his death in 1833 arrested the march of his son, Prince Muhammad, against Herát. On his grandfather's death in the following year Prince Muhammad became Sháh, and English influence at Teherán underwent a total eclipse.
Meanwhile Lord W. Bentinck deemed it prudent to cultivate good relations with the Amírs of Sind and to strengthen the old alliance with the powerful Sikh master of the Punjab. In 1830, Alexander Burnes of the Bombay Army was deputed to convey through Sind the horses and other presents which the King of England had sent out to Ranjít Singh. His overt object was to get the Indus opened to British trade; but he was also to look well about him, to learn what he could of Sind politics, to explore the great river of which we then knew little, and try to make friends with the chiefs along its banks. Burnes's mission was highly distasteful to the Sind Amírs, who had no wish to open their country to foreign traders, and distrusted all overtures from a power known to them only for its territorial greed. 'The mischief is done,' said a Biluchi officer, 'the English have seen our country.' After many delays and some fierce repulses, the young envoy was allowed to pursue his voyage up the Indus towards Lahore. Two years later, Colonel Henry Pottinger concluded with the Amírs a treaty which threw the roads and rivers of Sind open to British trade, but expressly forbade the use of them for any military purpose[1].
- ↑ Hunter's Gazetteer; Afghan Papers.
