by Craig Murray
The falsification of Burnes’ despatches next arose in an extraordinary debate in the House of Commons over four early mornings between 8 February and 17 March 1848.8 Thomas Anstey, another radical MP, brought a motion of impeachment against Palmerston. It was modelled on the impeachment of Warren Hastings, being a demand that the Crown produce documents on the basis of which the accusers could make out their case. That had led to one of Parliament’s most famous debates, with contributions from Burke, Fox and Pitt. By contrast, Anstey’s motion played out in the dim light of 3am Commons sessions, with the only people present the Speaker, Anstey, Palmerston and his second Shiel, and one Irish member, Smith O’Brien, who said nothing. Only at the very end of the final day did two other members come in, to talk the motion out for its last ten minutes, so no vote could be taken.
Anstey’s speech would have lasted about six hours. Palmerston’s reply must have taken about four hours. Anstey’s motion listed thirty-six treaties or events concerning which he wished to see all papers. The invasion of Afghanistan was just one of these events. Anstey’s general thesis, that Palmerston was culpably responsible for the growth of the Russian Empire over a thirty-year period, was ludicrous. This was unfortunate, because some of the complaints Anstey raised were worth a hearing. The gap between Palmerston’s liberal rhetoric to attract popular support in a democratising Britain, and his actual foreign policy, would merit more concentrated attention from his biographers. But many of Anstey’s assertions, like the claim that British Ambassadors to Persia had deliberately promoted Russian influence, were crazy.
Among the better points was a long passage on Alexander Burnes. That the editing of the despatches for publication had deliberately given a false impression of Burnes’ views was ably demonstrated by Anstey though, depending on a great deal of exposition of texts, it must have made dull hearing.
Anstey correctly identified that, by editing out the words ‘the sentiments of His Lordship upon them’, the published version of Burnes’ despatch of 26 January 1838 gives the impression that Lord Auckland’s views are his own. Anstey also seized on Burnes’ despatch announcing the arrival of Witkiewicz, of which the published version edits out that it was Dost Mohammed who told him of the arrival, and also that Dost had refused to receive Witkiewicz, had offered to be guided by Burnes, and had given Burnes a copy of Witkiewicz’ letters. Anstey also pointed out that Burnes had sent a despatch (which Anstey does not specify) noting various allegations against Dost Mohammed, but saying on investigation they proved not to be true. The published version had omitted the fact that they were untrue.
In Palmerston’s reply to the empty chamber, he made the blatantly false claim that:
The passages omitted contained opinions on subjects irrelevant to the question at issue; and when the House remembers how much the Government is blamed for printing matters which do not bear upon the question […] the House will be of the opinion that we were not wrong in striking out such matters which do not bear upon the question.
Anstey was allied with David Urquhart, now himself an MP, and was a member of Urquhart’s band of Russophobes. This movement had taken an interesting turn, as Urquhart had allied with the Chartist movement, arguing that the working people of Britain should determine its foreign policy. For a period a network of Working Men’s Foreign Affairs Committees flourished, and the injustice done to Alexander Burnes was among the subjects they discussed, and on which they petitioned for official redress. A key member of Urquhart’s group, who wrote regularly for him, was Karl Marx, who also believed Palmerston was a Russian agent, which he expounded at length in a happily forgotten book, The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston.9 Marx was to refer to Palmerston’s distortion of Burnes’ views in his writings on colonialism.10 The joining of Benjamin Disraeli and Karl Marx in seeking the release of the Burnes papers is a peculiar accident of history.
Sir John Kaye’s History of the War in Afghanistan, published in 1851, defined the accepted view of the war for generations. His verdict on the misrepresentation of Burnes was damning:
I cannot […] suppress […] my abhorrence of this system of garbling the official correspondence of public men – sending the letters of a statesman or diplomatist into the world mutilated, emasculated – the very pith and substance of them cut out by the unsparing hand of the state anatomist. The dishonesty by which lie upon lie is palmed upon the world has not one redeeming feature.11
The Whigs were now Liberals, and back in power. The President of the Board of Control was Fox Maule, a member of the Ramsay family. He asked Hobhouse if he would now object to full publication, who did object, and referred nastily to.’the rascallity of the Burnes family and their coadjutor in publishing confidential official papers for the sake of calumniating those who heaped rewards on their kinsman’.12 Maule backed down.
But in 1858 the Conservatives were in office again, and their leader in the House of Commons was Benjamin Disraeli. The President of the Board of Control was Henry Baillie, MP for Inverness. The Company was in the process of abolition and the India Office of creation, and the new Secretary to the Secret Committee was Sir John Kaye. Disraeli was far too keen a street-fighter to ignore any chance of embarrassing the Liberals, and had never dropped a Quixotic attachment to Burnes’ cause. Disraeli, Baillie and Kaye finally published as Parliamentary Papers 326 pages of Burnes’ uncensored despatches and other previously edited documents, eighteen years after his death.
On 19 March 1861 Alex Dunlop, MP for Greenock, made the last parliamentary attempt to call for an inquiry into the falsification of Burnes’ despatches. Dunlop made an excellent speech. Burnes
was hacked to pieces by the Afghans […] But his reputation was mangled still more cruelly by those who should have defended it […] He had been falsely held out […] as the instigator and advisor of that unjust and calamitous war, and this for the dastardly purpose of screening [the government] from a condemnation which they were conscious that they deserved, and laying on him the obloquy of a charge of which they knew him to be innocent.
John Bright seconded with a brilliant speech, asking:
Who had so low a sense of honour and of right that he could offer to this house mutilated, false, forged opinions of a public servant who lost his life in the public service?
Bright pointed out that Palmerston’s claims of Burnes’ poor judgement were inconsistent with Palmerston’s own actions. If Burnes’ despatches had been censored because they were misguided and erroneous, why was Burnes not dismissed?
although the noble Lord had these despatches before him, and knew all the feelings of Sir Alexander Burnes, he still continued Sir Alexander Burnes there. He was there two years after these despatches were written, in that most perilous year when not only himself but the whole Army […] fell victims to the policy of the Noble Lord.13
But this time Disraeli argued that the truth had been established by the publication of full documents, and while he agreed with Bright and Dunlop, he did not see much to gain by a public inquiry. Palmerston, now seventy-six, made a spirited defence, aiming particularly at Burnes’ change of mind, and criticising Burnes’ ‘confusion of ideas, misconceptions and over-credulity’.
It was the most direct attack on Burnes ever made in Parliament. Palmerston repeatedly stressed the ‘Lieutenant’ even though at the relevant period Burnes was a substantive captain. It was not a mistake. Palmerston’s argument rested on authority – he did not deny that the government had edited out Burnes’ opinions, but said it had the right to do it. Who rules India, after all, the Governor-General or some young lieutenant?14
Bright replied that Palmerston:
[w]ent on to say that, after all […] that what was in, or what was left out, was unimportant. But I should like to ask the noble Lord what was the object of the minute and ingenious, and […] unmatched care which was taken in mutilating the despatches of a gentleman who was of no importance […] The noble Lord has stooped so low as […] to heap insult on the memory of a m
an who died in the execution of what he believed to be his public duty – a duty which was thrust upon him by the mad and obstinate policy of the noble Lord.15
Alexander was now dead twenty years, but his memory was still causing bitter debate between giants of parliamentary history. This last attempt failed like the others, by 159 votes to 49, with both party leaderships voting against. There was a sad little postscript. James, incensed by Palmerston’s attack, started a lengthy and increasingly irascible correspondence with Palmerston, which he published. James wrote in a fine style:
You were a party to the original falsification of my late brother’s despatches. When taxed in the recent debate with the act, you attempted to cover it by traducing his memory, and when furnished by me with proof of the incorrectness of the assertions on which the calumnies were based, you remained silent.
But James’ time was also coming to a close, and he died in Manchester, where he had been invited to address a Masonic gathering. The recurrent malaria he had picked up in Bhuj finally killed him.
Notes
Chapter 1 Montrose
1 Robert Crawford: The Bard; Robert Burns, p. 26
2 James Burnes: Notes on his Name and Family, p. 22
3 T M Devine: The Scottish Nation, p. 33
4 Maggie Craig: Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45
5 NLS/MF/MSS144/AC4647
6 http://www.burness.ca/ld42.htm#a0 Gleig also Glegg
7 Hugh Douglas: Robert Burns: A Life, p. 22
8 Charles Rogers: Genealogical Memoirs, p. 18
9 http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/224613/details/montrose+9+11+bow+butts+burness+house/
10 Report by L A L Rolland, Architect, 18 November 2008
11 In Scottish burghs when a person was elected Provost an ornamental lamp was placed outside their house and lit at public expense.
12 J W Kaye: Lives of Indian Officers, Vol. 2, p. 13
13 NLS/MF/MSS/144/Acc.4647
14 The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, January to June 1863, p. 117
15 NLS/MSS/789/f.638
16 NLS/MSS/10688
17 R F Gould, ‘The Chevalier Burnes’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. 12, 1899
18 Norman Gash: Aristocracy and People, p. 10
19 Bruce Lenman: Integration and Enlightenment, p. 6
20 Bruce Lenman: An Economic History, p. 60
21 G Jackson and S G E Lythe (eds): The Port of Montrose, p. 82
22 NLS/MSS/789/ff.691–3
23 The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 17, Apr 1842, p. 434
24 J C Jessop: Education in Angus, p. 183
25 David Mitchell: History of Montrose, p. 44
26 Ibid., p. 128
Chapter 2 A Rape in Herat
1 Mountstuart Elphinstone: An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, Vol. 2, p. 272
2 William Dalrymple: Return of a King, p. 13
3 Charles Hugel: Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab, p. 373
4 Mohan Lal: Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, Vol. I, p. 104
5 George Gleig: Sale’s Brigade in Afghanistan, p. 20
6 T R Blackburn: The Extermination of a British Army, p. xvi
Chapter 3 Scottish Patronage, Indian Career
1 David Gilmour: The Ruling Caste, p. 25
2 Penderel Moon: The British Conquest and Dominion of India, p. 370
3 T C Smout (ed.): Scotland and the Sea, p. 155
4 Writer to the Signet
5 John Rintoul taught reading and grammar at Montrose Academy, William Beattie writing and arithmetic.
6 NLS/MS/3813/f.112
7 NLS/MS/3813/f.113
8 John Greenwood: The Campaign in Afghanistan, p. 34
9 Charles Samuel Stewart: Sketches of Society in Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 2, p. 119
10 William Dalrymple: White Mughals, p. 288.
11 A Lieutenant of the Bengal Establishment: The Cadet’s Guide to India, p. 5
12 Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register, Vol. XI (Jan to Jun 1821) p. 409
13 Henry Durand: The First Afghan War, p. vii
14 BL/IOR/L/MIL/9/144/204-7
15 BL/IOR/L/MIL/9/373
Chapter 4 A Griffin in India
1 W F B Laurie: Sketches of Some Distinguished Anglo-Indians, p. 3
2 David Mitchell: History of Montrose, p. 2
3 J W Kaye: Lives of Indian Officers, Vol. 2, p. 10
4 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 1, 1834, pp. 193–9
5 Letter of June 1822 to George Jacob http://www.wayfarersbookshop.com/RussianInfluencePt2.php, item 37
6 William Dalrymple: White Mughals, p. 118
7 James Cotton: Mountstuart Elphinstone, p. 70
8 James Chambers: Palmerston, p. 53
9 Emily Eden: Up the Country, p. 271
10 ‘By a Lady’: Letters from Madras, p. 82
11 William Dalrymple: White Mughals, p. 10
12 Emily Eden: Up the Country, p. 98
13 Thomas Williamson: The East India Vade Mecum, Vol 1, p. 412
14 J W Kaye: The Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe, Vol. 1, p. 118
15 J W Kaye: Lives of Indian Officers, Vol. 2, p. 13
16 James S Cotton: Mountstuart Elphinstone, p. 130
17 E M Collingham: Imperial Bodies, p. 29
18 J W Kaye: Lives of Indian Officers, Vol. II, p. 17
19 MAS Minute Book/CD1/p. 59
20 M M Kessler: Ivan Viktorovich Vitkevich, p. 7
21 The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 8, Apr 1842, p. 434
22 MM/CutPap/30Apr1825
23 J W Kaye: Major-General Sir John Macolm, Vol. 2, p. 209
24 Charles Hugel: Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab, p. 286
25 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 1, 1834, pp. 193–9
26 Jack Harrington: Sir John Malcolm, p. 72
27 MAS/MinuteBook/CD1/p. 126
28 Martha McLaren: British India and British Scotland, p. 253
29 Robert Freke Gould: Military Lodges, p. 193
30 Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology, Vol.II pp306-11
31 RSA/EC/1834/11
32 K M Lyell: Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, p. 454
33 Alexander Burnes: Cabool, p. 116
34 BL/IOR/MSS/EUR/E/161/3/f.74
35 BL/IOR/MSS/EUR/E/161/3/f.24
36 BL/EUR/MSS/B/28/f.40
37 Edward Ingram: The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, p. 90
38 W F B Laurie: Sketches of Some Distinguished Anglo-Indians, p. 18
39 MM/OffCorr/15Dec1827
40 MAS/MinuteBook/CD1/p. 159
41 MM/OffCorr/31Jan1828
42 MAS/MinuteBook/CD1/p. 166
43 MAS/MinuteBook/CD1/p. 196
Chapter 5 Dawn of the North-West Frontier
1 Demetrius C Boulger: Lord William Bentinck, p. 54
2 Afzal Iqbal: Circumstances Leading to the First Afghan War, p. 10
3 Edward Ingram: The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, p. 43
4 Zalmay A Gulzad: External Influences and the Development of the Afghan State, p. 47
5 NAI/Pol/Sec/14October1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/f.59
6 MM/OffCorr/14Jul1828
7 MM/OffCorr/20Aug1828
8 MM/OffCorr/7Nov1828
9 MM/OffCorr/18Nov1828
10 MM/OffCorr/25Jan1829
11 MM/OffCorr/27Jul1829
12 MM/OffCorr/27Aug1829
13 RSA/EC/1834/11
14 NAI/For/Sec/Progs/14Jan–8Apr/ff.178–81
15 Emily Eden: Up the Country, p. 122
16 Http://www.dunsehistorysociety.co.uk/jamesgray.shtml
17 NLS/MSS/21241/f.47
18 E M Collingham: Imperial Bodies, p. 29
19 NLS/MF/MSS/144/Acc4647
20 Peter Hopkirk: The Great Game, p. 43
21 Durba Ghosh: Sex and the Family in Colonial India, p. 70
22 Frank Welsh: A History of Hong Kong, p. 150
23 Ronald Hyam: Empire and Sexuality, p. 26
&n
bsp; 24 G M Theal: History of South Africa, Vol. 4, p. 309
25 MM/OffCorr/26Sep1829
26 MM/Off Corr/18Oct1829
27 John Keay: The Honourable Company, p. 454
28 Robert A Huttenback: British Relations with Sind 1799–1843, p. 18
29 NAI/For/Pol/12February1830/Cons/No.7/ff.3–34
30 R H Kennedy: Narrative of the Campaign of the Army of the Indus, Vol. 1, p. 207
31 NAI/For/Pol/12Feb1830/Cons/No.7/f.3
32 NAI/For/Pol/12Feb1830/Cons/No.7/f.9
33 NAI/For/Pol/12Feb1830/Cons/No.7/f.35
34 NAI/For/Pol/12 Feb1830/Cons/No.6
35 MM/OffCorr/24Dec1829
36 A unit of distance, varying regionally
37 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct/1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/ff.65–6
38 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/f.75
39 NAI/For/Pol/19Mar1830/Cons/No.1
40 NAI/For/Pol/5Mar1830/Cons/No.4/f.8
41 NAI/For/Pol/5Mar1830/Cons/No.4/f.1
42 NAI/For/Pol/5Mar1830/Cons/No.4/f.12
43 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/ff.125–37
44 MM/OffCorr/3Feb1830
45 NAI/For/Pol/3Apr1830/Cons/No.3/f.3
46 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/f.62
47 BL/EUR/MSS/F347
48 BL/Add/Mss/14382/f.47
49 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/f.1
50 NAI/For/Sec/9August1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/ff.5–19
51 MM/OffCorr/10Mar1830NAI/For/Sec/8Julp
52 The Spectator, 17 April 1830, p. 7
53 BL/EUR/MSS/F347
54 James’ original manuscript survives in Montrose Museum.
Chapter 6 The Indus Scheme
1 MM/OffCorr/30Jun1830
2 MM/OffCorr/6Jul1830
3 NAI/For/Sec/14Oct1830/Nos. 3–8/f. 11
4 M E Yapp: Strategies of British India, p. 53
5 NAI/For/Sec/14October1830/Cons/Nos.3–8/f.8
6 David Gillard: The Struggle for Asia 1828–1914, p. 24