The treaty read by the Envoy at the conference on the 11th of December contained an article involving the formal abdication of Shah Soojah. The restoration of the Barukzye Sirdars to their old principalities was, at that time, decreed by both contracting parties; but the meeting had scarcely broken up, when some of the Douranee chiefs, jealous of the power of the Barukzyes, which had ever been put forth to the injury and depression of the tribes, recoiled from this perilous stipulation, and began to think of the retention of the King, at all events as a puppet and a name.[189] On the following day it was proposed by the chiefs that Shah Soojah should remain on the throne, on condition of his intermarrying his daughters with the leading Afghan Sirdars, and vesting the Wuzeership in the family of the Barukzyes. It was stipulated also that the King, whose love of pomp and ceremony was one of his besetting infirmities, and who had excited the indignation of many of the chiefs by his haughty bearing towards them, should dispense with some of the regal formalities which had given them so great offence. The proposal, sanctioned by the British minister, was formally made to the Shah. There was the loss of his kingdom on the one side; there was the loss of some regal dignity on the other. The King hesitated; then yielded a reluctant assent; and a few days afterwards withdrew it altogether. His pride and his fear both deterred him from forming such an alliance with the chiefs. He was unwilling so to sully the purity of the royal blood; and he could not trust to the good faith of the Sirdars after the departure of his British allies. And so the treaty with the Barukzye chiefs reverted to its original shape, and the Shah determined to return to the British provinces, from which he had never yet emerged without plunging into new disasters. The stipulations of the treaty were now to be brought into effect. But mutual distrust existed between the parties, and each was unwilling to give the other any advantage by being the first to act up to the obligations that it imposed. The British authorities called upon the chiefs to send in the provisions which they had undertaken to supply; and the chiefs called upon the British authorities to demonstrate the sincerity of their promises to retire from Afghanistan, by giving up the different forts which they occupied in the neighbourhood of cantonments, and by placing hostages in their hands. The question of the abandonment of the forts was officially discussed between the Envoy and the General, and the result was an order for their cession.[190]