[Illustration:  FIELD-MARSHAL LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. From a photograph by Messrs. Maull and Fox.]

During the summer of 1876 our frontier policy was frequently under discussion.  Sir Bartle Frere wrote two very strong letters after the Conservative Government came into power in 1874, drawing attention to the danger of our being satisfied with a policy of aloofness, and pointing out the necessity for coming into closer relations with the Amir of Afghanistan and the Khan of Khelat.  Soon afterwards the Secretary of State communicated with the Government of India as to the advisability of establishing British agents in Afghanistan, and of persuading the Amir to receive a temporary Embassy at Kabul, as had originally been proposed by Lord Northbrook.

The members of Lord Northbrook’s Council were unanimously opposed to both these proposals, but they did not succeed in convincing Lord Salisbury that the measures were undesirable; and on the resignation of Lord Northbrook, the new Viceroy was furnished with special instructions as to the action which Her Majesty’s Government considered necessary in consequence of the activity of Russia in Central Asia, and the impossibility of obtaining accurate information of what was going on in and beyond Afghanistan.

The question of the Embassy was dealt with at once; Lord Lytton directed a letter to be sent to the Amir announcing his assumption of the Viceroyalty, and his intention to depute Sir Lewis Pelly to proceed to Kabul for the purpose of discussing certain matters with His Highness.

To this communication a most unsatisfactory reply was received, and a second letter was addressed to the Amir, in which he was informed that, should he still decline to receive the Viceroy’s Envoy after deliberately weighing all the considerations commended to his serious attention, the responsibility of the result would rest entirely on the Government of Afghanistan, which would thus alienate itself from the alliance of that Power which was most disposed and best able to befriend it.

This letter was the cause of considerable excitement in Kabul, excitement which ran so high that the necessity for proclaiming a religious war was mooted; and, to complicate matters, the Amir at this time received overtures from General Kauffmann, the Russian Governor-General in Turkestan.

A delay of six weeks occurred before Sher Ali replied to Lord Lytton’s letter, and then he altogether ignored the Viceroy’s proposal to send a Mission to Kabul, merely suggesting that the British Government should receive an Envoy from him, or that representatives from both countries should meet and hold a conference on the border, or, as another alternative, that the British Native Agent at Kabul should return and discuss affairs with the Viceroy.