In early June, Macnaghten reported discouragingly that Ranjit “would not dream of marching a force to Kabul.”119 Slowly, however, the Maharajah made it clear that he might be open to persuasion, hinting that if he were given the financial centre of Shikarpur, the Khyber and Jalalabad, he might be prepared to join a punitive expedition to chastise and unseat his old Afghan enemy.
