First Anglo-Afghan War--Alexander Burnes and Arthur Conolly | Letters about the "Great Game", 1840s

Captain Sir Alexander Burnes, and Captain Arthur Conolly

A group of letters relating the first Anglo-Afghan Wat the "Great Game", the contest over Central Asia between Britain and Russia:

i-ii) Alexander Burnes, two letters signed, to Major Henry Rawlinson, about procedures for exchanging intelligence, movements, the designs of the Russians ("...From Turkistan we have no accounts of the Russians as I imagine they are not yet running, but come they will I am certain...''), giving the latest news of Colonel Charles Stoddart, who "has been got out of jail by an Agent", and discussing the Afghan King ("...surrounded by a parcel of harpies...who spread all manner of reports..."), and current policy in dealings with Russia; 8 pages, 8vo, Kabul, 21 December 1840 and 20 January 1841;

iii) Captain Arthur Conolly, autograph letter signed, to Major Henry Rawlinson at Gluzni, a generally light-hearted letter about their social life in Afghanistan - "...You won't think me so big & lumbering as the gallant old Falstaff for saying that we miss you very much - especially at Whist..." - quoting a letter received from Lt.-Col. Timson, and commenting on other intelligence received, integral address panel, 5 pages, 4to, Kabul, 1840;

iv) Dr Joseph Wolff, autograph letter signed, to the Rev. Sir Hugh Molesworth, referring to his return from his second journey to Bokhara to ascertain "the fate of Col. Stoddart and Captain Conolly" and the profits from his book on Bokhara, 3 pages, 8vo, mourning stationery, Taunton, 31 August 1859;

v) Col. Charles Stoddart, autograph notes about how to take navigational bearings, 1 page, endorsed by Rawlinson on the verso as having been given to him on Stoddart's departure for Bokhara in 1837;

17 pages in all, chiefly 4to, one address leaf, partly laid-down, previously mounted in album, 1837-1859 

Also newspaper cuttings about Connolly and Stoddart's ill-fated expedition to Bukhara, 1841

"...nothing contributes so much to lower the Kings power as the employment of our troops against Afghans & I would avoid it if possible...even Lord Auckland does not have great faith in the sincerity of Russia in abandoning her Khiva designs but it gives us time & that is a great point - Our alliance on the Eastern question is clearly what has brought it about..."

A FASCINATING AND RARE COLLECTION OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SOME OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN "THE GREAT GAME". This is the term coined by Captain Conolly for the "secret war" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian Britain for influence and control in the "buffer" regions of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Persia, areas which both sides considered of crucial significance to their national security and expansionist policies. Captain Arthur Conolly (1807-42) was sent to Bokhara from Kabul in September 1840 to negotiate the release of Colonel Charles Stoddart (1806-42), who had been intermittently imprisoned there (having been sent to negotiate a treaty with the Emir) since 1838. After being kept imprisoned together for some months, the two men were publicly beheaded in June 1842. The missionary Dr Joseph Wolff arrived in Bokhara too late to save them. His subsequent published account, Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in 1843-1845 (1845), was enthusiastically received.

Sir Alexander Burnes (1805-41), political officer with the army in Kabul, had been killed some months before Conolly, in November 1841. His account of his earlier journey in 1833, Travels to Bokhara, had been even more of a bestseller than Wolff's, bringing to the public for the first time a sense of the romance, mystery and excitement of Central Asia.

The political agent Major (later Sir) Henry Rawlinson (for whom see also lot 48) would have joined Conolly's expedition to Bokhara and met the same fate if he had not been detained by disturbances in the Chilzai country. For an account of these dramatic events, see Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (1990).

PROVENANCE:

The Pencarrow Collection; Sotheby's, London, 8 December 1999, lot 80