AFFGHANISTAN AND INDIA.

The events of the last six months have at length reduced the question of our Affghan policy into something like a definite form. From the day when our columns first crossed the Indus in hostile array, we never ceased to proclaim that any permanent occupation of the country, as a conquest made on our behalf, could never be for an instant contemplated; and that the sole object of the expedition was the restoration of the friendly dynasty of the Suddozyes, to whom we were bound by the ties of ancient alliance, to the throne from which they were excluded by an usurping chief, the continuance of whose rule was incompatible equally with our interest and with the welfare of his own country. On this avowed principle, Affghanistan was laid waste with fire and sword, the castles of its independent nobles besieged and stormed, and the chiefs themselves slaughtered while fighting in defence of their thresholds; and all this was carried on (with a view, as stated by a writer in the Asiatic Journal, to the reconstruction of the social edifice!») in the name of a monarch who, as was notorious to every one, was in effect as much a state prisoner of the English at Cabul as his un

fortunate competitor, Dost Mohammed, (') was in Hindostan, and who exercised less real power, beyond the precincts of his own palace, than the youngest subaltern of the invading army. Herat in the meanwhile, the securing which against attack was the original pretext of the war, was almost the only corner of Affghanistan into which our intrusive arms did not penetrate; and its vizier, Yar-Mohammed, was suffered with perfect impunity to insult and expel our envoy, to levy war against his own nominal sovereign Shah-Kamran, and to open correspondence with all the enemies of England, avowed or secret. Never, in fact, was the notable Whig process of a non-intervention war more completely carried out than in this instance. All this time, every rupee of revenue extracted from the country in the name of Shah-Shoojah cost at least ten in the collecting; and as the restored monarch was bound by treaty to keep up a subsidiary force, the expense of supporting which would have considerably exceeded the income he had ever been able, even in his former days of prosperity, to levy in his dominions, the slender resources of Affghanistan must, in the natural course of things, have been utterly exhausted in a few years while the current outlay could only be met by incessant draughts on the Calcutta treasury, which was forced to make constant advances, and to contract heavy loans for the sake of maintaining its grasp of a territory already mortgaged far beyond the fee-simple of its value. It appears difficult to conjecture how this blissful state of things would have terminated—whether by the bankruptcy of the Indian exchequer, or by the conversion of Affghanistan into a desert-if we had been less unmolested in our philanthropic efforts to make a solitude and call it peace, and ShahShoojah had been still suffered by his affectionate subjects to slumber, undisturbed by cares of state, within the screens of

(') For the honour of our na ional character, we hope that the accounts which have appeared from the Delhi Gazette, of the degrading restrictions to which this illustrious captive is said to be now subjected, may be either unfounded or exaggerated. He has already experienced sufficient of unmerited evil at our hands; and it is next to impossible that be can be in any way cognizant of the proceedings of his son.

his well-stocked zenana. But the recent catastrophe has given us a chance of extrication from the dilemma. Of the country we are now no longer in possession; and if the intelligence brought by the last mail is to be relied on, both our protégé Shah-Shoojah, and his neplew and rival Kamran, have closed their career in death; thus virtually terminating the Suddozye dynasty, as the sons of the late Shah are utterly powerless and insignificant among the crowd of chiefs, and one at least of them (Seifdar-Jung) is actually in arms against us. It now remains to be seen whether we shall consider it incumbent upon us, for the vindication (as the phrase is) of our military honour, to perpetrate a second act of violence and national injustice by reconquering Affghanistan, and holding it without disguise as a province of our empire or whether, making the best of a bad bargain, we shall content ourselves with occupying a few posts on its frontier, and leaving its unhappy natives to recover, without foreign interference, from the dreadful state of anarchy into which our irruption has thrown them.

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In the hurried and confused accounts which have been received of the opening of the bloody drama, but little mention is made of the indications which immediately preceded the outbreak; but even if we put the most favourable construction on the conduct of the officials both at Cabul and in the Bengal Presidency, their blind infatuation and want of foresight seem almost to have surpassed the bounds of belief. We have been informed, on authority which we cannot question, that as long ago as August last, information had been received by the Cabinet of Calcutta, of the existence of a widely-ramified conspiracy throughout Affghanistan ; but so far were Lord Auckland and his advisers from the deeming it necessary to reinforce the inadequate and overworked army of occupation, that orders were actually given for the return of Sale's brigade to Hindostan; and they were accordingly on their march from Cabul to Peshawer, when they were attacked by the insurgents, and with difficulty fought their way to Jellalabad, where they have ever since been blockaded. Even the warning received in October, by Sir Alexander Burnes,

from Captain Gray of the 44th, (to whom the plot had been revealed by an Affghan chief,) () failed to awaken so much as a sense of personal insecurity in the mind of the destined victim; and he continued to live as before in the midst of the native town, instead of placing himself in comparative safety within the English lines. The military commanders emulated the supineness of the diplomatists, the stores and commissariat, far from being placed in the fortified camp, or even in the Bala-Hissar (2) or citadel, were left in a situation which is naïvely described in one of the accounts as « exposed to the first attack of an enemy! -and all the letters written by the mail which left Cabul only the day before the revolt, describe every thihg as being quiet and peaceable in the capital.

On the 2d of November, however, (the aniversary of the final defeat of Dost-Mohammed at Purwan-Durrah,) the storm burst forth. At the moment of the breaking-up of the durbar or levee, the war-cry of Islamism was raised throughout the city, and the streets were instantly thronged with thousands of armed and furious Affghans. Burnes, cut off by his own unhappy rashness from either defence or escape, perished at the first onset; the greater part of the ammunition and provisions, exposed as we mentioned above, fell into the hands of the assailants; and numbers of officers and men were promiscuously slaughtered, before they could succeed in rallying within the defences of the cantonments and the Bala-Hissar. The later position was eventually abandoned, (though the Shah

(") « He (Mohammed Uzeen Khan) told me, that he was much alarmed for our safety that the whole of Affghanistan was determined to make common cause, and to drive out or murder every Feringhi in the country-and that Cabul itself was ready to break out. >> This was forthwith communicated by letter to Sir A. Burnes, whom it reached October 15, or seventeen clear days before the explosion-«The bearer brought a letter to the chief, acknowledging the receipt, but I never heard a line from Sir Alexander Burnes! » Letter of Captain Gray, Bengal Hurkaru, January 3, quoted in Times, March 10.

(') This phrase has not a little perplexed some of the poriodical press, it implies merely the upper town or castle,» (as bala-khaneh, balcony, means a the upper room,) in which the royal palace is situated, and which commands the lower and more extensive portion, divided in two by the Cabul river.

continued to reside there, and Sir William Macnaghten, with Conolly and others, strongly recommended the concentration of the troops within its walls, rather than in the cantonments,) and the whole of our force, amounting to between 5000 and 6000 bayonets, Europeans and sepoys, with at least an equal number of camp followers, was drawn together within the intrenched camp. The assailants had at first consisted principally of the tribes near Cabul, and the Kohistanis, (') or inhabitants of the mountain tract immediately north of the city; but their ranks were daily swollen hy the accession of numerous Ghazis, or religious enthusiasts, who, stimulated by the preaching of their moollahs, flocked from all parts of the country, and even (as it is reported) from Uzbek Tartary, to join the holy war, and aid in the extermination of the infidels. The original leader of the movement is believed to have been Zemaun Khan, (2) a nephew of Dost Mohammed; but he was soon superseded by the arrival of the second son of the Dost, Mohammed Akhbar Khan, who had escaped from detention at Bokhara. This young chief had formerly been governor of Jellalabad for his father, and had attained a high military reputation among his countrymen, by the signal victory which, in 1837, he had gained over a Sikh army at Jumrood.

Meanwhile, a rising simultaneous with that at Cabul had taken place in every part of the country the British detached posts had been either cut off or driven in ; and the four fort

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(') These Kohistanis are a branch of the Eusofzye tribe, and have long been noted as the most turbulent and bigoted of the Affghan population. At the battle of Noushehra against the Sikhs in 1823, the Eusofzyes, according to information collected on the spot by Dr. Lord, «were so blinded by religious frenzy, that they fought more like devils than men. Though repeatedly driven back, they were as often rallied by the shricks end curses of their women, who mingled unveiled in the fight, and by the Allah-ho-akbars of their maddened moollabs. After the action, dead Euzofzies were found on dead Sikhs, their teeth still clutching the throats of their adversaries. >> On our first entrance into the country, the hill Eusofzyes (Kohistanis) were among the warmest supporters of the Shah; but had been alienated by the renewal of obsolete and oppressive taxes

(') The name of this leader probably gave rise to the statement, (which, from subsequent accounts, would seem to be unfounded,) that a son of Shah-Zemaun (the blind elder brother of Shah-Shoojah) had been set up by the insurgents as king.