In 1838, Colonel Charles Stoddart of the East India Company arrived in the Khanate of Bukhara to arrange an alliance with Nasrullah Khan. Nasrullah Khan had Stoddart imprisoned in a vermin-infested dungeon because he had not bowed nor brought gifts. In 1841, Captain Arthur Conolly arrived to try to secure Stoddart's release. He was also imprisoned and on 17 June 1842 both men were beheaded. On hearing of the execution of the two British officers, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia would no longer receive Bukhara's gifts or emissaries, and its ambassador was turned back at Orenburg with a message that the Emperor would no longer have anything to do with the Emir of Bukhara. After its two representatives were executed in Bukhara, Britain actively discouraged officers from traveling in Turkestan.