“I intend,” he wrote in the letter above quoted, “sending Arthur Conolly, who has joined me here, and Rawlinson on a mission to Kokan, with a view, if possible, to frustrate the knavish tricks of the _Russe log_ in that quarter. Though there are doubtless many of the elements of mischief in this country, yet I should not apprehend any internal explosion, even if the greater portion of our troops were withdrawn. Depend upon it we shall never be at our ease in India until we have subjugated the Punjab and Nepaul; and the sooner we can come to a reckoning with our faithful allies the Singhs, the better. They are doing all they can to injure us in this quarter, and are comforting all the rebels and parties disaffected to his Majesty Shah Soojah. We should here have no difficulty in dealing with them in this quarter, and I will venture to say there would not be a disciple of Nanuk on this side the Indus a week after the declaration of hostilities.” As the month advanced, the intelligence from the North was more and more calculated to rivet the opinion entertained by Burnes and others of the success of the Russian expedition,[31] and Macnaghten began to think that the danger was greater than he had once believed. “Unless,” he wrote at the end of April, “Lord Auckland act with vigour and promptitude to secure and open our rear, we shall soon be between two fires—if not under them. France and Russia are advancing with only the remote contingency of profit to stimulate them. We are supine, whilst our inactivity will probably be the cause of our ruin. France gratuitously supplies Persia with 30,000 muskets, at a time when Persia may be said to be at war with us. I cannot, though I have repeatedly and earnestly pressed my request, obtain a single musket.” A fortnight after this letter was written, the Envoy proposed to Burnes that he should proceed on a mission to the Russian camp. “He said, he would willingly go if ordered—but that,” added Macnaghten, “is not the spirit which should animate our Elchee;” and the design was abandoned. It must have been very soon after this[32] that the glad tidings of the break-down of the Russian expedition reached the Court of Shah Soojah. The Envoy had spoken despondingly of the contemptible enemy which the Russian army had to encounter. But there was an enemy of which no account was taken—an enemy that had destroyed one of Napoleon’s finest armies, and which was doomed to overthrow utterly our own policy in Central Asia—spreading its toils around Peroffski’s advancing columns. The Snow was doing its work.