r of England in
North-Western India, was destroyed, and his mutilated remains were
made the object of ignominious ribaldry; and at length, if very
general rumour is to be believed, the English army of occupation has
been literally expunged. Corunna, Walcheren, all the reverses that
have chequered our military career, baffle the memory to find a
parallel to the utter defeat which, in the eyes of the barbarians of
the Indian frontier, has crushed our power."--_Spectator_, p. 242.

These were the feelings that possessed this country, and which wrung,
even from the Whigs, with every wish to palliate them, an
acknowledgment of the heavy disasters which had befallen us. Pressed
with the weight of these convictions, Mr. Macaulay, in a debate on
the Income-tax, in April 1842, after _cannily_ disclaiming any
responsibility for the Affghan invasion, as having been effected
before he joined the Government, was driven to deplore these
military reverses as the greatest disaster that had ever befallen us:
and added, somewhat incongruously:--

"He did not anticipate, if we acted with vigour, the least danger to
our empire; though it must always be remembered that a great
Mahometan success could not but fall like a spark upon tinder, and
act on the freemasonry of Islamism from Morocco to Coromandel."

What, then, must have been the feeling in India, in the very focus of
this calamitous visitation? Lord Auckland's despatches, now made
public, will tell us what _he_ felt. That he contemplated from the
first the total and instant evacuation of Affghanistan, without
attempting a blow for the vindication of our honour, or the release
of the prisoners, is past all dispute, from documents under his own
hand. Whether he is to be blamed for this resolution, or for the
state of matters which rendered it necessary, is not here the
question. But the fact is remarkable, as throwing further light on
the effrontery of the Whigs. Lord Palmerston, in last August,
twitted the Ministry with Lord Ellenborough's supposed intention to
retire from beyond the Indus, and congratulated the country on the
frustration of that intention, as having saved us "from the eternal
disgrace." He was answered by the Prime Minister at the time in
terms that might have been a warning, and that are now no longer a
mystery.

"The noble lord presumed much on my forbearance, in what he said with
respect to the Affghan war: and I will not be betrayed by any
language of his