Auckland at Simla. On the 1st of October in the same year, a manifesto was issued by the Governor-General, which was virtually a declaration of war against Dost Mahomed. Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Macnaghten, Secretary to the Government of India, was appointed Minister at the court of Shah Soojah, before any such court existed; and he was to be helped in his operations by Sir Alexander Burnes, for the discredited envoy had now been made a knight. Unanticipated alterations of plan, consequent on the bad faith of Runjeet Singh, who at the last moment refused to allow a passage through his dominions, as he had promised, delayed the starting of the expedition, which did not get on its way until the late winter of 1839. The army, which was in three divisions, consisted of British troops, Afghans, and Sikhs; and it was encumbered with a large number of camp-followers and baggage-animals. The routes pursued were beset by all those difficulties which belong to a mountainous and rocky land. Numbers of men and camels were lost; the soldiers were disheartened by fatigue, and by the gloom of their surroundings; food began to fail; the supplies which were expected at Quetta, beyond the further end of the Bolan Pass, were not forthcoming; and the two principal divisions of the invading force, which had now effected their junction, pushed forward, in a half-famished state, and by a long and difficult defile, to Candahar, which was reached on the 25th of April. The city surrendered without a blow; but the army was now greatly reduced in numbers, and could not reckon more than 10,400 fighting men. Shah Soojah was proclaimed at Candahar, and Sir John Keane, who had command of the whole invading force, while attached more particularly to the Bombay column, then set out for Ghizni, two hundred and thirty miles distant from Candahar, which was itself more than a thousand miles from the points of departure.

Ghizni offered a determined resistance, but was taken by storm on the 23rd of July, when the son of Dost Mahomed, Gholam Hyder Khan, who held the command, was captured. Sir John Keane next pushed on to Cabul, where the fall of Ghizni had produced a feeling of such extreme consternation that the Ameer found himself unable to act against the enemy, and therefore fled with a few attendants to the mountain solitudes of the Hindoo Koosh, on the northeastern boundary of Afghanistan. The English army, accompanied by Shah Soojah, entered Cabul on the 7th of August; but the demeanour of the people was cold, and the British were detested as strangers, as conquerors, and as Christians. On September 3rd, the invaders were joined by the third division, consisting for the most part of Afghans and Sikhs, under the orders of Colonel Wade, who had taken the fort of Ali Musjid (situated in a narrow part of the Khyber Pass) and the city of Jellalabad. It now seemed as if the Afghans were entirely subdued, and, in its premature satisfaction, the British Government showered honours on the persons principally concerned. Lord Auckland was made an Earl; Sir John Keane a Baron, with a pension of £2,000; and Mr. Macnaghten a Baronet. Other officials received inferior distinctions, and

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SURRENDER OF DOST MAHOMED.

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Shah Soojah created an Order of the Durani Empire, the insignia of which were bestowed on many English officers. Nevertheless, the people were thoroughly discontented, and surveyed with a sullen eye the military reviews and splendid ceremonials which it was hoped would reconcile them to the restored rule of Shah Soojah. They were not reconciled, for the new sovereign was regarded as the mere creature of the British authorities, whose pensioner he had been for many years, and by whom he was now forcibly imposed on a reluctant people, who had never invited his return.

The new settlement was believed to be so entirely safe that many of our troops were sent back long before the close of 1839, and the occupying force then consisted of 8,000 men, Europeans and Sepoys. As if inspired by some evil fate, the English officers wrote to India for their wives and children. In the spring of 1840, the British and Sepoy regiments were removed from the Bala Hissar (a fortified palace of great strength), and stationed in cantonments on the neighbouring plain, where they had scarcely any protection against the sudden attack of an enemy. These attacks speedily came. The country began to seethe with insurrection. British outposts were assailed, and, as the summer advanced, the fighting became serious. Dost Mahomed was again in arms, moving about rapidly from place to place, and sometimes gaining the advantage. In one of these encounters, he discomfited a British force under Sir Robert Sale, by whom he was attacked, on the 2nd of November, in the Purwandurrah valley. The disaster was chiefly owing to the misconduct of some Hindoo cavalry, who precipitately retreated, and sought shelter among the English guns. Everything was thrown into confusion, and Sale's force was only just able to cut its way back to Cabul. It might reasonably have been supposed that, after this brilliant success, Dost Mahomed (whose heroism and capacity have been warmly acknowledged by English writers) would have advanced with all his warriors to the capital. But he felt his inability to cope with such a power as England, and on the following day he rode up to the quarters of Sir William Macnaghten, introduced himself as the deposed Ameer, and delivered up his sword. When the British Minister had recovered from his surprise, he returned the sword, treated his prisoner with due honour, and, on the 12th of November, sent him to India under a strong escort. Again, apparently, had Fortune smiled upon the English cause.

But the insurrection against the authority of Shah Soojah still continued with unabated violence. In spite of this obvious danger, however, the British army of occupation was still further reduced in 1841, and the pension to native chiefs for abstaining from plunder was considerably lessened. The peril increased with every day; yet only a few of the military or civil officers could perceive its existence. Sir William Macnaghten and Sir Alexander Burnes appear to have been perfectly contented with the existing state of things; though Sir Robert Sale, having been sent to quell an insurrection of the Ghiljies, found his communications with Cabul seriously threatened, and though Major Pottinger (Eldred Pottinger, the defender of Herat) warned Sir William of the danger

by which he was menaced. Sir John Keane having returned to England, the chief command of the British forces devolved on Sir Willoughby Cotton, who had previously led the Bengal column. Cotton was a man of approved ability, but

he was soon afterwards superseded by General Elphinstone-an old and infirm officer, whose nerves were quite unfitted to sustain the shock by which they were soon to be entirely shattered. Sir William Macnaghten having been appointed to the Governorship of Bombay, his position as British Minister at Cabul was conferred on Sir Alexander Burnes; but, owing to the disturbed state of the country, the former was unable to leave the Afghan capital, and consequently

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INSURRECTION IN CABUL.

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fell in the massacre which shortly afterwards broke out. Cabul burst into a flame of excitement on the morning of November 2nd-the very day after that on which Burnes had assumed his new functions, and when he congratulated Macnaghten on leaving Afghanistan in a state of "profound tranquillity." The mob surrounded the residence of Burnes, threatened him and his brother, and shot his military secretary, Lieutenant Broadfoot. One of the insurgents, who

had sworn by the Koran that he would escort the brothers in safety to the fort, treacherously betrayed them to the rioters, by whom they were slain with knives. All the other inhabitants of the house, including women and children, were also murdered, and the edifice itself was burnt to ashes. General Elphinstone, who was in the cantonments with his troops, seems to have been utterly prostrated by the news, nor were any of his officers better prepared for the emergency. No steps were taken against the insurgents, and Elphinstone contented himself with saying that they must wait until the morning, and then see what could be done.

All he did when the morning came was to send urgent messages to Sir Robert Sale, who was then on his way to Jellalabad, to proceed as rapidly as possible to Cabul. Sir Robert, however, thought it a matter of such paramount

importance to keep open the communications with India, that he pursued his way to Jellalabad, and fortunately so, as was proved by after events. General Nott despatched three regiments to Candahar, in the hope of relieving the Cabul garrison; but the difficulties of the way and the severity of the weather were so great that they turned back, after accomplishing a portion of the distance. The cantonments at Cabul were now commanded by two guns, which the Afghans had planted on a neighbouring hill; and the British troops failed in an attempt to break out into the open country. The supplies of food ran short, and ultimately failed altogether; so that an agreement of some kind became an absolute necessity. The last act of Sir William Macnaghten was to open negotiations with the Afghan chiefs; but on the 23rd of December a few days later he was treacherously murdered by Akbar Khan, the eldest son of Dost Mahomed, who was now the leader of the insurrection. The two had entered into some rather obscure negotiations for making Akbar the Vizier and virtual master of Shah Soojah, and putting down the other chiefs. An interview was arranged for discussing this project; but a misunderstanding arose, and Macnaghten was shot by Akbar Khan, who afterwards, however, expressed great remorse for the deed. Shah Soojah appears to have acted with energy and good faith; but at the very commencement of the revolt his troops were overpowered by superior numbers, and he could now do nothing. The action of the malcontents was characterised by the utmost treachery. They had undertaken to furnish supplies, if the forts which guarded the cantonments were placed in their hands. The terms were accepted, but no food was forthcoming, while the possession of the forts by the enemy placed the cantonments wholly at his mercy. Matters therefore proceeded from bad to worse, and at length it was agreed that all the guns, excepting six, together with all the treasure, should be relinquished; that four officers should be put into the hands of the chiefs as hostages; and that 40,000 rupees, in bills drawn upon India, to be negotiated on the spot by some Hindoo bankers, should be paid to the Afghans. In exchange for these concessions, Akbar Khan promised to conduct the English regiments to Jellalabad; but he had not the power, even if he had the will, to make good his words. Our share of the agreement was honourably carried out to the minutest tittle; that of the Afghans was murderously broken.

The cantonments were quitted by the British troops on the 6th of January, 1842. The troops not unnaturally murmured at having to give up the guns and ammunition; but there was no help for it, and the doomed regiments filed out towards the desert in a condition little capable of successful defence against attack. The number of fighting men was not more than 4,500 (chiefly Asiatics); but they were accompanied by 12,000 camp-followers, including the wives and children of the officers. An inclement winter, with deep snow encumbering all the roads, added to the horrors of the time, and the Ghiljies began to attack the rear-guard immediately it had got clear of the cantonments. The fugitives entered the Pass of the Khoord-Cabul on the 8th of January, and the attacks now