COULD PERSIA OR RUSSIA INVADE INDIA?

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 32, 15 October 1842, Page 128

COULD PERSIA OR RUSSIA INVADE INDIA?

, [From Blackwood's Magazine."] From the documents which have already been published relative to tho, negotiations with Persia and the Seikh and other powers of the north-west, it may actually have been fortunate that our career in Cabool has received a check ; if we had succeeded there, we should possibly have made. our. next experiment in a march, across the frontier, to Persia. The siege of Herat' by the Persians seems to have acted as a nightmare on the British Indian Government. On the possession of a .paltry town in the heart of a desert, a wretched collection of hovels, of which nobody .had ever thought before, seemed to be the balance in which our Indian destinies were weighed. It was actually and most absurdly described as the key to India; and, of course, the Persian Monarch, having got such a key in his hand, had nothing to do but tt» open the lock, and walk into the Bengal provinces, seat himself in the Governor's chair, and, do what next ? Our imagination wants the vividness of the " state papers ;" but if his Persian Majesty was not content with his Indian supremacy, he had only to march his army overland, and take possession of London. It is notorious that there were thick reports of an intention "to march an army to Herat; 9 ' an operation which, in all human probability, would have cost ten times the loss at Cabool. They might have found no Persian army 'to. fight, but they would have laid their bones in the wilderness. In this country Alexander the Great, after having reached the mouth of the Indus, lost nearly all his army; probably not one British soldier would have ever returned. The very idea of a Persian invasion of India is ridiculous ; and could, therefore, never have nestled in the brains of any one but Lord Auckland himself. If the Cabool misfortune has prevented this chivalric performance, it may have been the only way in which rashness combined with ignorance were to be lessoned in common sense. It has certainly cooled the gratuitous gallantry of sending armies to fight with snow and hunger, pestilence and storm. We now hear nothing more of the heroic march to Herat ; while the result of our follies in Afghanistan is reported to have been the actual revival of Persian hostility, and the march of a Persian force of 60,000 men against that place. Our wisest policy is to let them try their fortune ; if negotiation will send them to their homes, so much the better; if not, let the Persians knock out their brains against the walls of Herat ; and even if they should make a break and hang Kham-ram; in either his sober fit or his drunken, for the chance is doubtful in which he may be, the change of the dynasty needs not effect us more than a change in the dynasty of Tongataboo. On this point, too, it is to be remarked that our diplomatic servants in the East ought to be listened to with considerable reserve. In Europe, during the last century, the despatches of our envoys on the continent were chiefly details of Voltaire's last pamphlet, on the debut of some court minister or court dancer, matters much the same, until Napoleon gave them something to do. The despatches from the whole list of our well-salaried functionaries, from the wall of China to the Dardanelles (at least those portions of them which have transpired), have been all the most solemn intimations of the silliest intrigues. The Khan and tribe of naked wretches terrifies one diplomatist with fears of an Asiatic invasion. The gallop of another troop of horse-eaters across the desert stimulates another to predict a universal conspiracy to break down the British power. The march of a Persian army, who could not stand half an hour before a troop of horse artillery and a British brigade, or who, if they could, would be forced to devour each other within a week, supplies a camel's load of correspondence ; and the unfortunate Secretary for Foreign Affairs is startled out of his peace of mind by the movement of a few thousands of ragged robbers, who, long before the news had reached him, have left their monarch in some swamp or sard, and "robbed" their way home. The expedition of General Perowski towards Khiva, the very thing that ought to have been wished for by a British diplomatist who desired to demonstrate English strength and Russian weakness, frightened the whole class of charges dcs affaires. How the Russian cabinet could ever entertain so ridiculous an expedition is inconceivable. But the general, after the most horrible succession of famine and freezing, after eating his camels, horses, dogs, and everything eatable, and, if report says true, things that not even the horror of famine could render eatable by any body but a Russian, was glad to make his escape to Orenburg, completely Totalized. The true policy is, to let the savages fight each other. All the princedoms surrounding the British territories in India are utterly powerless. They can make no more impression on the British than on the granite of their hills. A mere brigade here and there, to prevent the ravages of robbers, would be amply sufficient for security. The idea of an Indian insurrection, without troops concentrated in the interior, would be absurd. The native princes are profligates, but they are not madmen ; and the idea of a Persian invasion, an invasion of poltroons — of a Seikh invasion, an invasion of peasants — or an Affghan invasion, an invasion of highwaymen — needs not disturb the pillow of even the most Auck-landish governor-general who shall ever tremble on the throne of India.

It is intended to perpetuate the remembrance of Dr. Birkbeek by establishing a professorship, bearing bis name, in connexion with the London University.