"With a view to invite the aid of the _de facto_ rulers of Afghanistan to the measures necessary for giving full effect to those treaties, Captain Burnes was deputed, towards the close of the year 1836, on a mission to Dost Mahomed Khan, chief of Cabul: the original objects of that officer's mission were purely of a commercial nature. "Whilst Captain Burnes, however, was on his journey to Cabul, information was received by the Governor-General that the troops of Dost Mahomed Khan had made a sudden and unprovoked attack on those of our ancient ally, Maharaja Runjeet Singh. It was naturally to be apprehended that his Highness the Maharaja would not be slow to avenge this aggression, and it was to be feared that the flames of war being once kindled in the very regions into which we were endeavouring to extend our commerce, the peaceful and beneficial purposes of the British Government would be altogether frustrated. In order to avert a result so calamitous, the Governor-General resolved on authorising Captain Burnes to intimate to Dost Mahomed Khan, that if he should evince a disposition to come to just and reasonable terms with the Maharaja, his Lordship would exert his good offices with his Highness for the restoration of an amicable understanding between the two Powers. The Maharaja, with the characteristic confidence which he has uniformly placed in the faith and friendship of the British nation, at once assented to the proposition of the Governor-General, to the effect that in the mean time hostilities on his part should be suspended. "It subsequently came to the knowledge of the Govenor-General that a Persian army was besieging Herat; that intrigues were actively prosecuted throughout Affghanistan, for the purpose of extending Persian influence and authority to the banks of, and even beyond, the Indus; and that the Court of Persia had not only commenced a course of injury and insult to the officers of Her Majesty's mission in the Persian territory, but had afforded evidence of being engaged in designs wholly at variance with the principles and objects of its alliance with Great Britain.