the Kalát-Sonmiáni route, while Shah Shuja bestowed on him the second class order of the Durráni empire.
At the end of 1839 Lord Auckland appointed Outram political agent in Lower Sind, in succession to Colonel Pottinger. He arrived at Haidarabad on 24 Feb., after seeing Pottinger at Bhúj. The main features of his work in 1840 were the reduction of taxes on inland produce brought to the British camp at Karáchi, the relief of the Indus traffic from excessive tolls, and the negotiations with Mir Sher Muhammad of Mirpur, whereby quasi-amicable relations were established. In 1841 he negotiated a satisfactory treaty with Mir Sher Muhammad. Soon afterwards Mir Nur Muhammad, the amir of Haidarabad, summoned Outram to his deathbed, and confided his brother, Mir Nasir Khan, and his youngest son, Mir Husain Ali, to Outram's protection, saying ‘No one has known so great truth and friendship as I have found in you.’ Outram regarded this as a sacred charge, and the boy as an adopted son.
On 18 Aug. 1841 Outram left Haidarabad for Quetta, having been appointed political agent in Upper Sind in addition to his charge of Lower Sind. He arrived at Quetta on 2 Sept., and the young Nasir, khan of Kalát, met him in darbár. On 6 Oct. the khan was installed by Outram at Kalát, after signing the ratification to a treaty with the Indian government. At the end of November Outram heard that the state of affairs at Kabul was growing desperate, and for the next few months his energies were taxed to the utmost to support the failing prestige of the government.
In February 1842 Lord Ellenborough [see Law, Edward, Earl of Ellenborough] succeeded Lord Auckland as governor-general. Outram did his best to impress on the new governor-general the inadvisability of retiring from Afghanistan without first reasserting the power of the government at Kabul. On 28 March 1842 General England was defeated at Haikalzai, in the Pishin valley. The mishap was retrieved on 28 April, but the general officially laid the blame upon Outram's assistant, Lieutenant Hammersley, for want of proper acquaintance with the disposition and movements of the enemy. Outram could not acquiesce in the censure, and his bold and generous advocacy of Hammersley's cause brought him under the displeasure of the authorities. Lord Ellenborough invested General William Nott [q. v.] with the chief political as well as military control in Kandahar and Sind, thus subordinating Outram to him as a political officer. Outram admitted the wisdom of leaving the military commander unfettered during the operations of war, and acquiesced in the arrangement by which he was virtually superseded.
On 1 June Outram left Sakhar for Quetta, to assist General Nott in his preparations for an advance on Kabul. In October he accompanied General England in the withdrawal of his force to India through the dangerous part of the Bolan pass, and himself aided to flank the heights at the head of Brahui auxiliaries. He then pushed on alone to Sakhar to report himself to Sir Charles James Napier [q. v.], who in August had taken over the command of the troops in Sind and Baluchistan, with entire control over the political agents and civil officers. Outram had not been many days at Sakhar when he was remanded to his regiment, and the political establishment dissolved, while the only recognition of his services during the previous three years was the thanks of the governments for his zeal and ability. Sir Charles Napier expressed his high sense of his obligations to him for the information which he had placed at his disposal as his successor in the political department of Sind, and at a public dinner given to Outram at Sakhar, on 5 Nov. 1842, Napier proposed his health in the following terms: ‘Gentlemen, I give you the “Bayard of India,” sans peur et sans reproche, Major James Outram of the Bombay army,’ and the epithet has since become permanently linked with his name.
Outram was offered the command of the Púna horse on his return to Bombay, but declined it, applied for furlough for two years, took his passage for England, and was to have sailed on 2 Jan. 1843, when, on the application of Napier, he was appointed a commissioner for the arrangement of the details of a revised treaty with the amirs of Sind. He arrived at Sakhar on 3 Jan., and accompanied Napier in his march across the desert to Imamgarh, arriving on 11 Jan. After the fort was demolished, Outram went to Khairpur to meet the chiefs of Upper Sind and the wakils of the amirs of Lower Sind, and on 8 Feb. he arrived at Haidarabad. In January 1843 Outram had written to Napier disagreeing with the policy of the government in the treatment of Sind, and there is little doubt that owing to the solemn trust confided to him by the dying amir, Mir Nur, his sympathies were strongly enlisted on the side of the Sind amir, while Napier took, with the full approval of the government, a diametrically opposite view. Upon Outram's urgent representations, Napier refrained from taking the active measures which the failure of the amirs to comply with his conditions
