The blow fell upon all the chiefs about the capital—upon the Ghilzyes, upon the Kohistanees, upon the Caubulees, upon the Momunds, even upon the Kuzzilbashes. Peaceful remonstrance was in vain. So they held secret meetings, and entered into a confederacy to overawe the existing government, binding themselves by oaths to support each other in their efforts to recover what they had lost; or, failing in this, to subvert the system out of which these injurious proceedings had arisen. Foremost in this movement were the Eastern Ghilzyes. Affected by the general retrenchments, they had also particular grievances of their own.[89] They were the first, therefore, to throw off the mask. So they quitted Caubul—occupied the passes on the road to Jellalabad—plundered a valuable cafila—and entirely cut off our communications with the provinces of Hindostan. Upon this, Humza Khan, the governor of the Ghilzyes, was sent out to bring them back to their allegiance. “Humza Khan,” wrote Macnaghten to Macgregor, on the 2nd of October, “who is at the bottom of the whole conspiracy, has been sent out by his Majesty to bring back the Ghilzye chiefs who have fled; but I have little hope of the success of his mission.”[90] Humza Khan, whose own stipend was included in the general retrenchment, had been commissioned to carry the obnoxious measure into effect; and he had instigated the chiefs to resist it. He was now sent out to quell a disturbance of which he was himself the parent and the nurse. These movements did not at first much alarm Macnaghten. He was intent upon his departure from Caubul; and he said that the outbreak had happened at a fortunate moment, as his own party and the troops proceeding to the provinces could quell it on their way to India. “You will have heard ere now,” he wrote on the 3rd of October, to Major Rawlinson, “of my appointment to Bombay. I could wish that this most honourable distinction had been withheld a little longer, until I could have pronounced our relations in this country as being entirely satisfactory; but, thanks in a great measure to your zealous co-operation, I may even now say, that every thing is rapidly verging to that happy consummation. No time is fixed for my departure. That will depend upon the instructions I receive from Lord Auckland. Should his Lordship direct me to deliver over my charge to Burnes, there is little or nothing, that I know of, to detain me, and I ought to be in Bombay by the middle of December. I am suffering a little anxiety just now, as the Eastern Ghilzye chiefs have turned _Yaghee_, in consequence, I believe, of the reduction of their allowances, and their being required to sign an ittezain against robberies. We have sent to bring them back to their allegiance, and I think there will be no difficulty about them, unless the root of the _Fussad_ lies deeper, and they are, as some assert, in league with Mahomed Akbar. In that case, it will be necessary to undertake operations on a larger scale