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would be a child's play for the Afghans to conquer India. View-
ing this fact as early as one hundred and fifty year prior to the
time (in 1797) Lord Wellesley devised a scheme by wich not only
the Afghan progress is to be stopped making its way further into
north-India to Lahore and beyond; but the areas of the east and
south-east beyond the western regions of the Indus river, includ-
ing the areas of Sindh and Baluchistan should be seized from them.
English writers, like Alphinstone, Rawalson, Maleson, Tail
etc; are all united in expressing the opnion that, the fundametal
policy as laid down at Calcutta in the third quarter of the 18th
century of Christian Era contrived to place all sorts of impede-
ments in the path of Zaman Shah Sadu Zai, whether in the
western borders of Afghanistan, or even in his country itself in
order to "keep him busy", so that he may not be permitted to
enter into the eastern part of his realm in the Punjab and his
plans for a progress in India may be made nul and void.
To execute this policy, the workers for the East India com-
pany had devised ways and means: one such stratagem was to
have him engaged against the Qadjaras in the western frontiers
of Afghanistan so that the attention of the Sadu Zais might be
diverted in that direction. On the other direction, in the East;
it was so thought that the Sikh Paja should disturb the peace
of his kingdom in the Punjab.
The East India Company discovered a devoted "servant" of their's
at Bushar, a merchant of Iran, who lived at Bombay, by the name
of Mahdi Ali Khan, and who was an Indian subject. As the East
Company's view point was imperialist and megalomanic and they
were building and using their moral and material strength and
power towards that end: in the like manner, their "servant"
Mahdi Ali Khan in Bushar, in addition to trade and business,
interested himself in politics; and by various manipulations of
craft related thereto managed to have an influence at the Persian
Court. In consequence of this, he arranged repeatedly to send Agha
Mohamed Shah and Fateh Ali Shah to the frontiers of the west-
tern parts of Zaman Shah's kingdom, first to Meshad, then to
Nishapor and ultimately towards Herat. After a year an Eng-
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.