The reading of the Proclamation announcing the intentions of the British Government with regard to the punishment of the city was to take place in the Bala Hissar next day.  The Amir had agreed to accompany me.  The leading people were invited to attend, and I had given orders that all the troops were to take part in the procession, so as to render as impressive as possible the ceremony, at which were to be made known to the inhabitants of Kabul the terms imposed upon them by the British Government.  The object of my visit was to decide how the troops might best be disposed so as to make the most imposing display on the occasion.

I decided to detain in custody two Sirdars, Yahia Khan[1] and his brother Zakariah Khan, the Mustaufi, and the Wazir, as these four were Yakub Khan’s principal advisers, and I was satisfied that their influence was being used against us, and that so long as they were at large a mine might be sprung upon me at any moment.

The Commander-in-Chief, Daud Shah, was also in the Amir’s confidence; but I determined to leave him at liberty, for, from what I could learn, he had made an effort (not a very strong one, perhaps) to help our unfortunate countrymen, and he had on several occasions since he had been in my camp given me useful information; moreover, I hoped to obtain further help from him, in which hope I was not altogether disappointed.

As to what I ought to do with the Amir I was considerably puzzled.  Lord Lytton had urged upon me the necessity for weighing well the advisability of prematurely breaking with him, as it was very possible he might become a useful instrument in our hands, an eventuality which I thoroughly understood; but I was not at all sure that Yakub Khan would not break with me when he learnt my decision with regard to his Ministers, and I had received more than one warning that, if he failed to keep me from entering Kabul, he contemplated flight and a supreme effort to raise the country against me.

Yakub Khan certainly did not deserve much consideration from us; for, though no absolute proof was forthcoming of his having instigated the attack upon the Embassy, he most certainly made not the slightest effort to stop it or to save the lives of those entrusted to his care, and throughout that terrible day showed himself to be, if not a deliberate traitor, a despicable coward.  Again, his endeavours to delay the march of my force for the sole purpose of gaining sufficient time to organize the destruction of the army to whose protection he had appealed deprived him, to my mind, of the smallest claim to be treated as an honourable ally.