very quick or clear, were now undoubtedly some- the trick, greatly agitated at the effect produced on what obfuscated with what he had been drinking. Miss Tag-rag: when Tag-rag's heavy hand was sudIn short, he did not understand that Tag-rag had not denly placed on his shoulder, and he whispered in a understood him; and felt rather baffled. fierce under tone-" You impostor!" and that stop

"What surprising ups and downs there are in life, ped Titmouse, and made something like a MAN of Mr. Titmouse," said Mrs. Tag-rag, respectfully-him. He was a fearful fool, but he did not want for "they're all sent from above, to try us. No one mere pluck, and now it was roused. Mrs. Tag-rag knows how they'd behave, if as how (in a manner) exclaimed, "Oh, you shocking scamp!" as she they were turned upside down." passed Titmouse, and led her daughter out of the

66

I-I hope, mein, I haven't done any thing to room.

show"

If I'm an impostor, sir, I'm no fit company for

"Oh! my dear Titmouse," anxiously interrupted you, I suppose, sir, said Titmouse, rising." Tag-rag, inwardly cursing his wife, who, finding she

66

Pay me my five-pound note," almost shouted

always went wrong in her husband's eyes whenever Tag-rag. she spoke a word, determined for the future to stick "Well, sir, if I'm poor, I an't a rogue," said Titto her negus-"the fact is, there's a Mr. Horror here mouse, preparing to give him what he asked for; that's for sending all decent people to- He's when a faint shriek was heard, plainly from Miss filled my wife there with all sorts of isn't bursting with cant-so never mind her. done any thing wrong! You're a pattern!" "Well-I'm a happy man again," resumed Titmouse, resolved now to go on.-" And when did they tell you of it, sir?"

"Oh, a few days ago—a week ago," replied Tagrag, trying to recollect.

66

- nay, if she Tag-rag, overhead. Then the seething caldron boiled You over. You infernal scoundrel," said Tag-rag, almost choked with fury; and suddenly seizing Titmouse by the collar, scarce giving him time, in passing, to get hold of his hat and stick, he urged him along through the passage, down the gravel walk, threw open the gate, thrust him furiously through it, and sent after him such a blast of execration, as was enough to drive him a hundred yards down the road. Titmouse did not fully recover his breath or his senses for more than half an hour afterwards. When he did, the first thing that occurred to him was, an inclination to fall down on his knees on the open road, and worship the sagacious and admirable GAMMON.

Why-why-sir-ain't you mistaken ?" enquired Titmouse, with a depressed, but at the same time a surprised air. "It only happened this morning, after you left."

"Eh-eh-ah, ha!-What do you mean, Mr. Titmouse?" interrupted Tag-rag, with a sickening at tempt at a smile. Mrs. Tag-rag and Miss Tag-rag also turned exceedingly startled faces towards Titmouse, who felt as if a house were going to fall down on him.

Tag-rag's face changed visibly; it was getting frightful to look at; the inward shock and agony were forcing out on his slanting forehead great drops of perspiration.

"What-a-capital-joke-Mr. Titmouse!" he gasped, drawing his handkerchief over his forehead. Titmouse, though greatly alarmed, stood to his gun pretty steadily.

"I-I wish it was a joke! It's been no joke to me, sir. There's another Tittlebat Titmouse, it seems, in Shoreditch, that's the right"

THE AFFGHANISTAN EXPEDITION. "IN the light of precaution," says Gibbon, "all conquest must be ineffectual unless it could be universal; for, if successful, it only involves the belligerent power in additional difficulties and a wider sphere of hostility." All ages have demonstrated the truth of this profound observation. The Romans conquered the neighbouring states of Italy and Gaul, only to be brought into collision with the fiercer and more formidable nations of Germany and Parthia. Alexander overran Media and Persia, only to see his armies rolled back before the arms of the Scythians, or the innumerable legions of India; and the empire "How dare you swear before the ladies? You're of Napoleon, victorious over the states of Germany insulting them, sir!"-almost roared Tag-rag. and Italy, recoiled at length before the aroused in"You're not a gentleman." He suddenly dropped dignation of the Northern powers. The British emhis voice, and, in a trembling and most earnest man-pire in India, the most extraordinary work of conner, asked Titmouse whether he was really joking quest which modern times have exhibited, forms no or serious.

"Who told you this, sir?--Pho, I don't--I can't believe it," said Tag-rag, in a voice tremulous between suppressed rage and fear.

66

True, 'pon my life, It is".

"Never more serious in my life, sir."

exception to the truth of this general principle. The storming of Seringapatam, and the overthrow of the House of Tippoo, only exposed us to the incursions A satanic scowl shot over of the Mahratta horse. The subjugation of the

"It's really all up?" Titmouse groaned, Tag-rag's disgusting features.

"Oh, ma-I do feel so ill!" faintly exclaimed Miss Tag-rag, turning deadly pale. Titmouse was on the verge of dropping on his knees, and confessing

Mahrattas involved us in a desperate and doubtful conflict with the power of Holkar. His subjugation brought us in contact with the independent and brave mountaineers of Nepaul; and even their conquest,

and the establishment of the British frontier on the the Oxus and the shores of the Araxes. The vast summit of the Himalayan snows, has not given that powers whice lie between the British and Russian security to our Eastern possessions for which its frontiers cannot remain neutral; they must be influ rulers have so long and strenuously contended; and enced by the one or the other power. "As little," beyond the stream of the Indus, beyond the moun- said Alexander the Great, "as the heavens can adtains of Cashmere, it has been deemed necessary to mit of two suns, can the earth admit of two rulers of establish the terror of the British arms, and the in- the East." fluence of the British name.

Strongly as all nations, in all ages, have been imThat such an incursion into Central Asia has vastly pressed with military success as the mainspring of extended the sphere both of our diplomatic and hos- diplomatic advances, there is no part of the world in tile relations; that it has brought us in contact with which it is so essential to political influence as in the the fierce and barbarous northern tribes, and erected East. Less informed than those of Europe in reour out-posts almost within sight of the Russian gard to the real strength of their opponents, and far videttes, is no impeachment whatever of the wisdom less prospective in their principles of policy, the naand expediency of the measure, if it has been con- tions of Asia are almost entirely governed by present ducted with due regard to prudence and the rules of success in their diplomatic conduct. Remote or conart in its execution. It is the destiny of all conquer- tingent danger produces little impression upon them; ing powers to be exposed to this necessity of advanc- present peril is only looked at. They never negotiate ing in their course. Napoleon constantly said, and till the dagger is at their throat; but when it is there, he said with justice, that he was not to blame for the they speedily acquiesce in whatever is exacted of conquests he undertook; that he was forced on by them. Regarding the success of their opponents as invincible necessity; that he was the head merely of the indication of the will of destiny, they bow, not a military republic, to whom exertion was existence; only with submission, but with cheerfulness to it. and that the first pause in his advance was the com- All our diplomatic advances in the East, accordingly, mencement of his fall. No one can have studied the have followed in the train of military success; all eventful history of his times, without being satisfied our failures have been consequent on the neglect to of the justice of these observations. The British assert with due spirit the rights and dignity of the empire in the East is not, indeed, like his in Europe, British empire. The celebrated Roman maxim one based on injustice and supported by pillage. parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, is not there a Protection and improvement, not spoliation and mi- principle of policy; it is a rule of necessity. It is sery, have followed in the rear of the English flag; the condition of existence to every powerful state. and the sable multitudes of Hindostan now perma- The court of Persia is, in an especial manner, subnently enjoy that protection and security which ject to the influence of these external considerations. heretofore they had only tasted under the transient Weakened by long-continued and apparently interreigns of Baber and Aurungzebe. But still, notwith- minable domestic fends; scarce capable of mustering standing all its experienced benefits, the British sway round the standards of Cyrus and Darius twenty in Hindostan is essentially that of opinion; it is the thousand soldiers; destitute alike of wealth, military working and middle classes who are benefitted by organization, or central powers, the kings of Tehran their sway: The interest and passions of too many are yet obliged to maintain a doubtful existence in of the rajahs and inferior nobility are injured by its the midst of neighbouring and powerful states. The continuance, to render it a matter of doubt that a Ottoman empire has long pressed from the west upon large and formidable body of malecontents are to be them, and transmitted, since the era when the relifound within the bosom of their territories, who gion of Mahomet was in its cradle, the indelible would take advantage of the first external disaster to hatred of the successors of Othinan against the folraise again the long-forgotten standard of independ-lowers of Ali. In later times, and since the Cross ence; and that, equally with the empire of Napoleon has become triumphant over the Crescent, the Russian in Europe, our first movement of serious retreat empire has pressed upon them with ceaseless ambiwould be the commencement of our fall. Nor would tion from the north. More permanently formidable soldiers be wanting to aid the dispossessed nobles in than the standards of either Timour or Gengis Khan, the recovery of their pernicious authority. Whoever her disciplined battalions have crossed the Caucasus, raises the standard of even probable warfare, is sure spread over the descending hills of Georgia, and of followers in India; the war castes throughout brought the armies of Christ to the foot of Mount Hindostan, the Rajpoots of the northern provinces, Ararat, and the shores of the Araxes. Even the are panting for the signal of hostilities, and the mo- south has not been freed from ominous signs and ment the standard of native independence is raised, heart-stirring events: the fame of the British arms, hundreds of thousands of the Mahratta horse would the justice of the British rule, have spread far into cluster around it, ardent to carry the spear and the the regions of Central Asia; the storming of Seringtorch into peaceful villages, and renew the glorious apatam, the fall of Scindiah, the conquest of Holkar, days of pillage and conflagration. have resounded among the mountains of Affghanistan,

But it is not only within our natural frontier of the and awakened in the breasts of the Persians the Indus and the Himalaya that the necessity of contin- pleasing hope, that from those distant regions the ually advancing, if we would exist in safety, is felt arms of the avenger are destined to come; and that, in the British empire in the East. The same neces- amidst the contentions of England and Russia sity is imposed upon it by its external relations with Persia may again einerge to her ancient supremacy foreign powers. It is too powerful to be disregarded among the nations of the earth.

in the balance of Asiatic politics; its fame has ex- The existence of Persia is so obviously threatened tended far into the regions of China and Tartary; its by the aggresstons of Russia, the peril in that quarter name must be respected or despised on the banks of is so instant and apparent, that the Persian govern

ment have never failed to take advantage of every which had been advocated for half a century by the successive impulse communicated to British influ- whole Whig party, and which were then, as they ence, by their victories in Hindostan, to cement their still are, praised and lauded to the skies by the alliance and draw closer their relation with this whole Liberal leaders of every denomination. country. The storming of Seringapatam was imme-| The consequences of this total dereliction of nationdiately followed by a defensive treaty between Per-al character and interests, in order to gratify the sia and Great Britian, in 1800, by which it was sti- short-sighted passions of an illiberal democracy, pulated, that the English merchant should be placed rapidly developed themselves. Russia, encouraged on the footing of the most favoured nation, and that by the success with which she had broken the barno hostile European force should be permitted to rier of Hindostan in Central Asia, continued her pass through the Persian territories towards Hindos-aggressions on the Ottoman power in Europe. The tan. Every successive addition made to our Indian Turkish fleet was destroyed by the assistance of a empire; every triumph of our Indian arms, drew British force at Navarino; the Russian arms were closer the relations between Great Britain and the carried across the Balkan by British sufferance to court of Tehran; and it was not till the wretched Adrianople; and the Ottoman empire, trembling for days of economy and retrenchment began, till the ho- its existence, was glad to subscribe a treaty which nour of England was forgotten in the subservience to virtually surrendered the Danube and its whole popular clamour, and her ultimate interests overlook-northern defences to the Russian power. Not content ed in the thirst for immediate popularity, that any with this, the rulers of England, during the halcyon decay in our influence with the court of Persia was days of the Reform mania, descended to still lower perceptible. In those disastrous days, however, degradation and unparalleled acts of infatuation. when the strong foundations of the British empire When the Pasha of Egypt revolted against the Ottowere loosened, in obedience to the loud democratic man power, which seemed thus alike deserted by its clamour for retrenchment, the advantages we had allies and crushed by its enemies, and the disastrous gained in Central Asia were entirely thrown away. battle of Koniah threatened to bring the Egyptian With an infatuation which now appears almost in- legions to the shores of Scutari, we turned a deaf ear credible, but which was then lauded by the whole to the earnest prayer of the distressed Sultan for aid. Liberal party as the very height of economical wis-Engrossed in striving to conquer Antwerp in northdom, we destroyed our navy at Bombay, thereby sur-ern, and Lisbon in southern Europe, for the advantage rendering the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to any of revolutionary France, we had not a guinea nor a hostile power that chose to occupy them; we reduced gun to spare to preserve the interest, or uphold the our Indian army from two hundred and eighty, to one honour of England in the Dardanelles, and we threw hundred and sixty thousand men, thereby exposing Turkey, as the price of existence, into the arms of ourselves to the contempt of the native powers, by Russia. The rest is well known. The Muscovite whom respect is never paid but to strength, and battalions gave the requisite aid; the domes of Conweakening the attachment of the native population, stantinople reflected the lights of their bivouacs on who found themselves in great part shut out from the the mountain of the giant; the arms of Ibrahim dazzling career of British conquest; and we suffered recoiled before this new and unexpected antagonist, Persia to combat, single-handed, the dreadful power and the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi delivered Turkey, of Russia in 1827, and never sent either a guinea or bound hand and foot, into the hands of Russia, a bayonet to save the barrier of Hindostan from Mus-rendered the Euxine a Muscovite lake, and for ever covite dismemberment. These disgraceful deeds shut out the British flag from the navigation of its took place during the halcyon days of Liberal admi-waters, or the defence of the Turkish metropolis. nistration; when the Tories nominally held the The natural results of this timorous and vacillating reins, but the Whigs really possessed the power of policy, coupled with the well-known and fearful regovernment; when that infallible criterion of right duction of our naval and military force in India, were and wrong, popular opinion, was implicitly obeyed; not slow in developing themselves. It soon appearwhen the democratic cry for retrenchment pervaded, ed that the British name had ceased to be regarded penetrated, and paralysed every department of the with any respect in the East; and that all the state; and when, amidst the mutual and loud com-influence derived from our victories and diplomacy in pliments of the Ministerial and Opposition benches, Central Asia had been lost. It is needless to go into the foundations of the British empire were loosened, details, the results of which are well known to the and the strength of the British arms withered in the public, though the diplomatic secrets connected with hands of conceding administrations. The conse- them have not yet been revealed. Suffice it to say quences might easily have been foreseen: province that Persia, which for a quarter of a century had been after province was reft by the Muscovite invaders the firm ally, and in fact the advanced post of the from the Persian empire; fortress after fortress British power in India, deserted by us, and subdued yielded to the terrible powers of their artillery; the by Russia, was constrained to throw herself into the torrent of the Araxes was bestrode by their battalions; arms of the latter. The Persian army was speedily the bastions of Erivan yielded to their cannon; and organized on a better and more effective footing, Persia avoided total conquest only by yielding up its under direction of Russian officers; and several whole northern barrier and most warlike provinces thousand Russian troops, disguised under the name to the power of Russia. It is immaterial to us of deserters, were incorporated with, and gave conwhether these consequences took place under the no- sistency to, the Persian army. The British officers, minal rule of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, or the who had hitherto had the direction of that force, Duke of Wellington; suffice it to say, they all took were obliged to retire;, insult, the invariable precurplace during the government of the masses; and that sor in the East of injury, was heaped upon the Britthe principles on which they were founded were those ish subjects; redress was demanded in vain by the VOL. XXXVIII.—MARCH, 1840.

37

Kam

British ambassador; and Sir John M'Neil himself, "the blue-eyed myriads of the Baltic coast" may was at length obliged to leave the court of Tehran, find a way into its fabled plains. from the numerous crosses and vexations to which he There was a time when British influence might was exposed. Having thus got quit of the shadow with ease, and at little cost, have been established in even of British influence throughout the whole of the Affghanistan passes. Dost Mahommed was a Persia, the Russians were not long in following out usurper, and his legal claims to the throne would the new smoothed highway towards Hindostan: the not bear a comparison with those of Shah Shoojah. siege of Herat, the head of the defile which leads to But he was a usurper who had concilitated and won the Indus, was undertaken by the Persian troops, the affections of the people, and his vigour and sucunder Russian guidance; and Russian emissaries and cess had given a degree of prosperity to Affghanistan diplomacy, ever preceding their arms, had already which it had not for centuries experienced. crossed the Himalaya snows, and were stirring up ram, the sultan of Herat, was connected with him by the seeds of subdued but unextinguished hostility in blood and allied by inclination, and both were anithe Birman empire, among the Nepaulese moun- mated by hereditary and inveterate hatred of the taineers, and the discontented rajahs of Hindostan. Persian power. They would willingly, therefore, There is but one road by which any hostile army have united themselves with Great Britain to secure ever has, or ever can, approach India from the north- a barrier against northern invasion; and such an alliward. Alexander the Great, Timour, Gengis Khan, ance would have been founded on the only durable Nadir-Shah, have all penetrated Hindostan by the bond of connexion among nations-mutual advansame route. That road has, for three thousand years, tage, and the sense of a formidable impending combeen the beaten and well-known track by which the mon danger. The states of Candahar and Cabool mercantile communication has been kept up between were in the front of the danger; the Russian and the plains of the Ganges and the steppes of Upper Persian arms could never have approached the Indus Asia. Herat stands at the head of this defile. Its until they were subdued; and consequently their adpopulation, which amounts to one hundred thousand hesion to our cause, if we would only give them efsouls, and wealth which renders it by far the most fectual support, might be relied upon as certain. It important city in the heart of Asia, have been entirely is well known that Dost Mahommed might have formed by the caravan trade, which, from time im- been firmly attached to the British alliance within memorial, has passed through its walls, going and these few years by the expenditure of a hundred returning from Persia to Hindostan. When Napo- thousand pounds, and the aid of a few British offileon, in conjunction with the Emperor Paul, project-cers to organize his forces. And when it is recoled the invasion of our Indian possessions by a joint lected that the Sultan of Herat, alone and unaided by army of French infantry and Russian Cossacks, the us, held out against the whole power of Persia, diroute marked out was Astrakan, Astrabad, Herat, rected by Russian officers, for one year and nine Candahar, the Bolan pass, and the Indus, to Delhi. months, it is evident both with what a strong spirit There never can be any other road overland to India; of resistance to northern aggression the Affghanistan for to the eastward of it inaccessible snowy ranges of states are animated, and what elements of resistance mountains preclude the possibility of an army get- they possess among themselves, even when unaided, ting through; while to the west parched and im- against northern ambition.

passable deserts afford obstacles still more formida- The immense advantage of gaining the support of ble, which the returning soldiers of Alexander over- the tribes inhabiting the valley of Affghan, thus came only with the loss of half their numbers. It is holding in their hands the keys of Hindostan, was quite clear, therefore, that Herat is the vital point of forgone by the British power in India, partly from communication between Russia and Hindostan; and the dilapidated state to which the army had been rethat whoever is in possession of it, either actually or duced by the miserable retrenchment forced upon the by the intervention of a subsidiary or allied force, Government by the democratic cry for economy at need never disquiet himself about apprehensions that home, and partly from the dread of involving ouran enemy will penetrate through the long and diffi- selves in hostility with Runjeet Sing, the formidable cult defile which leads in its rear to Hindostan. chief of Lahore, whose hostility to the Affghanistans

Since our empire in India had waxed so powerful was hereditary and inveterate; and there can be little as to attract the envy of the Asiatic tramontane na- doubt that the conclusion of a treaty, offensive and tions, it became, therefore, a matter of necessity to defensive, with the powers of Cabool, would have maintain our influence among the nations who held excited great discontent, if not provoked open hosthe keys of this pass. Affghanistan was to India tility, at the court of Lahore. In relinquishing their what Piedmont has long been to Italy; even a second hold of the Affghanistan states, from the dread of Hannibal or Napoleon might be stopped in its long compromising their relations with the wily potentäte mountain passes and interminable barren hills. If, of the Indus, the British Government in India were indeed, the politics of India could be confined only to only acting upon that system of temporizing, conits native powers, it might be wise to consider the ceding, and shunning present danger, which has chaIndus and the Himalaya as our frontier, and to disre-racterised all their public acts ever since the influgard entirely the distant hostility or complicated ence of the urban masses became predominant in the diplomacy of the northern Asiatic states. But as British councils. But it is now apparent, that in long as India, like Italy, possesses the fatal gift of breaking with the Afghans to conciliate the rajah, beauty; as long as its harvests are coveted by north- the British incurred the greater ultimate, to avoid the ern sterility, and its riches by barbarian poverty; so present lesser danger. Runjeet Sing, indeed, was a long must the ruler of the land preserve with jealous formidable power, with seventy thousand men, and care the entrance into its bosom, and sit with frown- one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon under his coming majesty at the entrance of the pass by which mand. But his situation, between the Brttish terri

1

tory on the one side, and the Affghans on the other, dertaken in a truly British spirit-executed by whom rendered him incapable of making any effectual re- they may, they emanated from Conservative princisistance. His military force was by no means equal ples. As much as the ruinous reductions and parsito what had been wielded by Tippo or the Mahrat-monious spirit of Lord William Bentinck's administas, and his rear was exposed to the incursions of his tration bespoke the poisonous influence of democratic hereditary and inveterate enemies in the Affghanistan retrenchment in the great council of the empire, so mountains. Still, more than all, his territories were much does the expedition to Affghanistan bespeak pierced by the great and navigable river of the Indus the felicitous revival of the true English spirit in the -the best possible base for British operations, ca- same assembly. At both periods it is easy to see, pable of conveying both the muniments of war and that, though not nominally possessed of the reins of the provisions for an army into the heart of his do- power, her Majesty's Opposition really ruled the minions. In these circumstances, it is evident that state. In the Affghanistan expedition there was the submission of Runjeet Sing must soon have be- very little of the economy which cut in twain the come a matter of necessity; or, at all events, even if Indian army, but very much of the spirit which aniwe had been driven into hostilities with him, it mated the British troops at Assaye and Laswarree; would have been a far less formidable contest than there was very little of the truckling which brought that into which we have been driven, by abandoning the Russians to Constantinople, but a great deal of the Affghans in the late expedition to Cabool. The the energy which carried the English to Paris. one would have been what the subjugation and con- In a military point of view, the expedition to quest of Prussia was to Napoleon, the other was an Affghanistan is one of the most memorable events of expedition fraught with all the cost and perils of the modern times. For the first time since the days of advance to Moscow. Alexander the Great, a civilized army has penetrated Notwithstanding these perils and this cost, how- the mighty barrier of deserts and mountains which ever, we have no doubt that, at the time it was un- separates Persia from Hindostan; and the prodigy dertaken, the expedition to Affghanistan had become has been exhibited to an astonished world, of a rea matter of necessity. We had been reduced to such mote island in the European seas pushing forward a pass by the economy, concession, and pusillani- its mighty arms into the heart of Asia, and carrying mity of former Governments, that we had no alterna- its victorious standards into the strong-holds of Mative but either to see the whole of Central Asia and hometan faith and the cradle of the Mogul empire. Northern Hindostan arrayed in one formidable Neither the intricate streams of the Punjab, nor the league, under Russian guidance, against us, or to rapid flow of the Indus, nor the waterless mountains make a desperate and hazardous attempt to regain of Affghanistan, nor the far-famed bastions of our lost character. We have preferred the latter al-Ghuznee, have been able to arrest our course. ternative; and the expedition of Lord Auckland, the first time in the history of the world, the tide of boldly conceived and vigorously executed, has hith-conquest has flowed up from Hindostan into Central erto, at least, been crowned with the most signal Asia; the European races has asserted its wonted susuccess. That it was also attended with great and periority over the Asiatic; reversing the march of imminent hazard is equally certain; but the exist-Timour and Alexander, the sable battalions of the ence of that peril, imposed upon us by the short- Ganges have appeared as conquerors on the frontiers sighted parsimonious spirit of the mercantile demo- of Persia, and on the confines of the steppes of Sacratic communities which for fifteen years past have marcand. So marvellous and unprecedented an event swayed the British empire, is no impeachment what- is indeed fitted to awaken the contemplation of every ever, either of the wisdom or necessity of the adven- thoughtful mind. It speaks volumes as to the mighty turous step which was at last resolved on. It only step made by the human race in the last five hundred shows the straits to which a great nation must years, and indicates the vast agency and unbounded speedily be reduced when its Government, in an evil effects of that free spirit, of which Britain is the hour, yields to the insidious cry for democratic re- centre, which has thus, for a season at least, inverted trenchment.

For

the heretofore order of nature, made the natives of Hindostan appear as victors in the country of Gengis Khan, and brought the standards of civilized Europe, though in the inverse order, into the footsteps of the phalanx of Alexander.

Already the beneficial effects of this bold policy have become apparent. The crossing of the Indus by a powerful British army; the surmounting of the hills of Cashmere; the passage of the Bolan defile; the storming of Ghuznee; the fall of Candahar and Though such, however, have been the marvels of Cabool, and the restoration of Shah Shoojah to the the British expedition to Central Asia, yet it is not throne of his ancestors; have resounded through the to be disguised that it was attended by at least equal whole of Asia, and restored, after its eclipse of fif- perils; and never, perhaps, since the British standteen years, the honour of the British name. The ard appeared on the plains of Hindostan, was their, doubtful fidelity of the Rajah of Lahore has been empire in such danger as during the dependence of overawed into submission; the undisguised hostility this glorious but hazardous expedition. It was, of the court of Persia has terminated, and friendly literally speaking, to our Indian empire what the relations are on the eve of being re-established; and expedition to Moscow was to the European dominion the indecision of the Sultan of Herat and his brave of Napoleon. Hitherto, indeed, the result has been followers has been decided by the terror of the Bri- different, and we devoutly hope that, in that respect, tish arms, and the arrival of a train of artillery with- the dissimilarity will continne. But in both cases in its ruined bastions. As Britons, we rejoice from the danger was the same. It was the moving for the bottom of our hearts at these glorious successes; ward a large force so far from its resources and the and we care not who were the Ministry at the head base of its operations, which in both cases constitutof affairs when they were achieved. They were un-led the danger. If any serious check had been sus