The gradual approach of the Russian frontier towards India led to a diplomatic correspondence in 1872-3[112] between Lord Granville, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Prince Gortchakoff, with a view to a clearer definition of the Afghan frontier north of the Hindoo Koosh. It was not that the forces of either Power were then on the ground, nor had the country been accurately surveyed; but the object was to avoid complications in the future, and it is to be observed that the Russian Government ultimately acquiesced in all Lord Granville's proposals as to the provinces and districts which were to be considered as Afghan territory. Though Russia claimed independence of action so far as the principalities[113] were concerned, it also fully accepted the principle that Afghanistan was within the sphere of our influence. During the period from 1864 to 1876, when Lords Lawrence, Mayo, and Northbrook were successively Viceroys of India, the general policy which I have indicated was carefully pursued, but in the latter year a serious change occurred which eventually led to a great war in Afghanistan in 1878-9. There were apparently two main causes for the alteration in the views of the British Government. One was a restless feeling that we were somewhat in the dark as to the conduct of affairs in Cabul, and that the then Ameer Shere Ali was becoming unfriendly; the other that the long range of the Suliman mountains trans-Indus formed a somewhat insecure border line, and that we should take possession of some of the passes with a view of establishing what was called a scientific frontier. In pursuance of the first a violent effort was made to force English representatives on the Ameer at Cabul, Candahar, and Herat, a policy known to be specially feared by the Afghans, and which we had hitherto engaged more than once not to adopt.[114] In January 1877 an Afghan envoy, Noor Mahomed Khan, held prolonged meetings with the late Sir Lewis Pelly on the subject at Peshawur, and begged that the proposal might be dropped. He said: 'Why all this pressing to send British officers, when you declare that you have no wish to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan? It has roused the suspicion of the Ameer.... He is now convinced that to allow British officers to reside in his country will be to relinquish his own authority.' ... Again he said: 'Your Government is a powerful and a great one; ours is a small and weak one. We have long been on terms of friendship, and the Ameer clings to the skirt of the British Government, and till his hand be cut off he will not relax his hold of it.' Sir Lewis Pelly, however, stated that the presence of English officers in Afghanistan was a _sine quâ non_; and as Lord Lytton, the Viceroy, had already, in speaking of the position of Shere Ali between Russia and England, described it as that 'of an earthen pipkin between two iron pots,' it was evident that no friendly arrangement was likely to ensue.