Affairs of State | Page 5

entirely without the privity of the
Board of Directors.' The meaning of that declaration, of course, was
that it was the British Government of the day which was responsible,
acting through its member charged with the control of Indian affairs;
and further, that the directorate of the East India Company was
accorded no voice in the matter. But this utterance was materially
qualified by Sir J. C. Hobhouse's statement in the House of Commons
in 1842, that his despatch indicating the policy to be adopted, and that
written by Lord Auckland, informing him that the expedition had
already been undertaken, had crossed each other on the way.
It would be tedious to detail how Lord Auckland, under evil counsel,
gradually boxed the compass from peace to war. The scheme of action
embodied in the treaty which, in the early summer of 1838, was
concluded between the Anglo-Indian Government, Runjeet Singh, and
Shah Soojah, was that Shah Soojah, with a force officered from an
Indian army, and paid by British money, possessing also the goodwill
and support of the Maharaja of the Punjaub, should attempt the
recovery of his throne without any stiffening of British bayonets at his
back. Then it was urged, and the representation was indeed accepted,
that the Shah would need the buttress afforded by English troops, and
that a couple of regiments only would suffice to afford this prestige.
But Sir Harry Fane, the Commander-in-Chief, judiciously interposed
his veto on the despatch of a handful of British soldiers on so distant
and hazardous an expedition. Finally, the Governor-General,
committed already to a mistaken line of policy, and urged forward by
those about him, took the unfortunate resolution to gather together an
Anglo-Indian army, and to send it, with the ill-omened Shah Soojah on
its shoulders, into the unknown and distant wilds of Afghanistan. This
action determined on, it was in accordance with the Anglo-Indian

fitness of things that the Governor-General should promulgate a
justificatory manifesto. Of this composition it is unnecessary to say
more than to quote Durand's observation that in it 'the words "justice
and necessity" were applied in a manner for which there is fortunately
no precedent in the English language,' and Sir Henry Edwardes' not less
trenchant comment that 'the views and conduct of Dost Mahomed were
misrepresented with a hardihood which a Russian statesman might
have envied.'
All men whose experience gave weight to their words opposed this
'preposterous enterprise.' Mr Elphinstone, who had been the head of a
mission to Cabul thirty years earlier, held that 'if an army was sent up
the passes, and if we could feed it, no doubt we might take Cabul and
set up Shah Soojah; but it was hopeless to maintain him in a poor, cold,
strong and remote country, among so turbulent a people.' Lord William
Bentinck, Lord Auckland's predecessor, denounced the project as an act
of incredible folly. Marquis Wellesley regarded 'this wild expedition
into a distant region of rocks and deserts, of sands and ice and snow,' as
an act of infatuation. The Duke of Wellington pronounced with
prophetic sagacity, that the consequence of once crossing the Indus to
settle a government in Afghanistan would be a perennial march into
that country.

CHAPTER II
: THE MARCH TO CABUL
The two main objects of the venturesome offensive movement to which
Lord Auckland had committed himself were, first, the raising of the
Persian siege of Herat if the place should hold out until reached--the
recapture of it if it should have fallen; and, secondly, the establishment
of Shah Soojah on the Afghan throne. The former object was the more
pressing, and time was very precious; but the distances in India are
great, the means of communication in 1838 did not admit of celerity,
and the seasons control the safe prosecution of military operations.
Nevertheless, the concentration of the army at the frontier station of
Ferozepore was fully accomplished toward the end of November. Sir
Harry Fane was to be the military head of the expedition, and he had
just right to be proud of the 14,000 carefully selected and

well-seasoned troops who constituted his Bengal contingent. The force
consisted of two infantry divisions, of which the first, commanded by
Major-General Sir Willoughby Cotton, contained three brigades,
commanded respectively by Colonels Sale, Nott, and Dennis, of whom
the two former were to attain high distinction within the borders of
Afghanistan. Major-General Duncan commanded the second infantry
division of the two brigades, of which one was commanded by Colonel
Roberts, the gallant father of a gallant son, the other by Colonel
Worsley. The 6000 troops raised for Shah Soojah, who were under
Fane's orders, and were officered from our army in India, had been
recently and hurriedly recruited, and although rapidly improving, were
not yet in a