My Commissariat arrangements, too, caused me many misgivings, increased by the fact that Major Badcock, my chief Commissariat Officer, and Major Collett, my Assistant Quartermaster-General, who had afforded such valuable aid in Kuram, thinking the war was at an end, had taken leave to England.  My doubts vanished, however, and my spirits rose at the sight of my brave troops, and the enthusiastic welcome they gave me as I rode through Kuram on the 12th September on my way to Alikhel.  A splendid spirit pervaded the whole force; the men’s hearts were on fire with eager desire to press on to Kabul, and be led against the miscreants who had foully massacred our countrymen, and I felt assured that whatever it was possible for dauntless courage, unselfish devotion, and firm determination to achieve, would be achieved by my gallant soldiers.

On reaching Alikhel, Captain Conolly handed to me the Amir’s letters,[11] to which I replied at once, and the next day, under instructions from the Government of India, I wrote to His Highness that, in conformity with his own special request that an English officer should be deputed as Envoy to his Court, and on condition that he would himself be responsible for the protection and honourable treatment of such an Envoy, Major Cavagnari and three British officers had been allowed to go to Kabul, all of whom within six weeks had been ruthlessly murdered by his troops and subjects; that his inability to carry out the treaty engagements, and his powerlessness to establish his authority, even in his own capital, having thus become apparent, an English army would now advance on Kabul with the double object of consolidating his Government, should he himself loyally do his best to fulfil the terms of the treaty, and of exacting retribution from the murderers of the British Mission.  But that, although His Highness laid great stress in his letter of the 4th September on the sincerity of his friendship, my Government had been informed that emissaries had been despatched from Kabul to rouse the country people and tribes against us, and as this action appeared inconsistent with friendly intentions, I considered it necessary for His Highness to send a confidential representative to confer with me and explain his object.

I had little doubt as to the truth of the report that the Amir was using every effort to incite the Ghilzais and other tribes to oppose us, and I was confirmed in my conviction by a Native gentleman, Nawab Ghulam Hussein Khan,[12] at one time our agent at Kabul, who told me that, although he did not believe that Yakub Khan had actually planned the massacre of the Embassy, he had certainly taken no steps to prevent it, and that he, Ghulam Hussein Khan, was convinced that the Amir was now playing us false.  It was, therefore, a relief to find awaiting me at Alikhel several of the leading men from the neighbouring districts, to whom I had telegraphed, before leaving Simla, asking them to meet me.