MacNeill in turn immediately sent an express messenger to Lord Palmerston in London and another to the new Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, in Calcutta. “The Russians have formally opened their diplomatic intercourse with Kabul,” he wrote. “Captain Vicovich or Beekavitch, alias Omar Beg, a soonee Mahommedan subject of Russia, has been accredited, I am informed, as chargé d’affair[e]s to Ameer Dost Mohammed Khan.”
