Macpherson reported that the country beyond Khurd-Kabul was fairly settled, and that, on the 7th, he had been able to open communication with Brigadier-General Charles Gough, commanding Bright’s leading brigade.  I was thus again brought into communication with India, and in a position to clear my hospitals of those amongst the sick and wounded who were not progressing favourably, and could not soon be fit for duty.

By this time the Inquiry Commission had completed its difficult task of trying to sift the truth concerning the fate of Cavagnari and his companions from the mass of falsehood with which it was enveloped.  The progress had been slow, particularly when examination touched on the part Yakub Khan had played in the tragedy; witnesses were afraid to give evidence openly until they were convinced that he would not be re-established in a position to avenge himself.  The whole matter had been gone into most fully, and a careful perusal of the proceedings satisfied me that the Amir could not have been ignorant that an attack on the Residency was contemplated.  He may not have foreseen or desired the massacre of the Embassy, but there was no room for doubt as to his having connived at a demonstration against it, which, had it not ended so fatally, might have served him in good stead as a proof of his inability to guarantee the safety of foreigners, and thus obtain the withdrawal of the Mission.

It was impossible, under these circumstances, that Yakub Khan could ever be reinstated as Ruler of Kabul, and his remaining in his present equivocal position was irksome to himself and most embarrassing to me.  I therefore recommended that he should be deported to India, to be dealt with as the Government might decide after reviewing the information elicited by the political Court of Inquiry, which to me appeared to tell so weightily against the ex-Amir, that, in my opinion, I was no longer justified in treating as rebels to his authority Afghans who, it was now evident, had only carried out his secret, if not his expressed, wishes when opposing our advance on Kabul.  I decided, therefore, to proclaim a free and complete amnesty[2] to all persons not concerned, directly or indirectly, in the attack on the Residency, or who were not found hereafter in possession of property belonging to our countrymen or their escort, on the condition that they surrendered their arms and returned to their homes.

At Daud Shah’s suggestion, I sent three influential Sirdars to the Logar, Kohistan, and Maidan valleys, to superintend the collection of the amount of forage which was to be levied from those districts; and in order to lessen the consumption at Kabul, I sent away all elephants,[3] spare bullocks, and sick transport animals.  In furtherance of the same object, as soon as Macpherson returned, I sent Baker with a brigade into the Maidan district, about twenty miles from Kabul, on the Ghazni road, where the troops could more easily be fed, as it was the district from which a large proportion of our supplies was expected, and I also despatched to India all time-expired men and invalids who were no longer fit for service.[4]