and have a king, and not a collection of chiefs. _Divide et impera_ is a temporising creed