Soon after his return to India in 1835 he was appointed to the court of Sindh to secure a treaty for the navigation of the Indus and in 1836 he undertook a political mission to Dost Mohammed Khan at Kabul. First Anglo-Afghan War He advised Lord Auckland to support Dost Mohammed on the throne of Kabul, but the viceroy preferred to follow the opinion of Sir William Hay Macnaghten and reinstated Shah Shuja, thus leading to the outbreak of the First Anglo-Afghan War. On the restoration of Shah Shuja in 1839, Burnes became regular political agent at Kabul. He was knighted by Queen Victoria on 6 August 1838, while serving in the 21st India Native Infantry on a mission in Afghanistan, and remained there until his assassination in 1841, during an insurrection in which his younger brother, Charles, was also killed. The calmness with which he continued at his post despite the threat to his life, and after the death of his political assistant Major William Broadfoot, won him a heroic reputation. It came to light in 1860 that some of Burnes' dispatches from Kabul in 1839 had been altered to convey opinions that had not been his, but Lord Palmerston refused after so long to grant the inquiry demanded in the House of Commons. An account of his later labours was published in 1842 under the title of Cabool: A Personal Narrative of a Journey to, and Residence in that City, in the Years 1836, 7, and 8. Final months and death On 7 August 1839, the British Government restored Afghan leader Shah Shuja to the throne in Kabul after an exile of over thirty years. Shujah, essentially a puppet for the British administration, had been living as a pensioner of the crown for the entirety of his exile and was considered to be the candidate most complacent and willing to cooperate with British interests in the region. Burnes, having long considered Shujah unfit to rule, had implored then Governor General Lord Auckland to endorse Dost Mohammad Khan to accede the throne. His recommendations went unheeded and, on 3 November 1840, Dost Mohammad surrendered himself to British forces, going into exile in India. Despite his hesitation in endorsing Shujah; Burnes, along with Sir William McNoughten, was installed in Kabul as resident political officers, a position Burnes himself resented, calling himself "a highly paid idler". In Kabul, the reign of