Abdur Rahman, who I had reason to believe would be acceptable to the army, was far away, I could not find out where, and I could think of no one else at all suitable.

Under the circumstances, I deemed it advisable to open negotiations with the several leaders of the late combination against us, who were congregated at Ghazni, and had with them the young Heir-apparent, Musa Khan.

In the middle of January I had received two communications from these people, one ostensibly written by Musa Khan himself, the other signed by seventy of the most influential chiefs; the tenor of both was the same; they demanded Yakub Khan's restoration, and asserted his innocence as to the massacre of the Embassy.

I replied that Yakub Khan's return was impossible, and that they must consider his abdication final, as he himself had declared that he wished it to be,[2] and a few days later I deputed the Mustaufi[3] to visit Ghazni, in the hope that he might be able to induce the leaders to make some more feasible suggestion for the government of the country.
The Mustaufi had scarcely started, before what seemed to be a reliable report reached me that Abdur Rahman was at Kanduz, on his way to Badakhshan, and I immediately communicated this news to Lord Lytton.
A fortnight later Abdur Rahman's mother, who resided at Kandahar, informed Sir Donald Stewart that Ayub Khan had received a letter from her son, in answer to an offer from Ayub to join him at Balkh and march with him against the British.

In this letter Abdur Rahman had replied that he would have nothing to do with any of Sher Ali's family, who had deceived him and dealt with him in the same treacherous manner that characterized Sher Ali's dealings with the British; further, that he had no intention of opposing the British, knowing full well he was not strong enough to do so; that he could not leave Russian territory without the permission of the Russians, whose pensioner he was; and that, even if he got that permission, he could not come either into Turkestan or Kabul without an invitation from us, but that, if he received such an invitation, he would obey it as an order.