would make your relief as certain as any earthly thing can be.’  What next?  On the 17th of April, Lord Ellenborough hears of the failure of General England to force the Kojuck Pass.  On the 19th of April he hears that Ghuznee has fallen.  And what next?  This was a question which, I repeat, Lord Ellenborough had from day to day to put to himself.  But what next?  Lord Ellenborough had to contemplate the retirement of the British force from Afghanistan.  This was due to the safety of the British army, after the proof that the king you had set upon the throne had no root in the affections of the people, and that the army in possession of Affghanistan was separated from supplies by a distance of 600 miles.  Finding this state of things, Lord Ellenborough thought he had no alternative but to bring the troops within the borders of British protection.  For that difficult operation your policy, and not that of Lord Ellenborough, is responsible.  Those who involved the country in an expedition of this kind, ought justly to be responsible for its retirement.”

It is needless to detail the difficulties in which the armies of General Pollock and General Nott were then placed.  Despondency and desertion prevailed among the native troops, so as to render any advance in the utmost degree hazardous, even if they had been capable of moving.  But of the means even of retrograde motion they were utterly destitute.  The explanations given in Parliament on the vote of thanks to the army and the Governor-General, establish beyond a doubt the absence of all means of carriage till the indefatigable exertions of Lord Ellenborough supplied them with every thing that was needed.  The Whigs affect to disparage these arrangements as belonging to the vulgar department of a Commissary-General; and we may therefore infer that Lord Ellenborough’s predecessor would have deemed such a task beneath his dignity, and left it to some delegate, who might have performed or neglected his duty, as accident might direct.  Had that been the case, the chances are at least equal, that Lord Auckland would have been as well and as successfully served in this branch of military administration as he had already been in the occupation of Cabul, and that further failures and reverses would have hung the tenure of our Indian empire on the cast of a die.

The evacuation of Affghanistan at the earliest possible period, was dictated both by the proceedings of Lord Auckland, by the condition of India, and by the peaceful policy of a Conservative Government.  But the mode in which it should be accomplished, and the demonstrations of British power which should attend it, were necessarily questions depending entirely “upon military considerations;” and for several months it seemed impossible that our armies could be put in a state of moral and physical strength, such as could justify the risk of any forward or devious movement of importance.  The indefatigable zeal and admirable arrangements,