Not even when forced into hostilities by the late Amir Sher Ali Khan's espousal of a Russian alliance, proposed by Russia in contemplation of a rupture with the British Government, did we relinquish our desire for the renewal of relations with a strong and friendly Afghan Power, and, when the son of Sher Ali subsequently sought our alliance and protection, they were at once accorded to him, on conditions of which His Highness professed to appreciate the generosity.

The crime, however, which dissolved the Treaty of Gandamak, and the disclosures which followed that event, finally convinced the Government of India that the interests committed to its care could not but be gravely imperilled by further adhesion to a policy dependent for its fruition on the gratitude, the good faith, the assumed self-interest, or the personal character of any Afghan Prince.
When, therefore, Her Majesty's troops re-entered Afghanistan in September last, it was with two well-defined and plainly-avowed objects.

The first was to avenge the treacherous massacre of the British Mission at Kabul; the second was to maintain the safeguards sought through the Treaty of Gandamak, by providing for their maintenance guarantees of a more substantial and less precarious character.
These two objects have been maintained: the first by the capture of Kabul and the punishment of the crime committed there, the second by the severance of Kandahar from the Kabul power.
Satisfied with their attainment, the Government of India has no longer any motive or desire to enter into fresh treaty engagements with the Rulers of Kabul.

The arrangements and exchange of friendly assurances with the Amir Sher Ali, though supplemented on the part of the Government of India by subsidies and favours of various kinds, wholly failed to secure the object of them, which was, nevertheless, a thoroughly friendly one, and no less conducive to the security and advantage of the Afghan than to those of the British Power.

The treaty with Yakub Khan, which secured to him our friendship and material support, was equally ineffectual.