In vain the exiled Shah pleaded that the people of Afghanistan were anxious for his arrival; and that those of Khorassan would flock to his standard and acknowledge no other chief. In vain he declared that the Barukzye Sirdars were “not people around whom the Afghans would rally”—that they had no authority beyond the streets and bazaars of Caubul, and no power to resist an enemy advancing from the northward. Neither up-country bankers nor British functionaries would advance him the requisite funds. “My impatience,” he said, “exceeds all bounds; and if I can raise a loan of two or three lakhs of rupees from any banker, I entertain every expectation that, with the favour of God, my object will be accomplished.” But although the Persians were at that time pushing their conquests in Khorassan, and the Shah continued to declare that the Douranee, Ghilzye, and other tribes, were sighing for his advent, which was to relieve them from the tyranny and oppression of the Barukzyes, and to secure them against foreign invasion, Lord William Bentinck, too intent upon domestic reforms to busy himself with schemes of distant defence, quietly smiled down the solicitations of the Shah, and told him to do what he liked on his own account, but that the British Government would not help him to do it. “My friend,” he wrote, “I deem it my duty to apprise you distinctly, that the British Government religiously abstains from intermeddling with the affairs of its neighbours when this can be avoided. Your Majesty is, of course, master of your own actions; but to afford you assistance for the purpose which you have in contemplation, would not consist with that neutrality which on such occasions is the rule of guidance adopted by the British Government.” But, in spite of these discouragements, before the year 1832 had worn to a close, Shah Soojah “had resolved on quitting his asylum at Loodhianah for the purpose of making another attempt to regain his throne.” The British agent on the north-western frontier, Captain Wade, officially reported this to Mr. Macnaghten, who then held the office of Political Secretary; and with the announcement went a request, on the part of the Shah, for three months of his stipend in advance. The request, at a later period, rose to a _six_ months’ advance; and a compromise was eventually effected for _four_. So, with 16,000 rupees extracted as a forestalment of the allowance granted to his family in his absence, he set out for the re-conquest of the Douranee Empire. On the 28th of January, 1833, he quitted his residence at Loodhianah, and endeavouring, as he went, to raise money and to enlist troops for his projected expedition, moved his camp slowly to Bahwulpore, and thence, across the Indus, to Shikarpoor, where he had determined to rendezvous.