Admitting the undeniable force of this argument, I am greatly inclined to doubt that we have at present either army or funds sufficient to renew this contest.  Money may, perhaps, be attainable, but soldiers are not, without leaving India bare.  Shortly before I left Calcutta, there were at least 33,000 men in our pay in Affghanistan and Scinde, including Shah Soojah’s troops, but not the rabble attached to his person.  How insufficient that number has been to awe the barbarous and at first disunited tribes of Affghanistan and Scinde, our numerous conflicts, our late reverses, and our heavy losses fully prove.  I admit that a blind confidence in persons around the late envoy—­a total want of forethought and foresight on his part—­unaccountable indecision at first, followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more helpless—­inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions—­have led to these reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the fanatical zeal of our opponents.  No doubt your lordship can cause an army to force its way to Cabul, if you think our name and predominance in India cannot otherwise be supported; but our means are utterly insufficient to insure our dominion over that country.  If this be granted, the questions for your lordship’s decision are—­whether we shall retake Cabul, to assert our paramount power; and whether, if we subsequently retire, our subjects and neighbours will not attribute our withdrawal even then, to conscious inability to hold the country.”

In the same spirit the Commander-in-chief, in the beginning of February transmitted to General Pollock, with the acquiescence of lord Auckland, to whom he communicated his letter, the following explanation of the views of Government:—­

“You may deem it perfectly certain that Government will not do more than detach this brigade, and this in view to support Major-General Sale, either at Jellalabad for a few weeks, or to aid his retreat; very probably also to strengthen the Sikhs at Peshawar for some time.  It is not intended to collect a force for the reconquest of Cabul.  You will convey the preceding paragraph, if you safely can, to the Major-General.”

Such being the desponding views of the authorities stationed on the spot, what must have been the anxiety of the new Governor-General on his arrival in India, when this scene of disaster suddenly opened upon him with a succession of still further calamities in its train?  We cannot better describe his position than in the words of Sir Robert Peel, in his speech on the Whig motion for censure—­