Captain Mackenzie’s opinion, as to the conduct and motives of the Shah, involves some considerations not noticed by others: “The king highly esteemed and loved Macnaghten personally, as indeed all the Afghans did who came into direct intercourse with that accomplished and courteous English gentleman. Macnaghten’s chivalrous consideration for the proud but dependant monarch, who felt his somewhat false position keenly, had been unvarying and unremitting: perhaps more so than the public interests warranted. But we can afford to admire the high tone and delicacy of the envoy’s motives, especially as few public functionaries are likely to be misled by similar knightly scruples. The king more than once openly discussed with Macnaghten the likelihood of attempts to sow dissension between them, by the propagation of reports of his want of faith towards his British allies, and he always added: “You are yourself aware that you are as necessary to me as my nails are to my fingers.” Burnes was a man of totally different temperament from Macnaghten, and his demeanour towards the king was neither conciliatory nor deferential. It is not saying too much, that the king hated him; he was aware that his friend the Envoy was about to depart from Caubul, thus leaving him in Burnes’s hands; and after a careful consideration of the character of his proceedings from first to last, of the nature of the motives by which he was generally actuated (_i. e._ petty and personal), and also of the opinion of many of the most intelligent Afghans, the most probable conjecture is, that Shah Soojah was aware of the plot and combination against himself and the Feringhees before the outbreak; that he hoped it would be sufficient to detain Macnaghten in the country, but not enough to baffle our military power; and that, when he became thoroughly alarmed on the morning of the 2nd of November, he did his best to quell the insurrection, and openly expressed his astonishment and disappointment at the apathy and inefficiency of the English leaders and their troops. He can scarcely, with due consideration for the peculiarities of the Asiatic mind, and the desperate circumstances of his position, be judged by the European standard of honour and morality, if he subsequently temporised with the dominant Barukzyes. He well knew what he had to expect at their hands, and he fully anticipated the fate which afterwards overtook him.”[85]