That British agents should reside at Herat and elsewhere on the
    frontier.

    That a mixed commission of British and Afghan officers should
    determine and demarcate the Amir’s frontier.

    That arrangements should be made, by allowances or otherwise, for
    free circulation of trade on the principal trade routes.

    That similar arrangements should be made for a line of telegraph,
    the direction of which was to be subsequently determined.

That Afghanistan should be freely opened to Englishmen, official and non-official, and arrangements made by the Amir, as far as practicable, for their safety, though His Highness would not be absolutely held responsible for isolated accidents.

The Viceroy concluded by suggesting that, if the Amir agreed to these proposals, a treaty might be arranged between the agents of the respective Governments, and ratified either at Peshawar, by the Amir meeting Lord Lytton there, or at Delhi if the Amir accepted His Excellency’s invitation to be present at the Imperial Assemblage.

The Amir at the time vouchsafed no reply whatever to these proposals or to the invitation to come to Delhi.

In the autumn of 1876 preparations were commenced for the ’Imperial Assemblage,’ which it was announced by the Viceroy would be held at Delhi on the first day of January, 1877, for the purpose of proclaiming to the Queen’s subjects throughout India the assumption by Her Majesty of the title of ‘Empress of India.’  To this Assemblage Lord Lytton further announced that he proposed ’to invite the Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, and Heads of Administration from all parts of the Queen’s Indian dominions, as well as the Princes, Chiefs, and Nobles in whose persons the antiquity of the past is associated with the prosperity of the present, and who so worthily contribute to the splendour and stability of this great Empire.’

Delhi was selected as the place where the meeting between the Queen’s representative and the great nobles of India could most appropriately be held, and a committee was appointed to make the necessary arrangements.  As a member of the committee I was deputed to proceed to Delhi, settle about the sites for the camps, and carry out all details in communication with the local authorities.  The Viceroy impressed upon me that the Assemblage was intended to emphasize the Proclamation Lord Canning issued eighteen years before, by which the Queen assumed the direct sovereignty of her eastern possessions, and that he wished no trouble or expense to be spared in making the ceremony altogether worthy of such a great historical event.